Retroid Raving

So UCT - pardon, this is its OU^TM persona, wethinks - has got itself into a bit of a jam concerning student numbers, as a result of the changed (we make no value judgements here...) secondary educational system learner evaluation and the unexpectedly high results, has it??

As in - a flood of people coming in, with the same to happen next year...and having to sit on the floor in lecture theatres, or not to get in at all, despite our now having the highest fees in the land.

I know what I'd [in a collective sense] be saying if I were an irate parent footing the bill, for my offspring not to be being educated in the manner to which I'd thought he/she was entitled, me having parted with all that moolah and all - and it would have the words "rip-off" and "unacceptable" and "Stellenbosch" in it.

So what, pray, is OU^TM planning on doing about it?  Why, Mr Price is saying things like we need to grow to where the DoE thinks we should be - something about 24 000 students and up - and Deans and the like are muttering about doubling up lectures, having lectures and practicals at night so as to fit everyone in...because OU^TM isn't going to suddenly find a whole lot more venues, is it?  And they're probably not thinking of building any nice big ones, either, given the creeping managerialism that has overtaken this once academic institution and its obsession with cost-saving, so extra lectures and prac/tutorial sessions are probably the way it's going to go.

But has anyone given thought, down there in the Belly of the Beast, to what this will do to academic staff workloads?  Because surely, as much as we aren't suddenly going to get more venues, we are also not going to get a sudden influx of new staff, either.

And that will mean...having to come in in the evenings.  Having considerably increased lecture loads.  Having to have practical sessions, in the wet and dry sciences and engineering, at night - with all of the technical staff required for health and safety backup there as well.

Has OU^TM considered, possibly, that all this will drastically affect research productivity, given those that lead this will now increasingly be occupied doing the other thing?   Have they also - and perhaps more importantly for the bottom line - considered that this will require changes to conditions of service in their contracts for all concerned? 

Aye, there's the rub...for it may occur to some of us who will shoulder the increased workload, that lo, we are now unionised - and that the Academic and Staff Unions may have more than a little to say about this, if we urge them.

Interesting times ahead, comrades - for that is what we Union folk call one another - interesting times....

And as all good Union folk should know, we sing in solidarity with one another at meetings: so for our cybermeeting, the Retroid collective offers you something from their shared (and dim and distant past).

Slightly amended for these modern times, and our situation - The Strawbs' "Part of the Union".

Part Of The Union

by Ford/Hudson (amended, with apologies)

Now I'm a union man
Amazed at what I am
I say what I think
That [OU^TM] stinks
Yes, I'm a union man.

When we meet in the [Jammie] hall
I'll be voting with them all
With a hell of a shout
It's out! Brothers, out!
And the rise of [OU^TM]'s fall.

Oh, you don't get me, I'm part of the union
You don't get me, I'm part of the union
You don't get me, I'm part of the union
Till the day I die, till the day I die.

As a union man I'm wise
To the lies of the [Bremner] spies
And I don't get fooled
By the [OU^TM] rules
'Cause I always read between the lines.

....

Before the union did appear
My life was half as clear
Now I've got the power
To the working hour
And every other day of the year.

So though I'm a working man
I can ruin [OU^TM]'s plan
Though I'm not too hard
The sight of my card
Makes me some kind of superman.

Oh, you don't get me, I'm part of the union
You don't get me, I'm part of the union
You don't get me, I'm part of the union
Till the day I die, till the day I die....B-)

...to paraphrase Pascal.  Or maybe it was Neil Diamond...?  No, that was "I am, I said".  Anyway, it's not often the retroidal collective gets to wax philosophical on religion (without getting rabid), so we shall attempt to straighten up and get serious.

Now serious bloggers, like Richard Grant over there at Nature Blogs, have written on the nature of faith, and how scientists don't understand science, nor the religious, theology - and done a damn good job.  So if you want debate and reasoned, detailed arguments from an accomplished scientist, go there.

And now for ours...

