Retroid Raving

Not so hard to do right now, as it happens: funny, it always snows in October.

But soon it'll be time for this:

This year's gone on long enough, and been tense enough, that some serious non-literal chilling is in order.

Bring it on...

Retroid was at a very interesting meeting the other day, when a VERY senior member of the University hierarchy said - in answer to a question about how publication subsidy was used - something along the lines of: "Well, it's part of our core subsidy, but it is used to stimulate research because it pays for the 30% of your time that you spend doing research".

Interesting....  So, if I spend more than that - what?  If I spend less??  And what if the amount I bring in by publishing pays for less than the 30% of my time??  Should I take a cut?  And if it is more - could I even (now here's a revolutionary suggestion) be paid MORE??  And what happens South of the Steps, where research is often done at home...?

Who worked that out, anyway, and how?  I have never filled in a detailed questionnaire on how I spend my working day, other than a once-yearly thumbsuck sent in to the Faculty of Science - of which, as far as I am aware, Bremner remains ignorant, as no-one in the Central Finance meeting I went to a while back had ever heard of it. 

That is also a different version to what I heard at Faculty Board - where we were told that the subsidy (which is supposedly all devolved to Faculty level) was used to hire extra staff for productive Departments.

Get the answers straight, people: why is money that is paid by the Dept of Education to the University to help stimulate research, not more transparently used?  Why - apart from the not-very-convincing issues discussed here  and again here in this column - does the University not distribute a more significant part of that largesse to the people who earned it, either as a research grant or as above-RFJ salary?

It seems evident that Our University does not actually have a coherent story to tell regarding subsidy earned by individuals: ALL subsidy income is regarded simply a replacement for the old direct State subsidy based on student numbers, regardless of the stated intent of the publication subsidy in particular, which happens to be enshrined in an Act of Parliament.

It might be nice if there were an incentive to earn the subsidy, other than to get promoted: other Universities do it; why don't we?

I am inspired by our resident seer (who is never believed) to share a Dilbert with you, from some time ago....  Judging from the performance of OU^TM in the academic salary negotiations, I'd say Catbert had already been hired.

Which is a strange way to remember someone as distinguished as John Matshikiza - who in contrast to Retroid's Rick Wright, was actually known to Ed Rybicki.

Albeit for only three years, and those between 1964 and 1966.

You will see, in the many obituaries for John, that he "grew up in exile"; possibly that he was "in Lusaka", that he was trained in London and with the Royal Shakespeare Company...but it has struck me that I am one of the very few I know who was at school with him in Lusaka, and therefore who know anything about that very under-reported part of his life.  Which gives me licence to reminisce...B-)

John came to Lusaka with his family in 1964, for complicated reasons that were far beyond us 9- and 10-year-olds, and very soon enrolled as possibly the first post-independence black child at a hitherto whites-only primary school: Woodlands Primary, in the suburb of the same name.  He was smart, erudite, well-spoken....and a really keen actor.

This leads me to the reminiscence of the title: I cannot see the Beatrix Potter book without the vivid remembrance of the young Matshikiza, with long floppy ears and a drawn-on rabbit face, prancing around as Peter Rabbit on the stage of the Woodlands School hall.  Oh, he was in other plays, too: we starred together in "Toad of Toad Hall" in 1966, with him as Toad and me as the Judge - and I see he reprised that role in London in later years - but it is as the rabbit I remember him.

I remember him crying after his father died, and offering awkward words of comfort as small boys do - and him doing the same, when my father died not long thereafter, of a similar cause.

And then the separating of the ways, with him in Zambia and then the UK and me at school in Zim and then at UCT...and then he was back, on stage and on the screen and in the M&G - and he was famous, and there were no obvious points of contact, so I let it ride.

Then I was in Lusaka in 2005, and visited Woodlands School - and met a visionary Deputy Principal, who wanted old computers so he could teach IT.  He was also excited by my stories about what had happened to those who had gone there - at least three Professors I can think of; captains of industry all around the world now - and I mentioned John, as the sight of the stage and royal blue curtains brought back Peter Rabbit in a rush.  I contacted him, on my return, via the old M&G address - and he was excited to hear that the school was still going, and he offered to help to get them computers.

And now he's gone - unexpectedly, and with all of the regrets of things unsaid, and things left undone.

But there is still a rabbit with a brown face in my memory, prancing across stage to Mr McGregor's garden.

Hamba kahle, John.

