Quality assurance

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

I must admit that I was a bit cynical, like most of my colleagues, when I heard that we were being asked to attend a workshop to be led by the university’s new Quality Assurance Coordinator, Barbara Briggs. There was a general feeling amongst the academic staff that the Quality Assurance processes and structures that had been introduced by the university in the last few years had been bureaucratic and inflexible. The objection wasn’t that things were controlled from the centre – clearly an overarching and coherent approach was essential. Rather it was that what emerged was a very formal and mechanised box-ticking exercise to which everyone had to comply. It was not a system that actually encouraged quality improvements which could be generated by drawing on the experiences of those actually involved in learning and teaching activities. Staff felt that they were not trusted and that any genuine attempts that they made to reflect on what they were doing and how things could be improved were at best ignored and at worst denigrated.

So it was a real surprise that the first thing that Barbara Briggs did at the workshop last week was not to talk at us, but to ask us what we thought should be at the heart of a proper quality assurance system in a university. Andrew Hunt from the Enterprise and Innovation Research Group led the way, arguing that what was needed was less inspection and more genuine consideration of how we could embed quality enhancement into what we did. We should listen to the teaching staff, the students and the support staff. We should simplify and streamline the procedures for updating the curriculum, responding quickly to new ideas and adapting to changing internal and external expectations. We should drive out fear of faultfinding and allow staff to be both critical and self-critical in a supportive environment. Rather than imposing uniform and time-consuming inspections we should make use of statistical sampling to provide a better balance between the costs and benefits involved in quality control. Other staff joined in the discussion but largely echoed the points that Hunt had made.

Responding, Barbara Briggs said that what Hunt had said was very much her view too. That was why she had insisted that her designation was Quality Assurance Coordinator and not Director. She said that she had set up a wiki on the university’s intranet for people to post their suggestions as to how a new system could be designed with a view to implementation in the academic year 2014-15. Some of her own ideas were already posted there but she wasn’t going to go through them now. Instead we should take our time and read them and comment on them when we found it convenient to do so.

To end the session she referred to the work of W Edwards Deming, whose ideas were adopted in Japan, especially in the automobile industry. She said that she fully recognised that there is a difference between quality issues that arise in a personalised education system as compared with those that are relevant to the production of standardised manufactured goods. However we did have to recognise that higher education had become more of a mass market commodity type of business. Under the new fee arrangements students were more likely to consider themselves as paying customers and we should put their experience at the centre of our thoughts.

Then, to round off the session, she said we might like to enjoy a few Dilbert and other cartoons about quality control and quality assurance. I have tracked down a few of them here for you to enjoy.

http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/00000/7000/100/7110/7110.strip.gif

http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/10000/8000/300/18316/18316.strip.gif

http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/10000/8000/300/18315/18315.strip.gif

http://dilbert.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/000000/10000/8000/200/18209/18209.strip.gif

http://www.newslettercartoons.com//catalog/gifs/1683-w.gif

http://www.toonpool.com/user/4146/files/quality_is_our_business_1270815.jpg

Bubbles

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

I arrived a little late for lunch in the cafeteria today. Gus and Jack were about to leave, but they decided to stay and update me with the latest gossip. It seems that Richard might have a girlfriend! They even pointed her out to me. She was working in the cafeteria, clearing the dirty plates from the tables.

I expressed surprise that Richard might have a waitress as a girlfriend as he is quite a serious and intellectual person. But Jack said that this young woman is a psychology PhD student and she is working in the cafeteria at lunchtime to help her pay her way. She also does a bit of part-time teaching in the psychology department.

Apparently they had met on Saturday at the Ship pub where they had both gone to watch the Manchester City v West Ham game which was being screened by Sky TV. Although Richard is an avid Leyton Orient supporter he rarely gets to go to their matches these days due to work commitments. Nor does he often go to see televised games at the pub. But Jack had persuaded him that he needed a bit of a break and so they had gone off together for the match.

At half-time Richard had gone to the bar to buy a round of drinks and he returned in the company of Barbara (or "Bubbles" as she said she likes to be known). Jack told me later that this is because she is an avid West Ham fan and the West Ham theme song is "I'm forever blowing bubbles".

Bubbles had been at the bar herself buying a drink and she had recognised Richard from her time working in the cafeteria. She had introduced herself and engaged him in conversation. Having established that they were both originally from the same part of London Richard had suggested that she join him and Jack for the second half. Jack said that he had then felt a bit of a gooseberry as Richard almost turned his back on him as he and Bubbles exchanged comments about the action. (I had to ask Jack what he meant by the term gooseberry as it wasn't a term I had come across before!).

Anyway, at the end of the match Bubbles had asked them if they would like to go back to her place for a cup of tea. Jack had said that he couldn't as he had to get back home. But to his surprise he heard Richard say that he would love to have some tea and so Richard and Bubbles had gone off together.

And now Richard had failed to turn up for lunch at the agreed time, which was very uncharacteristic. He hadn't even let Jack know that he wouldn't be coming.

Jack wondered if Richard was embarrassed to be in the cafeteria while Bubbles was working there. Or maybe the tea visit had been a disaster and Richard was trying to avoid Bubbles for that reason. Or perhaps it had been a big step forward in his love life. We were all dying to find out.