Andy Coghlan, writing in the New Scientist of 14th March 2009, reports that "Our sophisticated minds gave us religion".  In his words:

"THAT a complex mind is required for religion may explain why faith is unique to humans. Now brain scans support this idea, revealing that the parts of the brain that process religious belief are those that evolved most recently and give us sophisticated cognition.

These regions include ones involved in our theory of mind. We share this ability to recognise that other people have intentions and thoughts independent of our own with only a few other species, including chimpanzees. Other regions involved in religious thought are ones used for language and metaphor."

Right, that's pretty straightforward, then: we invented deities because we are capable of envisaging minds outside of and separate from our own - and we put them in charge of us because, like all good primates, we are still afraid of the dark. 

"[The researchers] asked 40 monotheistic believers whether they agreed with statements relating to three core elements of belief: whether God intervenes in the world; how to interpret God's emotional state; and how to relate to abstract doctrinal teachings or imagery. The researchers scanned the believers' brains as they answered.

While considering the first two statements, volunteers relied on areas such as the lateral frontal lobe and frontal gyri, which are required for a theory of mind. For the doctrinal statements, they used areas devoted to linguistics, decoding metaphor and recalling images...."

This last is especially interesting to us: conceiving of a god requires a theory of mind; interpreting its teachings [as revealed to the enlightened, obviously] requires decoding of metaphors and interpretation of imagery.  An appreciation of fiction, perhaps...?

Going to the source, in the very august Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, we find one Dimitrios Kapogiannis et al. saying the following:

"We propose an integrative cognitive neuroscience framework for understanding the cognitive and neural foundations of religious belief. Our analysis reveals 3 principle [sic]psychological dimensions of religious belief (God's perceived level of involvement, God's perceived emotion, and doctrinal/experiential religious knowledge), which functional MRI localizes within networks processing Theory of Mind regarding intent and emotion, abstract semantics, and imagery. Our results are unique in demonstrating that specific components of religious belief are mediated by well-known brain networks, and support contemporary psychological theories that ground religious belief within evolutionary adaptive cognitive functions."

Powerful stuff...which is why we take perverse delight in seeing the [obviously deliberate] spelling mistake.  But we draw your attention to the bolded bit at the end - and we leave you [sorry!] with the obvious development of our theme at the beginning, which is:

You think - therefore I am....

...and when He is angry, his juices run hot, and flame bursts forth upon his flanks and sides...and helicopters bustle to and fro, like insects in front of His face.

And He maketh us late for work.

* = a deliberate corruption of the term "Hoerikwagga", meaning the mountain that rises out of the sea

...not to blog - that is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler in the main to suffer
The slurs and arrows of outrageous colleagues
Or to take to arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing, end them?

'Tis a consumnation devoutly to be wished
But illegal, alas....
Who would suffer fools politely
And grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after this job,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No colleague returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Although UWC is looking good around now.

Ah, well.  Red wine and pharmaceuticals - that's the ticket.

...so here I am in Pretoria - again - assessing projects - again - musing of Life, the Universe, and my place in it.  Central, T_Ed, central....

But there we were, descending into ORT Int, when suddenly the downward incline becomes an upward, engines that were quiet now scream, and off we go past the runway and over Jozi.  Only a few seemed to notice, but we were not much calmed by the bland announcement a little later that: "Well, this is the co-pilot folks, and we apologise for making you late, but we have just executed a missed landing, and we'll be circling for a little while, before...".

The announcment faded into white noise within my head.  What is a "missed landing"??  Did they aim at the ground and miss??  Was there something in the way?  Was it possible - as someone behind me muttered darkly - "...the wheels wouldn't come down!"?

We landed, eventually - VERY fast, with much bouncing.  Faulty flaps, maybe...?  But it was cause for thought.  What for / where to / why?  And to PRETORIA??

Puts things in perspective rather - and I'm not sure I like the prespective.  Of what I do, and sometimes, where I do it.

Ah, well.  Nothing some pharmaceuticals, or possibly red wine, won't cure.

Retroid Raving got a mention in this week's Varsity - albeit a sentence in a longer article on UCT blogging - but as Paris Hilton might say, hey, any publicity's good publicity!  Or she might not, but anyway, the point is made.