RIP Richard Wright, after a short battle with cancer, aged 65.  Founder member of Pink Floyd, keyboard man and vocalist.  Who - most appropriately - wrote "The Great Gig in the Sky" and "Us and Them" for 1973's "Dark Side of the Moon".  The Great Gig is instrumental, but who could forget these words, taped in the studio from a roadie?

"And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, I
don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying?
There's no reason for it, you've gotta go sometime."

"If you can hear this whispering you are dying."

"I never said I was frightened of dying."

And from "Us and Them":

"Down (down, down, down, down) and out (out, out,out...)
It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about.
With, without.
And who'll deny it's what the fightings all about?
Out of the way, its a busy day
I've got things on my mind.
For the want of the price of tea and a slice
The old man died....."

Rock on, Rick Wright.  There'll never be a Floyd without you.

Going boldly where lesser mortals fear to tread - again - Professor Malegapuru William I-smear-my-body-with-lion-fat-to-strike-fear-into-my-adversaries Makgoba has written a very interesting opinion piece in the Sunday Times of 8th September.

It is entitled "A better way to cut up the pie", and opens with the banner "The higher education of our country must be differentiated and funded adequately for the reality of global competitiveness and economic development".

Viva! says Retroid, viva!  Pretty much what we've been saying over the last few months, he thought.

And it went on to say:

"South Africa has 23 universities....  With this rich diversity, one would think it would be used as a stength to promote excellence and global competitiveness.  But...South Africa continues to pretend that these 23 universities are the same and therefore treat [sic] them the same, without differentiating, focusing and providing resources each to its comparative and competitive advantages.  It is this failure to differentiate...that has led to a decline in academic productivity, new knowledge production and innovation relative to the rest of the world."

Viva! again, thought Retroid: the Lion of the East has come out and said in a very public forum what the rest of us have left unsaid, or buried in obscure academic blogs.

He went on to detail how different countries had a very limited number of premier research institutions: the US has 215 out of 3300 with only 100 being "research led"; Australia has 8 "great" institutions; India 9 out of 367; the UK a "Golden Diamond" of 4.  Europe, on the other hand, apparently has 2000-odd largely undifferentiated universities, and "...the result has been mediocrity all round".  Well - I know a few Europeans who may disagree there, but let it stand for the sake of argument.

So far, so good: but then, halfway in, he makes the claim that South Africa's strength in knowledge production and wealth creation are...in the humanities!!??  The Leonine One goes on to detail how none of our 4 Nobel laureates in sciences did any but their foundation training here - and how 6 of the 10 accredited to South Africans are in literature, politics and peace.

Well, well, well, thought Retroid to himself.  The Oxford-trained immunologist thinks one gets academic training in Peace Prize-worthy achievements??  Which would account for Luthuli, Tutu, Mandela and de Klerk...leaving Gordimer and JM Coetzee for literature (hey, they give those things out to people from all sorts of countries - like Egypt, Greece....).

But wait, there was more.  He claims "Our science education system is only competitive up to the level of a bachelor's degree, and in contrast [to the humanities, presumably], our postgraduate environment and infrastructure are too weak to compete globally".

Strong stuff...and true of 19-odd of our 23 universities (including, possibly his own, said by Wikipedia to be "...in vertiginous decline"), but NOT true of a few I could think of.  Like UCT, Wits, Tuks, Maties....

He goes on to say "Confronting the above," - the straw man he created, in other words - "we would need more government investment that is specifically earmarked to strengthen the humanities field in higher education."

There is more on how science flourishes best when grounded in "people's culture", and how it is that science and technology are born and are shaped better when the human sciences are strongest....

Retroid stopped taking it seriously about then, and seriously considered re-reading it as an elaborate spoof article aimed at actually showing up how badly we need science and technology - but it was not to be.  The Lion Fat man is serious.  He really, really is saying that we should be spending considerably more on education in the humanities, and again says that they play a role in wealth creation and leadership of science and technology.

Yes, well.  Um.  No, fine.  Wealth creation??  Isn't that why the government has been favouring science and technology, rather than the humanities, in their direct and indirect subsidy of tertiary institutions??  Could it be they were all wrong - along with the governments of Taiwan, Singapore, Ireland and South Korea, incidentally??  I note our very own Minister of Science and Technology, Mosibudi Mangena, says in the Introduction to DST's Ten-Year Innovation Plan

"Knowing that the level of economic growth envisaged by our country requires continual advances in technological innovation and the production of new knowledge, and in our common determination to build a better world, we are strengthening our role in the development and growth of South Africa".

