Higher Education (response to Guardian Blog)

http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/education/mortarboard/2012/jun/18/academia-not-stressful-for-me?fb_source=other_multiline&fb_action_types=news.reads
'Personally, I think we need to move away from the narrative of stress and focus instead on the opportunities for fulfillment that academia can offer.' I agree. I hereby withdraw all your funding, double your workload and expect you to teach for free.

The world should be 'preached' to about the value of our work by the Universities, the government and the media. Instead the latter continually berates students for being lazy party animals with rich parents (okay, some are) while the government look to cut funding to Universities and students (who are forced to pay for the privilege of higher education), hoping parents and private investors can fill the void (higher education should be a right for all young people who have the academic ability to be enriched by the experience, benefiting wider society).
(As they are not paid) It is not the job of students to 'preach' Students should study, teachers teach, disseminators disseminate.

Researching/studying is both stressful and joyful. Trying to think up new ideas, interpret difficult texts and write academically to tight deadlines is stressful, hard work. The knowledge that failure is possible and all the time and money invested could be wasted is the most stressful thing of all. That is what people are anxious about.
As someone who sees 'cheerfulness' as somehow opposite to stress you clearly know nothing about the latter.

UK Universities are in general chronically underfunded and shockingly managed (having worked for two, studied at another and seen how things are done in Switzerland). Since the credit crunch in 2008 Universities have purged staff to a shocking degree, generally expecting academic and administrative staff to pick up the slack resulting in higher workloads and less pay. Researchers on 2-3 year contracts have stress, as do lecturers on 2 year probation with REF. Lecturers and professors have the constant threat of redundancy from departmental cuts dependent on academic 'trends' that seem to involve an ongoing shift toward 'business studies' type courses and Mandarin at the expense of Humanities subjects that are at the core of our cultural identity. I have seen professors go blind with stress.

What is most worrying is the Conservative focus of your post. It seems to be heading towards 'Big Society' territory, implying that it is right for students to pay for the joyful experience of higher education, and perhaps that teachers should do so for free as well as it is so much fun. The government has already tried to make public librarians volunteers so this is not so far-fetched.

(I am final year distance learning PHD (who loves his subject) at a supportive University, with a 2 year old child and working a 4 day week).

Community, Education and UK news

It has struck me, since I have been living in Switzerland, and since I will soon return to the UK, that people here live and function in communities far more effectively than in the UK. Most of the housing here is made up of four or more floor blocks of flats (even older houses like the one pictured appear to house several families), that are predominantly rented, unlike the UK's dominance of private ownership and individual family homes of two or more bedrooms in mainly detached suburban estates. The city here is very compact, with far less suburbia leading to a greater sense of community, less reliance on cars and out-of-town shopping centres. That is not to say that such things don't exist, they are just less of a focal point and offer less of a threat to established, smaller, high quality shops.
The education system is also completely the opposite of the UK. Private education is the inferior sector here as because the state system is so good and well funded that only pupils who fail their studies or drop out are forced to pay to complete their education in the private sector, which somehow seems fairer, and makes sense. In the UK not only is private education better, but only the rich can afford it, AND the sector has charitable status so gets tax breaks. Failing pupils are bounced around the state system and are failed by it. After primary school pupils already start to specialise into ability and career path, something only begun at 13 in the UK. They are divided here between academic and vocational. There are also in most cantons, unlike the UK, several different schools depending on attainment level. Also the A-level equivalent system is much harder, with a much greater emphasis on languages, typically at least two having to be studied.  
Every so often I have been checking back on the BBC news website and Guardian to 'keep up to date' as it were and I've been feeling increasingly distant from events in the UK that no longer seem relevant to people's real lives. It could just be living at a distance but the UK government seems increasingly out of touch although there seems to be no real opposition to what they are doing (despite it being apparent that Labour are saying the right things they don't seems to be getting anywhere) up to the point that Jeremy Hunt seems to have gotten away with some pretty dodgy behaviour, Boris Johnson got re-elected and David Cameron doesn't understand what LOL means. What are the Lib Dems doing anyway. And with the Queen's jubilee farce going on it all looks like Thatcher's Britain all over again. I really cannot understand the national pride in a monarchy with historical blood on its hands, no real English blood in its veins and having done nothing of value for the nation except constantly draining it of resources for idiotic events like this. I just don't get it. Coverage of the events in the news was total, and seemed to drown out events in Syria and other issues that should be seen as far more important. I don't want to sound like a leftist Glen Beck but what is happening? I thought the phone hacking would destroy the Murdock monopoly and reinvigorate proper investigative journalism. It seems it has only forced it further back into its shell so celebrities can carry on their affairs in peace...