But you have to wonder - about Varsity, I mean; ANYONE who wonders about Paris Hilton (unless they think it's the hotel) is a few points shy of an actual IQ - why even the mighty Gooogle can't find Varsity online.  Down for restructuring, Wikip(a)edia says; unfindable any other way.

Sort of quaint, actually: a lot like the typesetting and the layout; reminiscent of the retroidal (collective) youth here at UCT...before the days of OU^TM....  Mind you, it doesn't seem to get down here to the North very reliably; all the more reason to get digital, folks!!

And aside from the excellent blogging article (Oligarcy [sic] is there; so too HumBlog and Thinking for a Thought, and our very own Call Me Cassandra), there is all sorts of worthy content.  Political stuff.  Sax Appeal stuff. Personal stuff.  Wonderful typos, like "The Rag Committee also sold boerewors roles..."...oh, how rich is that??  What contextual depth; how the use of a simple pun unlocks societal stereotypes.  Quite postmodernist in its complexity.

Or a simple spelling mistake, but hey, this is UCT....

The View From the North collective is bemused at all the fuss over 2009's Sax Appeal.

Not that it takes much to bemuse the collective, mind you, remembering that the IQ of any committee is the sum of the IQs of the members divided by the number of arms and legs...but we digress.

The fuss about Sax Appeal.

We reiterate: Hey, it's just...Sax Appeal, for the sake of any deities you could name!

Every year Sax Appeal is replete with bad taste, questionable humour, poor illustrations, and nasty digs at famous and not-so-famous people.  Every year since 1974 - which is as far as the collective's collection goes back - Sax Appeal has annoyed the righteous, offended the godly, and abused blondes and van der Merwes.

Pretty even-handed, if you ask us.

But this particular year, "Christians" have taken particular offence at a LIFE Magazine photospread parody (entitled "LIE", in white-on-red), which details "Top Ten Atheist Retorts to Fundamentalist Christians".  Most of the collective thought these were fairly clever, as Sax Appeal offerings go, and the atheists among us chortled heartily.  Some appeared pointless, though, and the C.U.N.T. panel - Christian who Understands No Theorems, to be explicit - was brash and could easily have been reworded.  Possibly along the lines of T.O.O.L. - Totally Out Of Line....

But no-one called Jesus a tool, as one newspaper detailed: rather, the panel read "I bet he feels like a tool now".  Just the kind of thing a brash young atheist might pop out with, especially after an amber nectar or two.  Why, one of the more unruly of us sort of remembers a time in a Zimbabwe Gents' facility, when an inebriated God-botherer who said he felt the Holy Spirit like fire down his throat, was told CENSORED...OK, OK, we'll leave that one out, grumble, grumble....

And now UCT has apologised for the issue, after the good and the godly induced Pick n' Pay to remove the magazine from their shelves.

Apologised for a Sax Appeal!!??...why, this just opens the floodgates!  Next we'll have the Leagually Blondes objecting to jokes like the ones which start "How does a blonde turn on the light after...*?"; whole families, nay, wagonloads of van der Merwes will seek to block any mention of their nominative kin; Al Qaeda and in fact the whole Qaeda clan will sue to prevent any tasteless suicide bomber jokes (both groups will obect to mention of an Afrikaans terrorist called Ossewa Ben Lategan) - and so on, and on, and on.

Ah, me us....  Seeing as he apologised for it, let's just called the thing "Max Appeal", and let him edit the sorry rag.  It certainly couldn't get any worse.

But people, a little perspective please: it is a student magazine, with all of the immaturity and bad taste that may connote, sold in the main by raucous scantily-clad young people - WHICH BENEFITS A CHARITY.

We can't help thinking, however, that Greyness stalks the land, with his handmaid Politikal Korrectness...and we should go meekly back to our whited sepulchres ivory towers, and behave.

* = she opens the car door.

The retroidal father is basking in the warm, reflected glow of the retroidal son's achievement today. 