Looks like he doesn't agree, then.  His DG - Dr Phil Mjwara - continues in this vein:

"The Plan charts the course for the enhancement of innovation in our country, contributing to sustained economic growth on the basis of what we are convinced are the pillars of a properly functional knowledge economy ‑ human capital development, R&D and knowledge infrastructure.

It is crucially important to note that the Department of Science and Technology’s Plan identifies bold interventions in certain critical areas, called “grand challenges”. These areas offer tremendous opportunities for steering our resource-based economy towards a knowledge-based economy." [my bold]

And what are these grand challenge areas, one may ask?  Why, they are these:

• “Farmer to Pharma”, or biotechnology and the pharmaceuticals, based on the nation’s indigenous resources and expanding knowledge base;
• Space science and technology;
• Energy security – safe, clean, affordable and reliable energy supply;
• Global change science with a focus on climate change, and
• Human and social dynamics – towards a greater global understanding of shifting social dynamics, and the role of science in stimulating growth and development.

Strange how it is that Professor Dr MW Makgoba - MBChB (Natal) DPhil (Oxon) - is so good when he is on his home turf of explaining medical science, and how bad he is when he gets sociological or political.  For the piece he wrote is so breathtakingly replete with unsubstantiated claims, and conclusions built on shaky frameworks, that it serves only as a starting point for discussion of the real problem, by people who know what they are talking about.

Who realise that without continued and increased funding of science and technology in this country, we are doomed to a downward spiral of decaying infrastructure, and a growing need to import specialists in all the disciplines we were formerly able to train people in.

Oh, and significantly decreased wealth creation, moral leadership, and a diminution of culture.

Why, Retroid wonders, do people in this fine country of ours (yes, Cassandra, Retroid LIKES living here...B-) find it so necessary to spread the research funding monies around, to places where it probably won't get used well?

Consider the following article from the UK Times Higher Education Supplement, for which I am indebted to AJCann's Tweet stream:

Times Higher Education - Top 20 secure nearly two thirds of research funds while others are left with nothing via kwout

And do you have a problem with that, asks Retroid?  You notice, they even use that wonderful term "research led"?

And if you have a problem - why?? 

Really, and as Retroid has plaintively asked before, why should good South African research institutions effectively be punished for being good?  Shouldn't some carrot be given, instead of the perpetual stick?

Might make a pleasant change.  But porcines might become airborne sooner.

Retroid has just been watching the Olympics closing ceremony from Beijing (OK, Cassandra, via DsTV...B-) - and how could we ever think we could do something like that??  For that matter, will anyone else ever be able to??

I have seen the future, friends, and it is jaundiced...in the sense of being Chinese, rather than connoting anything like "showing or experiencing a state of disordered feeling or distorted judgment as through bitterness or melancholy", or other meanings you thought you knew.

Seriously, now: when a country can go from nowhere to second to first in medals tallies in three Olympics; when it can put on a show like it did; when the populace gets behind the effort as it did...reminds Retroid of that quip heard on a radio programme a while back on why Sah Theffrica would never be another Korea: largely because we had no Koreans....  Or, in the case of China, one+ billion people to push around, or the might and will to do so, or people who will listen.

And nor does anyone else - except maybe India.

The East is Red, brothers and sisters; we may have to get used to North, South and West becoming that way too, as the Chinese reassert their merely postponed superiority in coming years.  Face it: the whole of western civilisation as we know/knew it may have been just a brief interlude in the Chinese peoples' continuous cultural and economic domination of our planet.  Learn Mandarin now....

But Retroid saw some light too - other than the crimson glow from the East - in the presentation of London's attractions for the next extravaganza.

Chief among them, apparently, one James Page: yes, he of the eponymous quartet.  Apparently other folk also think you cannot have too much of towed dirigibles.  Viva! I say to them, viva!!

At least we'll still have some music to listen to as we March Forward Gloriously to a Chinese Future.

It is the east, and Max is the sun....  Apologies to W Szekspir; however, Retroid was sufficiently moved by yesterday's opening of Mr Price UCT coronation inauguration of our new VC, to perceive a glimmer of light through the gloom that is OU^TM.

Cue appropriate image: thanks to the traffic in Little Mowbray this morning I was going back to the highway instead of escaping it, and caught this on the trusty PDA. 

