Monday 7th September 2015 - Serendipity, choice and research agendas

What do academics, entrepreneurs, and artists have in common?  To me the answer is that they can choose what to do rather than being told what to do.  Certainly their choices must be 'sellable' to someone else, but they have much more freedom than almost any other profession to follow their own instincts and their own interests.  Entrepreneurs and artists have to sell a product, an idea or an experience.  Academics need to sell their ideas for research to funding bodies or organisations, and their written outputs to publishers and journals.  But the freedom to choose what to work on, within those constraints, is very considerable, and a real privilege: we are in my view one of the luckiest of professions, to have that choice.  And the choice is sometimes driven by serendipity rather than strategy.

Exactly a week ago I visited a village in Normandy where, many years ago, my own research career took a new turn.  How did this happen?

On the day I arrived to take up my lectureship in Sheffield a senior colleague gave me the news that I would be accompanying him to Normandy on a field class the following Easter.  He had been there over the summer and identified the ideal area, and a hotel that could put up a student group. (I discovered later that one of the prime factors in the choice had been the presence in a nearby village of an outstanding restaurant.)  I knew that taking a group of students to do field work in rural France was going to be a challenge for me.  For a start, my doctoral research had been carried out in Switzerland and Italy, on the impacts of tourism on rural communities, and I knew little about conditions in rural France - or about the data sets that might enable students to create projects there.  Secondly, with the exception of one spa town, there was no tourism in the area of Normandy we were going to, so it would not be possible to use the field class to test any of the ideas I had generated in my doctorate.  Thirdly, my French was much rustier than either my German or my Italian - both of which languages I had been using much more recently.

However, another doctoral student who inhabited the same workroom as me in Oxford had been writing his thesis on population change in the Massif Central of France, and I had picked up ideas on possible lines of enquiry for other areas of rural France.  The field class was a tolerable success, and over the next couple of years (and without the senior colleague accompanying me) I developed it into quite an intense investigation of rural depopulation in an impoverished agricultural region.

And at the same time my own research appetites were whetted.  I got into the literature on rural France; I explored rural depopulation more generally; I learned about French data sources; I worked on my French.  And my first post-doctoral research theme emerged - rural population change.  

Could I 'sell' that interest?  Well, it proved very sellable indeed at a period before second home developments, rural commuting to cities, or rural holidays had transformed the fortunes of poorer rural regions.  I secured funding from the forerunner of today's Economic and Social Research Council, and from the British Academy; a research team at the University of Caen learned what I was doing and invited me to join them, with their funding coming from French state research sources; local radio in the UK was interested in whether my findings in rural France would also hold true in areas such as the Peak District.  And I got those all-important publications - at least three book chapters (one in French), and (more importantly) three articles in good journals.  

I later moved on to other research interests - migration, the geography of languages, minority groups in cities - but in each case there has been an event or happening of some kind that has set off a change of direction in my enthusiasms.  I owe a great deal to that colleague who had organised for me to lead a field class in Normandy with him.  But returning there last week, I recognised that my interest in the area had not dissipated.  There are new issues there, new patterns of change.  Apart from going back to a beautiful area (and yes, the restaurants are still excellent - as is the cider, the calvados, the cream and so on), perhaps I will look up some of my old materials and data sets, and take up research to bring them up to date to analyse what has changed over the last 40 years or so, and take up visiting there again.

Friday 25th September 2015 - The human signpost on campus

I don't think it's just because I'm a geographer.  It's not because I want to show off.  I'm not doing it to try to strike up long-term relationships, or use it as a 'chat up' line.  But when I see a student looking earnestly at a map of the campus my first instinct is to go over to them and say 'Can I help you?'

With this year's new cohort of students arriving over the last couple of weeks, I've lost count of the number of times I have made that enquiry.  So, who have I met?

There was the Lithuanian student and his parents who also wanted a family photograph taken outside Firth Hall.  The postgraduate from Turkey who I walked along with since I was going to pass the building she had so far failed to find.  I have helped an American student, confused by the practice of floor numbering on this side of the Atlantic, which is different from that in the States (curiously, the lift in the multi-storey car park at Sheffield Station would be more at home in Pittsburgh in that respect).   I have directed quite a few Chinese students, as well as a Columbian.