The loinal fruit has, with his partner,  made an animated interactive computer model of an adjustable electrical circuit, and then tested the effect of the use of this in Physics lessons in various classes at their high school.  And there is a measurable difference in achievement level for those exposed to the demo, compared to those who were not, when all were tested on the identical material.  All of this, for a Grade 11 science project!  I remember making a pin-hole camera....

So why isn't everything scientific or technical taught this way?  Speaking for myself - and, I suspect, many others -I find that visual material and especially animated and/or interactive material is SO much more informative than chalk-and-talk, or even OH projector and talk, that I wonder why anyone serious about education ever tolerates the old ways.

But then, I note that the wonderful offspring had, in order to be able to do this, learned (a) Linux, (b) the use of a sophisticated rendering package, (c) mastered an unbelievably complicated-looking animation package...and how many people out there can do all of this AND know enough about the subjects at hand, to be able to produce useful material?

 Precious few, I am sure.

 And therein lies the problem.  So viva! all of you who work to such ends, viva!  You should be paid far, far more than you are.

Hey, who ever said that life at UCT was boring??  Just ten minutes ago, I could walk upstairs for a panoramic view over UCT's reservoir - and the fire on the slopes below Rhodes' memorial, and the large yellow helicopter industriously buzzing back and forth, dumping water on same.

Endless fun...B-)

Retroid was most distinctly UNamused to read the following article, forwarded with the caption "Some interesting reading", from his HoD, given that it has not a little bearing on arguments advanced in this blog for more recognition of the credit-enhancing activities of research-oriented academics at this institution.

First, the article - then the rave. 

Wanted: PhDs -- sans laptops

PRIMARASHNI GOWER AND MONAKO DIBETLE | JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Feb 10 2009 06:00

In their race to lure more postgraduate students, some universities are stopping just short of offering students a free semester to Jamaica where they can sip cocktails and finish up their research thesis.

Postgraduate students are cash cows because they bring with them high government subsidies, more than for undergraduates. Each master's graduate is subsidised to the tune of R130 000 and for each doctoral graduate, the university receives about R270 000. Tuition fees for master's and PhD students are significantly less, between R10 000 to R25 000.

Universities receive an annual subsidy based on student intake and research outputs -- the number of journal publications produced plus the number of students they graduate. The publication of an article in accredited journals brings a R90 000 subsidy.

Thus the postgraduate student package wars have developed, with universities offering discounted tuition fees coupled with generous bursaries and fee refunds in order to entice desirable students.

The Mail & Guardian has learnt that the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) is footing the tuition costs for this year's full-time research master's and PhD students, regardless of which part of the planet they hail from, provided they complete their qualifications in the stipulated time.

Durban University of Technology says its master's students will receive awards of R60 000, paid in tranches, with the option of a laptop. "An amount of R100 000 is given to doctoral degree students whose proposals have been approved and also includes a laptop," which could be swapped for cash, according to Raveen Naidoo, acting director: Postgraduate Development and Support.

If you complete your research master's at North West University in one year, you pay R4 000 instead of R12 000 in fees. You'll get a bursary of up to R35 000 for a PhD, says vice-chancellor Theuns Eloff.

The higher education sector is an undergraduate one, with 85% of students (630 000) enrolled for such courses in 2006, according to Education Department figures. Of the 124 671 graduates and "diplomates" produced in total, only 7 879 had masters degrees and 1 100 PhDs.

UKZN vice-chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba said the aim of such incentive schemes was "to make a greater contribution to scholarship nationally and globally. South Africa's contribution to global research is falling and the quality of research is declining."

Along with the carrot is the stick. UKZN students must complete their master's in one year and PhD in three years. If they do not, continuation fees will be charged for subsequent semesters. Similar financial penalties are also imposed by other universities.

"This will mean improving [student's] work ethic and ethos. We can't have them hanging around for eight years," said Makgoba.

Lauding UKZN's move as "brave and fantastic", UJ's research head, Adam Habib, said his institution will refund master's and PhD graduates registered this year if they complete their qualifications on time.

