 |
 |
The Guardian, Education supplement Source: http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,2006422,00.html Comment Sleepless nights How a department's fate can rest on a single student Jonathan Wolff Tuesday February 6, 2007 The Guardian I've been head of my department for quite a few years, and one reason I have been able to stand it is that I find that I can usually get a decent night's sleep. Some heads tell me that they are kept awake fretting about the research assessment exercise, an impending departmental review, or the uncertainty of staff replacements. Whether it is exhaustion, early dementia, or sheer negligence, it is very rare for me to lie in bed dwelling on the undone, the to be done or the can't be done. Very rare, but never say never. Recently, I found myself awake most of one night churning over an email I had foolishly read just before going to bed. The university had received a letter from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), which, among other things, funds PhD scholarships. Apparently, my department's PhD submission rate had fallen below the required rate of 70% and as a result we would not be eligible to hold any PhD scholarships for the next two years. I spent the night going over and over how this could have happened - we were certain we would hit the target - but also thinking through the horror of being on the blacklist. My department has a large and successful postgraduate research programme, and each year a cluster of our students get scholarships from the AHRC. If we could not put future students forward for these doctoral scholarships, we would lose our best masters students, who would have to go elsewhere for funding for their PhDs, together with most of the good new applicants. We would have to decide whether to take candidates who might struggle on the course, or to shrink our student numbers until the blacklist was lifted. I will not bore you with the details, but my night was spent thinking about the spectre of financial blight, job losses, and a spiral of decline, intermingled with thoughts of urgent emigration to a country without research councils. The following morning I was able to confirm that there had, in fact, been a clerical error, and one of our students had been recorded incorrectly. Yes, that's right. The fate of the department in this case depended on whether one student submitted in time. More precisely, in that year's cohort of five, we could afford one delayed submission, and it appeared we had two. But the records were corrected and the disaster avoided. This current regime of monitoring completion rates makes me extremely uncomfortable. Of course it is best if PhD students complete their theses on time. One also wants them to produce the best work of which they are capable. Unfortunately, these two aims press against each other. We live, though, in an age of accountability, and "accounting for public money", is the "open sesame" to inept regulation. If there are two targets, one of which can be quantified and the other cannot, which will be given precedence? For years academics have complained that the completion-rate mentality means that they have to encourage their students to take on safe projects that draw on existing skills, rather than give them challenges requiring them to learn new languages or new techniques, or pursue alleyways that may in the end turn into cul-de-sacs. Public money is, of course, taxpayers' money. Is there any evidence that members of the public are concerned that PhD students might take five or six years to complete their thesis rather than four? Or would it trouble them more if they were told that the monitoring regime is making it harder to take on worthwhile research? There is also a different type of worry. Any student failing to submit on time risks harming the department that has supported them, and dimming the prospects of future students. Graduate work is fraught with anxiety, frustration and self-doubt at the best of times. Add a large measure of guilt, reinforced through moral blackmail, and you have a potent mix indeed. Regulations that look very sensible from the top can have unintended consequences when applied, and if the regulators are not at the sharp end, they can fail to appreciate how their rules can affect the vulnerable. If anything should give heads of departments sleepless nights, it is this. · Professor Jonathan Wolff is head of philosophy at University College London -------------------------------------------------------- -- Salvatore Scifo Communications, MeCCSA Postgraduate Network Communication and Media Research Institute School of Media, Arts & Design University of Westminster Watford Road, Northwick Park Harrow HA1 3TP MeCCSA Postgraduate Network http://www.meccsa.org.uk/pgn/