New Term

They’re back! The new term in Cambridge started yesterday and the students are all back in town. The traffick in Cambridge was chaotic at the week-end as parents dropped off their little darlings. It’s one of the only times that the city centre is open to general traffick –usually its restricted to pedestrians and bicycles. There are groups of new students wandering from bar to bar in the evenings on “orientation” events.

My Department has suddenly sprung into life. From a very quiet summer period we now have hoards of students traipsing up and down the stairs four-abreast and generally blocking the way. They are all collecting their lecture and coursework hand-outs ready for the start of lectures/practical classes on Thursday. The first year students are bright eyed and bushy tailed, the second year students cool and nonchalant and the third year students starting to realise that the end is nigh. The bicycle population in Cambridge had quadrupled over the weekend and it is now very difficult to find a spot to park my bike outside the Department.

Bike Congestion

Dead Heat

As an academic I am officially a “University Officer” which means that I am also a member of the Regent House which is the governing body of the University and responsible for setting the rules. We have just voted on a motion of no confidence in David Willetts, the Government Minister of State for Universities and Science. If the motion was passed, the University would have sent a letter of no confidence in Mr Willetts for his handling of the increase in University fees. Amazingly, the votes were tied at 681 each way so the motion failed and Mr Willetts will have one less letter to open. I was somewhat surprised and disappointed at the number of votes against the motion given that this was a symbolic gesture by which academics could voice their disapproval of the fee increase. In contrast, Oxford University voted 283 to 5 in favour of a no confidence motion. Must be a hot bed of radicals in Oxford or perhaps they just have a better moral conscience.

OCR Biology F215 A Level Exam

My daughter has just sat the final paper in her A level Biology (OCR paper F215). I have spent the last couple of months helping her revise so I had an interest in the overall content of the paper.  To get some idea about the questions that cropped up, I have followed the various discussions on chat forums and some students have been very unhappy about this paper. Their main criticism is that the paper was heavily biased toward ecological processes and concepts and did not have sufficient spread of questions covering all the syllabus topics. Facebook campaigns have been started and e-mails sent to OCR, the BBC and Ofqual. OCR has even issued a statement in response to the student’s concerns. Since OCR thinks that there was no problem with the paper, I have analyzed the mark distributions according to which core modules they come from. The results are:

Module 1 (Cellular control)                                                                     
20 marks

Module 2 (Biotechnology)                                                                      
20 marks

Module 3 (Ecosystems)                                                                          
28 marks

Module 4 (Responding to the Environment)                                         
19 marks

Assessment Objective 2 (Application of Knowledge/data handling)   
6 marks

Assessment Objective 3 (How Science Works)                                    
7 marks

At face value, it would appear that the questions were reasonably spread across all four Modules, with perhaps a slight bias towards Ecosystems. BUT, this does not take into account the content of each module. Based on the number of pages in the OCR Biology revision book by Heinemann, Module 1 = 33% of the syllabus, Module 2 = 28%, Module 3 =19% and Module 4 = 20%. On the exam paper, Module 3 questions account for 32% of the module specific marks but this module is only 18% of the syllabus. Perhaps the students have a point about the paper not being completely fair.

University Chancellor

The Chancellor is the titular Head of the University. The first Chancellor (Hugh de Hottun) was elected in 1246 and previous positions have been held by a plethora of Earls, Dukes, Lords and assorted aristocracy and not a single women. The Chancellorship is a life-long appointment and the individual performs several duties such as conferring Honorary Degrees and adjudicating in some University disputes. The Chancellor does not normally live in Cambridge but visits occasionally to perform these duties and have a slap up meal at one of the colleges. The current chancellor is HRH, The Duke of Edinburgh who has served since 1977, but at 90 years old he needs a rest and is stepping down. The Chancellor is elected by the University Senate and candidates require 50 nominations before they can stand. The plan by the University was to elect Lord Sainsbury as an unopposed candidate but a democratic system can jeopardise the best laid plans. Two other candidates have been proposed and gathered enough votes to force a proper election. The first candidate is Brian Blessed, a Cambridge graduate and actor well know for his thunderous voice and mountaineering exploits. The second candidate is Abdul Arain, a local shopkeeper who is campaigning against a Sainsbury’s supermarket opening in Mill Road. I suspect it will be a two horse race between the Bursary Sold In and the Beard Bless In. 