"We'll pay them back if it's not a government bursary. We want to grow our postgraduate student numbers and respond to a major national need for increased research outputs," Habib said

"This is not about generating increased profits but meeting national imperatives and reinvesting in university research."

For Rolf Stumpf, former vice-chancellor of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, "This is what you do in an environment of survival -- you look at ways of optimising income. You need the money to start this and you will only reap the benefits later on and must be able to survive in the interim. The very poor universities have to think twice before they do it and you must have excellent management information systems to track your student inputs and outputs."

For Eloff, these initiatives "might strengthen some universities. But when students pursue postgraduate studies they go to universities with academics who are the best in their field. If you have good academics, students will come to you."

Source: Mail & Guardian Online
Web Address: http://www.mg.co.za/article/2009-02-10-wanted-phds-sans-laptops

Ja, boet....  So let's do some simple addition, shall we?  I know how many MSc and PhD students I have graduated recently, as I am presently going cap-in-hand to the URC to get some travel and possibly some discretionary funding - although it must be said up front that I can POSSIBLY get about R60 000 TOTAL for this exercise.

• 3 yrs worth of PhD and MSc graduating students = 4 PhD, 4 MSc (8 Hons graduates not counted)
• Income to OU^TM from my lab:
  • Subsidy @R130 000 / MSc, R270 000 / PhD: R 1 600 000 for R533 000 / yr
  • Publication subsidy @R90 000 / unit, 20 papers: R1 800 000 for R600 000 / yr
• Total: R1 133 000 / yr

Makes you think, doesn't it...?  Merely having students in my lab, and then having them contribute to publications, brings in >R1 million per year.  That is the same as a BIG research grant.  And how much of that would we see?  In real terms: the R60K-odd I MAY get from the URC this year.  A return of ~6% on investment...and I stress the MAY; there is no assurance I will get anything.

And the students?  What do they get from UCT?  Oh, a place to sit and a place to work...and I pay with research grants for what they sit on, what they work with, and the computers they work on.  For the rest: many is the postgrad student who has wondered just what it is that UCT does for them that justifies the fees they pay.

So, UCT: has ANYONE actually gone and done the REAL what-we-cost vs> what-we-bring-in calculation?  Given that the working model of what "research" costs UCT seems to be a largely thumbsuck-driven guess based on the percentage of time (20%) that some people at some stage SAID they were spending on research, extrapolated willy-nilly to support staff activities with NO regard to WHAT sort of research was being considered (really, I was at a Central Admin meeting where this was stated) - I doubt it.

I really, really doubt it.

So: can we expect UCT - sorry, the OU^TM persona will probably be to the fore here - to do anything like what lesser other Universities in SA are doing??

I really, really doubt it.

Devotees of this blog - yes, Transplant_Ed, I see you lurking there - will remember me diffidently proposing a solution to the Jammed Shuttle^TM / pedestrian / traffic problem at the north end of University Avenue (shortly to be renamed OU^TM Boulevard).

It was very simple: I proposed a traffic circle there, with a bus depot within the adjacent student parking area.

I did, in fact, receive feedback: an OU^TM luminary emailed me to say that they believed something of that sort was in fact in the works.  So, I vowed not to squich students against the Jammed Shuttles^TM as they squeezed between traffic and buses; I gritted my teeth, and promised not to face down shuttles swinging wide around the bend leading up to the west (I have more steel on the front of my car than they do)...because things would all get better.  Wouldn't they??

They have not.  Lo, the OU^TM machinery has laboured, and brought forth...a new bus shelter.  A slightly widened pull-off lane for the buses.  A marginally improved organisation of the curb around the offending bend.  No traffic circle.  No new bus depot.  Still the poor buses in blue have to swing left, swing hard right, and fight traffic to get back down the hill.  Still the students flock like lemmings across the road, heedless of the designated crossing, or of traffic, to catch imminently departing buses.

When they could have had a circle....  For that matter another traffic circle opposite the entrance to the Sports Centre parking lots would also be a good idea!

