Lecturer victimised for rescuing course from disaster
A Senior Lecturer at the London College of Printing is in dispute with the
London Institute, of which LCP is one of the constituent colleges. Michael
Chanan claims victimisation by several members of the college management
team, including two attempts to bring specious disciplinary charges against
him, and a decision by the Head of College to remove him from teaching
duties in the new year. According to Chanan, 'The victimisation started over
a Course Monitoring Report I was required to write for the MA Documentary
Research of which I'm course leader. This is a course I rescued from near
disaster ñ when I took it over, a year ago, an enrolment of 20 students had
fallen to an attendance of 5 ñ but I am being censured instead of thanked
because I have not disguised the truth of what happened, despite
illegitimate and unethical attempts to have me do so.' Chanan believes that
a proper investigation of what has been happening in the Media School at LCP
would reveal a pattern of mismanagement and bullying, errors of judgement
and failures to observe correct procedure, over a period of two years, since
the appointment of the current Dean. He is supported by the lecturers union
NATFHE, who are poised to take legal action in his defence.<
If you would like to express your disquiet about these events, please send
messages of support for Michael Chanan to:
Clive Bane, Head of Personnel, London Institute at
[log in to unmask]
Will Bridge, Head of College, LCP at
[log in to unmask]
Sally Feldman, Dean of Media School, LCP at
[log in to unmask]
with a copy for the record to
[log in to unmask]
For further information, please contact Ron Todd, Secretary of London
Institute NATFHE Co-ordinating Committee, at [log in to unmask]
MICHAEL CHANAN
is Senior Lecturer in Film & Video in the Media School of London
College of Printing, a constituent college of the London Institute. He is
Course Leader, MA Documentary Research; School Research Coordinator; and
member of the College Research Committee. He is author, editor and
translator of books and articles on film, the media and music, including
'The Dream That Kicks', 'The Cuban Image', 'Musica Practica', 'Repeated
Takes' and most recently 'From Handel to Hendrix'. He is also a film-maker,
who directed documentaries for BBC in the 1970s and for Channel Four in the
1980s. In 1988 he served on the International Jury at the Bilbao Film
Festival, and in 1999 on the International Jury at the Tel Aviv Documentary
Film Festival. He will be Visiting Professor at Duke University, USA, in the
fall of 2000. He is on the Editorial Board of Vertigo, an independent film
and tv magazine, and the International Advisory Editorial Board of
Framework. The Encyclopaedia Britanica describes 'The Dream That Kicks' as
'...an extraordinary study of the cultural/ideological 'site' of cinema at
the moment of its birth...'. The journal Cineaste called 'The Cuban Image'
'One of the most thought-provoking books in any language on cinema and
cultural politics in the Third World...'. Of 'Repeated Takes', the London
Review of Books wrote: 'Until the development of the radio and the
gramophone, people only heard music when they played it themselves or when
they heard other people playing it' Michael Chanan has written a concise
history of the technology that has wrought this change and the commercial
and creative forces that have shaped it. His account is elegant and
impressively well-informed.'
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