It isn't always plain sailing.  One year I offered assistance to a French student and his parents who, when they found out that I had some seniority in the University, wanted a detailed explanation of the marks (les notes) we give in the UK which work on a different scale than in France, and the father needed that explanation in French.

The bit that IS about me as a geographer is that I usually ask where those I am trying to help are from.  I have a reasonable mental map of several parts of the world and can often produce some hidden titbit of information about wherever it is that adds to the impression of humanity that assistance gives.  Often people will name the city they are from and quite often I know the name of the university there - and often new postgraduates in Sheffield have actually studied in the institution I have named.

But there is one question in my mind about this whole aspect of campus life at the start of the new academic session.  Why is it that so many other people in the university - colleagues, established students - walk past the poor individual trying to orientate a map and don't offer to help?  It's a simple gesture but one that is always much appreciated and that helps newcomers to feel that the people around them really care.

Thursday 17th September 2015 - The university community coming together: the 'Big Walk'

Today I've been involved in one of those glorious activities that brings the whole of the university community together - the 'One Day Big Walk Challenge.'  Over 120 of us have just walked the 19 miles from Edale in the Peak District National Park back to the University to raise money for research into pulmonary arterial hypertension - a terrible disease that has a lower life expectancy than even the 'worst' of the cancers, pancreatic cancer.  100 or so of us joined 21 colleagues who had already walked the Pennine Way from north to south, adding the extra lap back to Sheffield.

So what was so good about it?

Well firstly the scenery was spectacular.  We made the steep climb up from Edale to Hollins Cross in glorious sunshine, with mist lingering on the top of Kinder Scout to our west (it was early - not long after 8 o'clock).  Then we had the Edale Valley on our left and Castleton on our right as we descended to Hope.  Later we climbed the old Roman causeway to reach Stanage Edge and then walked along that to Burbage and thence back to Sheffield along the Ringinglow Road and down the Round Walk, in lovely early autumn afternoon sunshine.

Then there was the camaraderie, and the chance to walk and talk with so many colleagues from all over the university.  Although the Vice-Chancellor was not able to join us, there were three current University Executive Board members on the walk, as well as two recent departees (one of them being me).  But it was the chance conversations with people from all faculties and from all professional services that made it so memorable. It's nice to meet new people as well as seeing old friends and colleagues in different situations.    There were porters, technicians, research funding managers, learning and teaching support people, human resources specialists, as well as many academics from every faculty.  I was surprised to find two Chinese postgraduate students with us - they had only arrived in Sheffield two months ago but saw this as an opportunity to explore the English countryside.  I walked at different points with pro-Vice-Chancellors and secretaries, IT technicians and senior lecturers, planning officers and events organisers.  For much of the journey I was in a middle group who took our breaks together.  It was only in the last few miles that we got more strung out.

And then there was the reaction from others not involved in the walk.  A walker from Manchester joined my group at one point and was impressed by what we were doing.  The Anglers' Rest in Bamford had a welcome sign out for all of us, and a free bottle of water for those who wished to claim it, our graduate and honorary graduate the distinguished mountaineer Andy Cave joined us for a few miles, a walking group near Burbage listened with interest to the story of what we were raising money for, and coming back into the city people were asking us how far we had walked and what our cause was. (We were by then all wearing matching tee-shirts proclaiming our cause.)

So, it was great day in all respects.  And despite my advancing age my feet and legs stood up better to the challenge than did those of some much younger colleagues: 'training walks' over the last few weeks (although none had been anything like as long as 19 miles) had clearly helped.

So has it been worth it in terms of the research funding objective?  Well the overall team's total stands at around £55k, against a total of £60k which we should reach.  Anyone wanting to contribute to my own total (currently just under £400) can do so at

https://www.justgiving.com/Paul-White40/

But that has been only part of it.  To me, one of the greatest aspects of the day has been the university acting as an integrated community.  The worlds of too many people are confined to their own department or service: today was a chance to open the door on the wider university.