Quite appropriate, I thought: a luminous body trying bravely to overcome the all-encompassing, enveloping grey mist.

Which brings us on  to the occasion: a beautiful warm evening - Retroid's partner dug him in the ribs for suggesting the hazy golden light was all due to pollution - with begowned academics scattered all over Jammie Steps.  Someone in a plain red job made an idle remark about needing a guide book to identify the more exotic plumage - something along the lines of the Hasid Spotter's Guide you can get in Jerusalem, in fact, to help you identify the more exotic specimens.

And truly, there were some wonderful gowns on offer - with simply stunning hats to go with them.  Mortar boards, soft floppy ones, things like bishop's mitres....

Never one to suffer hat envy - I boycotted the tea cosy I was offered in my PhD graduation - Retroid was nonetheless amused to feel a twinge of academic envy when it became evident that our orderly two lines of processioners who had formed up - obedient to The Hugh's urgings - early on, were in fact not only not the front-rankers, but were in fact the third ranked academics.  There were mutters of "What did you have to do / who did you have to sleep with to get in that bunch, then??"  I suggested we practice processing by marching into the tent in front of us and having a drink or two, and it nearly happened - but no, sense prevailed.

And we waited.  And we waited some more.  The marimba band was pretty good, mind, and I saw more than one trouser leg or skirt twitching in time to stuff ranging from "Mama Tembu's Wedding" to "Take Five".  All the more so because we became their captive audience, given that we were right in front of them, and we were royally entertained.

Now although Retroid did in fact know the majority of folk nearest him, it was obvious that this occasion - unlike the discipline-segregated graduations - was truly one where those from NOJS and SOJS could mingle, on JS, pre-postmodernly and intertextually, as true comrades.  A pity that this is so rare....

Then at last the off, and we third-rankers processed in a dignified manner, in our appointed lines, up the steps, to pass from marimba rhythms into the far more formal "Gaudeamus" being rendered by a mass choir.

Retroid thought that this particular archaic Latin offering had been benched in recent times: he recalls one particularly entertaining moment in Senate a while ago when someone expressed the wish to have something played that was more appropriate for an accountant-led African class world research-led world class African University.  Like "Shosholoza, possibly?  And how many verses does that thing have??  It lasted the whole procession, with only one age-challenged person in front of Retroid in the expensive seats bravely mouthing her way through nearly all of it.

While we're on the subject of music, Retroid has to admit suffering through the later excerpt from Mozart's "Don Giovanni": like the former offering, incomprehensible except to the initiated.  I can think of many more appropriate musical interludes.  Like Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim's "Mannenburg", heard by Retroid in that very venue in 1974.

 And in the expensive seats up front, who else but The Arch, Cape Town and UCT's own Godzille - and Trevor's Manual of Fiscal Rectitude.

I looked with interest on the stage for Obi-Wan, but the Absent Registrar was not obvious.  Mind you, Retroid has little idea what the alleged functionary looks like, given his habit of labouring deep under some rock in Bremner, emerging only to defend the indefensible from time to time.

The Archie Mafeje segment was touching: Retroid had no idea that OU^TM had in fact snubbed him in the 1990s - but then, no-one tells us up North anything.

The meat of the occasion, and the cause for the light in the east, was Max Price's address to the UCT congregation.  If you weren't there, you can read it in here; suffice it to say for the details that Retroid's partner remarked that it was the same speech he gave in Senate while job-hunting, only longer - which at least means he's consistent, and that he's thought about it since. 

One novel idea was the one concerning the creation of Pro-Vice Chancellor posts, to manage certain key research thrusts at UCT (given that OU^TM is a business and does no research, it does not come into this).  Retroid was especially interested in the identification of HIV/AIDS and TB as a key area, as this is not a thousand km from what he and friends do.  However, as a taxonomist, he is also a little bothered by the dependency of the chain of command upon the Chancellor.  You know, Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, Deputy Vice Chancellor (which seems a slight on those worthies, given they do have jobs, and do not only deputise) - and now Pro-Vice Chancellor.  Retroid would like to suggest the following as a reductio ad absurdam:

Chancellor: as is
VC: Semi-Chancellor
DVC: Hemi-Semi-Chancellor
Pro-VC: Demi-Hemi-Semi-Chancellor

Or just title them something different entirely: like Chancellor, Principal, Vice Principals and Research Deans??