Brian Blessed whispering

Footloose and Fancy Free

A few months ago, a sculpture consisting of a pair of metal footprints inlaid into one of the paving slabs was added at one of the University sites. This interesting addition seemed to be appreciated by members of the public visiting the site. A few weeks later however, yellow lines were drawn around the sculpture. My first thought was that this was another example of Health and Safety gone mad to prevent the University being sued by some inattentive visitor who tripped on the few millimeters of metal protruding from the ground. Fortunately, I have heard that the yellow lines were put there by a construction firm working nearby to prevent them from driving over the sculpture and possibly damaging it. Common sense 1: observant workmen 0.

Outcome of Vote on University Fees

The votes have been counted and, as expected, University academics have taken the pragmatic approach of someone with a gun to their heads and voted in favour of allowing fees up to £9000 per year. A condition of being allowed to do this is that the University has to submit a proposal to the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) outlining plans for bursaries and financial help particularly for under-represented groups. The access agreement has not yet been finalised but has to be submitted to OFFA by 19^th April. The previous access agreement with OFFA had an aim of increasing the number of state school students admitted to the University to between 60-63% for 2011. Cambridge's state intake was 59.3% of full-time undergraduates in 2009-10. The real challenge will be to increase this proportion in the future, particularly as the number of state school applicants to Cambridge is likely to fall because of the fee increase.

Vote on University Fees

In addition to teaching duties, Cambridge academics are involved in running the University. Academics are members of The Regent House which is the governing body of the University and responsible for deciding on the rules and regulations of the University.  Changes to University regulations are subject to a democratic vote by all members of The Regent House. We are currently being asked to vote on increasing the fees that undergraduates will have to pay to study here from 2012 onwards. The two options in the vote are to charge fees at £6000 per annum or £9,000 per annum. The current University fees for UK and EU students are £3,375 per year and this will have to increase from 2012 as the Government is cutting the teaching grant money it gives to all Universities in the UK. The current teaching grant to Cambridge is around £51 million and to recoup the loss of this teaching grant, Cambridge will have to charge at least £8,400 per year based on the current number of undergraduates. Cambridge is not alone in this as several other Universities in the UK have already decided to raise the fees to £9,000 per annum which is the maximum allowed by the Government. My moral dilemma is that I completely disagree with any increase in University fees and if they have to go up, I would like them to be kept as small as possible. Morally, I should vote for the £6,000 per annum option but that would not leave the University in a financially viable position and jobs would have to be lost. This would be like a turkey voting for Christmas. The only financially viable option which has been forced upon us by the unholy alliance of the Tories and Liberal Democrats is to vote for the £9,000 per annum increase. I simply cannot do that because, unlike the Lib Dems, I will stick with my principles. I guess the only option I have is to abstain.

Cambridge Science Festival

National Science Week in the UK and Cambridge University is doing its bit to entertain and educate the public. For more information see http://comms.group.cam.ac.uk/sciencefestival/. Science departments have thrown open their doors and are giving lectures and presentations to anyone brave enough to enter the buildings. My department is giving a series of hands-on experiments and demonstrations in one of our large teaching classrooms at the week-end. Academics, post-docs, graduate students and classroom support staff all give their time freely to prepare and host this event. Our contribution is based on the stuff that we teach the undergraduates and also on the research activities in the department. It can be quite challenging trying to explain complex scientific concepts to the general public, many of whom have only basic scientific knowledge. It requires a certain skill in communication to explain difficult concepts in terms that can be understood by the person you are talking to. You have to try to quickly judge what their level of scientific knowledge might be and adapt your explanations accordingly. No point explaining the structure of an atom to a nuclear physicist or a 5 year old. Sometimes it's clear from the glazed eyes that you have pitched your explanation at the wrong level and lost them completely. In general, however, I have always been impressed by the enthusiasm of the visitors and how quickly most people can understand the concept of what you are telling them. The most important thing is to be passionate about what you are explaining; enthusiasm can hold an audience and a monotone drone will lose them.

Aims of this blog

There are a lot of misconceptions about what members of staff actually do at Cambridge University. I hope that through this blog I will inform the general public about the way in which Cambridge University functions and what it is like to work here. I hope to dispel the impression amongst some people that all we do is sit around drinking port and growing senile.