Murdoch

• See below for section 216-229 of the House of Commons
  Culture, Media and Sport Committee
  'News International and Phone-hacking' report.
  This is what the 4 Tories could not agree with. I wonder why?
  Who is being partisan - the four Tories or the six Labour and Lib Dem MPs?
  
  'Conservative Louise Mensch called it "a real great shame" that the report's credibility had potentially been "damaged" as a result, with the report carried by Labour and Lib Dem members backing it. [...]
  Tory MPs objected specifically to the line branding Mr Murdoch "not fit", with one, Philip Davies, telling a press conference the committee had seen "absolutely no evidence" to endorse such a "completely ludicrous" conclusion.'
  
  Oh and who is being partisan Louise Mensch?: 'On the 1st May 2012 at a press conference held to discuss the report from the Commons Culture Media and Sport Select Committee investigating hacking allegations by newspaper titles owned by News Corporation Mensch was vocal over her disagreement with the majority of the committee about the suitability of Rupert Murdoch to run an international company. She appeared to make the case that Rupert and James Murdoch had probably been innocents misled by multiple people who worked for them. She took an opportunity during the conference to mention that one of the people apparently named in the report as misleading parliament was now editing the New York Daily News in an apparent attempt to question the credentials of that publication. The New York Daily News is a rival to News International titles in the United States. Mensch then made her first appearance after the news conference on the television news program Boulton and Co. on Sky News - a channel where News Corporation is the majority shareholder and James Murdoch had been chief executive.'
  
  Decide for yourself:
  