But on present experience, not one that will occur to OU^TM.  Ah, well.  I shall do a Marty Feldman*, and start to stencil pedestrians and shuttles onto the side of my Kombi as I contact them, as I undoubtedly shall.

* Google him.  Made the Pythons look like a school variety show.

Reluctantly back from vacation - and a quick business trip to a freezing UK - Retroid is pleased to see Cassandra continues as she left off in 2008.  Viva! person who is not believed, viva!  Keep up with the Monday cats and dogs; my daughter is a fan.  And Transplant_Ed: more Fridays, please!

And otherwise, it's back to same digestive leavings, different year...I had vowed to be positive this year, but 40 minutes in the HoD's office listening to the catalogue of woes that has accumulated in lo! just these last two weeks, was...depressing.

So let's be positive: it's still summer, there are no undergraduates here - and the way the trees bend outside means the southeaster is pumping, it's time to bring the sailboard in to work again like I used to...hah!  You thought I meant about work, didn't you??

Fat chance: the climate survey last year showed the outlook to be grey; I see no change on the horizon.  I shall get my joy from inside my own group, and - outside.

Have a good 2009, all!

Retroid Raver wishes all who inhabit the UCT Blogosphere a peaceful and happy if not particularly prosperous -

1. Saturnalia
2. Solstice festival
3. Xmas
4. Break

All / one / none of the above, as appropriate.

We've earned one...or I feel I have, at any rate.  And the Grolsch to go with it...B-)  So from me and mine, to you and yours: enjoy.

It is inexpressibly sad to see the place where I did so important a part of my growing up, collapse into chaos, starvation and despair.

For no other reason than the geriatrics and kleptocrats who hung onto power, don't dare let go.

For Zimbabwe, then: a song from my growing up.  Chicago....

Lowdown

Oh my
Life has passed me by
The country I was brought up in
Fell apart and died
Oh no
Love's no longer there
Cold wind blew away the sun
That used to warm the air
Lowdown
Ooo! Feelin' pretty bad
Feelin' like I lost the best friend
That I ever had
Lowdown
Ooo! Got to find a way
Got to make the people see
The way I feel today

Words: Peter Cetera - Daniel Seraphine

While Retroid has been aware for some time that there were rumblings from the bowels of the Beast Down the Hill, it appears as though these have broken out into the public domain well and truly.

From IOL today:

Deputy registrar on carpet, UCT confirms

By Natasha Joseph

The University of Cape Town (UCT) has finally acknowledged its deputy registrar, Paul Ngobeni, is the subject of an internal disciplinary hearing.

But the institution says it will not disclose what charges Ngobeni faces, nor the composition of the disciplinary committee because it does not want to conduct its internal processes "in the public domain".

Ngobeni, UCT's deputy registrar responsible for legal services and secretariat, first attracted attention when he wrote an opinion piece for the Cape Times in October last year in which he said "calls by some lawyers and academics for the removal of Judge President John Hlophe (were) intended as a threat to the very notion of judicial independence these lawyers pay lip service to".It later emerged that Ngobeni, a lawyer, had been found guilty in the United States of misconduct and barred from practising in three states.

Earlier this year, the Mail and Guardian reported that Ngobeni was the subject of an internal disciplinary hearing at UCT - a process that Ngobeni claimed was related to his public statements in support of Hlophe.

At the time, UCT refused to confirm that Ngobeni had been called to face a disciplinary hearing. But it has now acknowledged this was so.

"The hearing has not been concluded, but we are hopeful it will be soon. UCT is committed, even at the end of the disciplinary process, to maintaining Mr Ngobeni's right to have this matter regarded as private," UCT said in a statement.

It would not be drawn on the details of the hearing.

"The university respects staff members' rights to dignity and privacy and does not intend conducting processes, guided by its staff disciplinary procedure, in the public domain."

natasha.joseph@inl.co.za

Curiouser and curiouser...after saying nothing for months, when the only news coming out of it were the various broadsides from Obi-Wan, supporting Showerhead Man and an injustice, the mountain finally stirs - and brings forth a mouse.  Not even the charges are public??  Ah, well....

 The saga continues.