Tuesday 17th June 2014 - Returning a tapestry

In my job, every day brings something new.  Today I have given an eighteenth century tapestry (back) to a French Count.  And it was a very moving event.  The key lies in that little word in parentheses - (back).

In 1959 the then Vice-Chancellor of the University bought, from a reputable art dealer, a handsome tapestry to hang in what was then the principal meetings room of the University - a room that henceforth became known as the Tapestry Room.  I have often admired the tapestry - and will confess that sometimes I have done so whilst chairing meetings at times when the discussion could go on without intervention from me.

Recently the room was modernized and redecorated, and the tapestry no longer matched the style so, with some reluctance on various people's parts, a decision was made that it should be sold.  But when it went into the auctioneer's catalogue it was spotted on the missing art register as being a tapestry that had once hung in a chateau in Normandy, France, and that had disappeared in the period immediately after D-Day, when armies were criss-crossing the province and chaos and confusion reigned.  The University withdraw the tapestry from sale, and we took the obvious decision to give it back to its rightful owners.

This restitution of property alienated from its owners at the end of the second world war is something I have taught students about - specifically in relation to the restitution of Jewish property in East Berlin after 1989 and the impact that had on gentrification processes in districts such as Prenzlauer Berg: this was one of the themes explored by students in projects during the 13 years I took students to Berlin on field classes.

But here was I, today, being involved in our own bit of property restitution.  When I took the Count into the room where the tapestry was laid out he was visibly moved.  He knew all about the history of the tapestry, knew about its association with the last pre-war occupant of his chateau - a great uncle who died in a concentration camp as a result of his activities in the Resistance.  There was still a space on the wall for the tapestry's return.  He had seen pre-war photographs of the tapestry in place, but this was the first time he had seen it for real.  He particularly pointed out the arms of one of his ancestors, woven into the design, so that this tapestry was much more particular to his family than to anyone else who might see it.  We made little speeches in French - the Count explaining what the restitution of the tapestry meant to his family, and me explaining  how pleased we were to be returning it to its rightful owners - not having realized its provenance.

But one other nice touch was the Count's delight that the tapestry had come into the possession of a University where such things would be cared for an respected.  All in all it was a lovely and very fitting occasion.  And he has invited us to celebrate its return with a visit to the chateau.  That will be an appropriate ending to an interesting story.

Friday 13th June 2014 - Reflecting at the end of the student year

I suppose many jobs have something of an annual cycle about them - but in few is it as marked as in education.  Today is the last day of the semester, and I've just walked across the university concourse where students who have just finished their final exams are partying, paying for fairground rides and generally getting in the mood for a good celebration.  I stopped to talk to a student I have taught: apart from seeing her at graduation events in a month's time I will probably never see her again.  Yet a semester ago she was a frequent visitor to my room for advice about her project.

I have recently done a number of achievement ceremonies for school children now taking GCSEs or A levels who have been working with us on aspiration raising activities.  The teachers at some of these have been almost in tears at seeing the departure of their students for the next stage of their education, or as they enter a chosen career.  I'm not in tears, but the end of the academic teaching year does mark the passing of time and the departure of another cohort.  And with that comes the departure of students that one has got to know - who have come up with interesting ideas in seminars,  who have challenged my understanding of the things I am trying to help them to learn, and who have shown me how to present ideas in different and novel ways.  Academics learn a lot from their students - possibly more than many of them realise.

And in my position, the end of the teaching year also brings shortly afterwards the goodbyes to the Student Union officers with whom I work closely during the year.

So it's a reflective time of year.  I'm not whether those in other jobs with an annual cycle to them - the snowplough driver, the beach lifeguard, or garden centre employees - get the same feelings.  I suspect not, because our lives as academics give us closer insights into the thoughts, projects and ideas of others than is the case in many other jobs.

Tuesday 5th June 2014 - Exams and student bladders

Do the students of today generally have weaker bladders than the students of the past?

I go past one of our main examination halls several times a day, and it is rare for me to do so without passing a yellow-tee-shirted invigilator escorting a student to or from a 'call of nature'.  (I'm assuming that everything is in place to ensure that these visits are not to consult the internet behind the closed door of a cubicle, or to look up formulae previously inscribed on an otherwise hidden part of the body.)  Sometimes there are two invigilators working together, one escorting students to and from the hall and the other standing guard outside the facility outside the lavatory.

In my own finals exams we had ten 3 hour exam papers.  We had two on Thursday (morning and afternoon), two on Friday (the same pattern), and two on Saturday.  They gave us Sunday off, and then we had two papers on Monday and two on Tuesday.  I don't remember anyone ever leaving the hall to visit the lavatory (and note that those exams were longer than most we set today).  The one exception was the Saturday afternoon exam.  Quite a few of us had been to the pub for lunch that day, and had enjoyed a drink (or two) before returning for the 2.30 exam.  The result was a steady stream (perhaps that isn't the right word) of people requesting accompaniment to the necessary facilities.  As these were quite a long way from the exam hall, and there were only two invigilators (who were also the examiners) present this created something of a backlog of people getting noticeably increasingly desperate as they waited their turn.

Two obvious reasons for change in these practices over the last few years are, firstly, the greater intake of coffee, and secondly the way in which everyone now carries their bottle of water into exams.  Whilst we might have drunk coffee before our exams (and I didn't) we certainly weren't allowed to take water in.

But I posed the question at the head of this blog to a very recent student.  His response was that students today are just not used to sitting still for more than an hour.  The only way to be able to move around is to request a trip to the lavatory - even if there is no biological need.

So perhaps it's not weaker bladders that today's students have, it's less tolerance of physical inactivity (along with the bottles of water).