  216. The history of the News of the World at hearings of the Committee is a long one,
  characterised by “collective amnesia” and a reluctance fully and fairly to provide the
  Committee with the information it sought. News International has repeatedly stonewalled,
  obfuscated and misled and only come clean, reluctantly, when no other course of
  action was sensible and when its wider commercial interests were threatened. In Rupert
  Murdoch's own words to the Leveson inquiry, News Corporation in the UK mounted a
  cover-up.
  217. In any company, the corporate culture comes from the top. In the case of the News of
  the World this is ultimately the American parent company of News International, News
  Corporation and its chairman and chief executive, Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch has
  repeatedly claimed that News Corporation has a zero tolerance approach towards
  wrongdoing.300 He stated this, indeed, long before he gave evidence to the committee, when
  he gave the inaugural Thatcher Lecture in London on 21 October 2010: “we will not
  tolerate wrongdoing” he told his audience. He also made similar statements at the annual
  general meeting of News Corporation in Los Angeles in October 2011 when, in relation to
  phone-hacking, he said there was “no excuse for such unethical behaviour” at the company
  and that staff had to be “beacons for good, professional and ethical behaviour”.
  218. On 8 April 2011, News International finally issued a statement admitting that phonehacking
  had indeed occurred in a number of cases and was not restricted to the News of the
  World’s former royal reporter, Clive Goodman. It offered certain civil litigants an
  unreserved apology and a compensation scheme. At this point, the ‘single rogue reporter’
  defence was clearly dead. That defence had become very questionable long before, but now
  that News International had finally acknowledged that hacking had been widespread, it
  was clearly no longer tenable.
  219. In his testimony to us and also the Leveson inquiry, Rupert Murdoch has
  demonstrated excellent powers of recall and grasp of detail, when it has suited him. Had he
  been entirely open with shareholders on 21 October 2010—and with this Committee on 19
  July 2011—he would have learned for the first time on some date between 21 October 2010
  and 8 April 2011 that he had been misled by senior employees of his company.
  220. Such a revelation, had it happened, would have been a shock. He was the chairman
  and chief executive officer of a major international company. He had repeatedly given clear
  and categorical assurances to the general public, and to his shareholders, that phonehacking
  and other wrongdoing were not widespread and would not be tolerated at News
  International. These assurances had now turned out to be false. This is not a situation a
  chief executive would or could tolerate, still less simply ignore. Action would have been
  taken.
  221. Yet, when asked by the Committee if he “knew for sure in January [2011] that the ‘one
  rogue reporter’ line was false”, he replied: “I forget the date.”301 This is barely credible. Had
  he really learned for the first time at some point in the six months following his Thatcher
  Lecture that he had been deceived, and so that he in turn had deceived the public and his
  shareholders, that moment would have been lodged forever in his memory. It would have
  been an unforgettable piece of information.
  222. On the other hand, had he suspected all along that phone-hacking and other
  wrongdoing was endemic at the News of the World—that the means justified the ends in
  beating the competition and getting the story—and that elaborate, expensive steps were
  being taken to conceal it, it is entirely understandable that the precise moment between 21
  October 2010 and 8 April 2011, when he recognised the game was up, might have slipped
  his memory. And all the more so, had he already realised the truth long before those dates.
  223. In such circumstances, even if he took no part in discussions about what to reveal and
  when, there would probably not have been a clear moment of revelation. There would have
  been a gradual erosion of the ‘one rogue reporter’ fiction to the point where a collective
  decision to abandon it would have been taken. In those circumstances, it would be entirely
  understandable that he should forget the date, if indeed there was a single date on which
  the decision was taken, rather than an unfolding contingency plan involving gradual
  admissions.
  224. The notion that—given all that had gone on, right back to evidence given over
  payments to the police to our predecessor Committee in 2003—a hands-on proprietor like
  Rupert Murdoch had no inkling that wrongdoing and questionable practice was not
  widespread at the News of the World is simply not credible. Given his evidently fearsome
  reputation, the reluctance of News International employees to be open and honest
  internally and in their evidence to the Committee is readily understandable. In assessing
  their evidence, the culture emanating from the top must be taken into account, and is likely
  to have had a profound effect on their approach in 2007 and 2009 in evidence given to the
  Committee.
  225. A further example of this culture and Rupert Murdoch and his management’s failure
  to focus on serious wrongdoing within the organisation was his response to the
  Committee’s questions about attempts by Neville Thurlbeck, then chief reporter of the
  News of the World, to blackmail two of the women involved in the newspaper’s
  controversial exposure of Max Mosley’s private life. His reply that this was the first he
  had heard of this claim and that no one in the UK company had brought the allegation to
  his attention303—if this was indeed the case—indicates a seriously wrong state of affairs in
  his company. Furthermore, it appears that having had the matter brought to his attention
  70 News International and Phone-hacking
  during questioning by our committee, he had still not read the Eady judgement by the time
  he gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry on 26th April 2012.
  226. When asked if he agreed with the judge in that case that this “discloses a remarkable
  state of affairs at News International”, Rupert Murdoch replied “no”. He appeared to see
  nothing unusual in News International failing to investigate or take action when a senior
  employee was cited by a High Court judge as resorting to blackmail in the course of his
  employment. This wilful turning of a blind eye would also explain Rupert Murdoch’s
  failure to respond (or to have another executive respond) to a letter sent to him in New
  York by Max Mosley on 10 March 2011, inviting him to order an investigation at News
  International into the blackmail allegation.
  227. Another example of Rupert Murdoch’s toleration of alleged wrongdoing is his
  reinstatement, on 17 February 2012, of journalists who had been arrested. This is in
  contrast to most organisations this Committee can think of, which would have suspended
  such employees until the police had confirmed that no charges were being brought.
  228. Rupert Murdoch told this Committee that his alleged lack of oversight of News
  International and the News of the World was due to it being “less than 1% of our
  company”.This self-portrayal, however, as a hands-off proprietor is entirely at odds with
  numerous other accounts, including those of previous editors and from Rebekah Brooks,
  who told us she spoke to Rupert Murdoch regularly and ‘on average, every other day’. It
  was, indeed, we consider, a misleading account of his involvement and influence with his
  newspapers.
  229. On the basis of the facts and evidence before the Committee, we conclude that, if at
  all relevant times Rupert Murdoch did not take steps to become fully informed about
  phone-hacking, he turned a blind eye and exhibited wilful blindness to what was going
  on in his companies and publications. This culture, we consider, permeated from the
  top throughout the organisation and speaks volumes about the lack of effective
  corporate governance at News Corporation and News International. We conclude,
  therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a
  major international company.