But we digress.  The vision of the new Semi-Chancellor is that we - as an African University - should be the place where others come to learn of Africa.  He also sees a revitalisation of research, and not only in the niche areas where we underfunded African researchers crawl, in order to have something novel to publish on.  Viva! we say to this, viva!

As the Hon Naledi Hall Pandor MP ANC said, we are in for interesting times with Max Price.

Bring them on....

Folks in both the academic teaching and library / archiving spheres: is anyone aware of any concerted effort to put the theses published at UCT on the Web, or to otherwise publish them electronically?

I ask this because (a) our very own Gray Area has just put up a post which relates to this, (b) I have commented on it saying I think it is a great idea, (c) I am frequently asked by outsiders for information from theses written by my students which they otherwise could have got via a UCT resource server.

I have a personal collection of MSc and PhD theses which I would very much like to see being accessible from the outside - for that matter, I have a treasure trove of Honours project write-ups which presently either only gather dust, or are read only by other Honours students as templates for their dissertations.  I have been thinking of putting them all up as PDFs accessible via my home page - however, if there is an official initiative, I am sure it would be a better idea to have them centrally epublished.

And yes thank you, the Rybicki family is safely back from a family wedding in Scotland, where it rained.  Then it rained some more.  When that had finished, sure enough, it began raining again.  When you thought "This MUST clear sometime, surely?", so it did - only to rain again.  I have photographs of Edinburgh in the rain.  I have photos of Stirling after one bout of rain, and just before another.  Summer??  Don't make me laugh....

Ed Rybicki

Well, an old one, really, but what with HAcker's Blog closing down, and the greyness closing in...I thought we needed some sunshine in our lives.  Another View from the North.

Oh, alright, here's another....

Retroid is nothing if not persistent in the search for new things to amuse, and possibly even to educate...but not having time to go on workshops and the like can make it difficult when the learning curve is steep.

Meaning you simply don't do it.

Which is almost what I did with the UCT Vula site Wiki which I was trying to set up for a course I am co-ordinating...but vasbyt! was the cry, and - like any good quest worth its name - rewards unfolded once the door had been knocked on enough.  Or hard enough.  Hey, Retroid once played a D&D scenario involving future-medieval Japan, ninjas and an old space shuttle for over two years (and still has the notes: I know who ate the Buddhist nun.  There is no escaping karma...B-); how hard could it be?

Hard, it turns out.  Decidedly not intuitive.  With very small links to things like "edit" commands, meaning my failing sight made it difficult to see what the hell to do.  But what rewards: layer upon layer of functionality; manifold rooms; instant access to class lists; updatable calendars; announcement and assignment folders....!!

Impressive: way more functionality than the free off-shore one I had been playing with; I shall abandon that without a qualm.

But I'm still not sure how the hell the students upload anything...ah, well; they're the generation that can figure out all of the functions on cellphones that make a Star Trek tricorder look primitive in less time than it takes to read this - so they'll figure it out.

Hopefully.

Seeing as none of you got the subtle Pink Floyd reference for the last post, you get another:

Well it would be...if I were Alan.  If it were psychedelic.  If I hadn't had breakfast already.  No mushrooms, but I licked the knife....

As I tell my students, an extra five marks if you (a) name the band (OK, I gave that one away), (b) name the album, (c) hum the tune.

OK, no sunset photos - at least, not of last night's - but I'll show all is not doom and gloom NOJS, by sharing this with you.

Taken as I was crawling up past my old residence from 1974, Belsen/Kopano, just after the rain one morning a while ago.

And here's a genuine View from the North: from the stairs next to the RW James building, where UCT's two claims to science/medical Nobel prizes - Aaron Klug and Allan MacLeod Cormack - would have done their physics, if it had been there at the time.

And yes, @AJC, those are palm tree leaves...B-)

...so there Retroid was, stressed to the max (sick domestic worker, builders, kinder transport, abrupt cessation of funding, unexpected school debate call-out), and...was solace to be had in red wine?  Dangerous....  In the James Page quartet??  Too much headache....  Cream???  Too potentially loud....

No, dear readers, none of these.

A sunset: pinks, grading to oranges, flecked with greys.  Out there towards Devil's Peak (Hoerikwagga, big thing above UCT, whatever).  Glowing gently.  Caring nothing about misguided, possibly stupid funders, dim Reddam Junior Debating team organisers, or even rock n' roll.

Just being.

Man, how Zen is that??