Communication

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

Gus was on his own in the cafeteria when I got there this morning, which was just as well as there was something I wanted to have out with him. "You were supposed to wait until we had both signed off our copies of the appraisal paperwork before you spoke to Mike Rowe" I said.

"Oh" replied Gus, "Has Mike spoken to you already?" "Yes" I replied, "He wants me to take over as Library coordinator with immediate effect. I thought that when we were discussing new administrative roles for me we were talking about next year".

"Mike asked me if any of the people I was doing appraisals with might be willing to take on the Library role" said Gus. "You know that Patrick Murray has really let it slip and there are some big decisions about journal subscriptions that need to be taken urgently. The Librarian and the Dean have both been on his back about it."

"So what is Mike doing about Patrick Murray?" I asked. "How is it that he can get away with not doing what he is supposed to do?" Patrick had the role at present although it was common knowledge that he was not exactly fully engaged with it. Gus said that as well as letting slip his Library responsibilities there had been student complaints about his attitude in seminars where he had called certain individuals "thick" or "stupid" when they couldn't answer his questions. There were also questions about the adequacy of the feedback that he provided on assessed work. This was just the kind of thing that could cost us dear in the National Student Survey.

Mike said that Patrick had been given a warning and asked to attend some special workshops run by Dr Weasel in the university's Centre for Independent Learning and Assessment (CILTA). Actually it had not got off to a great start. Patrick was told to attend a workshop on Communication last week but when he turned up for it he found that it had been postponed. The only trouble was that Dr Weasel had forgotten to tell anyone that it was going to be rearranged! "Why doesn't that surprise me?" I thought.

Gus told me that Patrick is also down to go to the Assertiveness Workshop next week, also to be run by Dr Weasel. I commented that Patrick seemed to me to be more than averagely assertive. I recalled the occasion when someone had said that the students found him to be unapproachable and he had shouted out at full volume "Who says that I am unapproachable?" Gus said that was the point. Being assertive is not the same as being aggressive. "Anyway" he went on" the point is we do need someone to take on the Library role asap. Did you agree to do it?" "Yes" I said. "You know how good Mike is at persuading you that whatever he wants you to do is actually in your own best interest." He had emphasized to me that it would mean working closely with Jenny Jones, which he thought would appeal to me. It does!

Fire drill

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

I have been here at USE long enough now to know that we always have a fire drill at precisely 10.40 am on the second Thursday of term.

The first time it caught me by surprise. I was in the computer labs with a class of students and some of them were reluctant to leave until they had completed their work and properly logged out of the system.

Then Molly came into the room wearing a bright orange Fire Marshal's jacket, "Come on, come on" she said "This could be a real fire!"

She shepherded us out of the room, along the corridor and down the stairs where we merged with people coming from the floors higher up in the building.

Eventually we spilled out of the front door and onto the concourse where other staff who had been recruited as Fire Marshals made sure that we moved sufficiently far away from the building. Colin the caretaker was there too with a clipboard and a stopwatch.

Clusters of people who knew each other had formed, generally with students going one way and staff the other. I spotted Gus, Jack and Richard and went over to join them. By now most people seemed to be out of the building. But I noticed a group of several middle aged women that I didn't recognise. When I asked the others if they knew who they were I was told that they were from the Faculty Office on Floor 3. "You don't see them much" said Richard. "They don't usually come out from behind their security barrier!". "What do they do?" I asked. "Admin, Finance, Placements, Alumni. Lots of paperwork and form filling" said Gus.

By now a lot of people who had come out of the building had dispersed. Students who didn't have a follow up class at 11 had gone home or to the Library, Students' Union or the cafeteria.

Colin and Molly came over to us. "Seventeen minutes" said Colin. "Not very good. A lot of you might not have made it out if it had been a real fire".

Gus said "Anyone got a class now? If not, let's go to the cafeteria".

When we got there we found a long queue of people waiting for coffee. Richard volunteered to wait in the queue while the rest of us found a table.

When we were seated Gus said "These fire drills always remind me of that time in Boston when I went to the ASSA convention to give a paper back in the nineties." He told us that he had experienced a wearing transatlantic flight.There had been a lot of turbulence and he was very tired when he arrived at his hotel. As he was due to give a paper the next day he had decided to get an early night.

Around one o'clock in the morning he had been woken by a loud booming American voice that seemed to be coming from the ceiling. It said that there was fire alert and that we should leave the building immediately by the stairs. It turns out that in the hotel instead of a fire bell to alert people to a fire they had a pre-recorded message that they played through a special speaker system. Anyway, Gus told us that he grabbed his coat which he put on over his pajamas, put on some shoes and left his room. People were shuffling down the corridor towards the stairs. Some were fully dressed with hats and scarves on.

Gus said that he was on the eighteenth floor so it took ages to get down to ground floor level. Once outside he found that heavy snow was falling. It was nearly half an hour before he eventually got back to his room by which time he was very cold as well as tired. In fact he was so exhausted that he found it difficult to go back to sleep. And people were outside in the corridor talking about what had happened for quite a while too.

In the morning he asked the hotel receptionist if there had actually been a fire. No, he was told, it was just a student prank. Apparently some local college students had heard that the hotel was full of economists in the city for a convention (or conference as we would call it) and they thought it would be a laugh to set off the fire alarm to get them all out of the building.

"Some of those students might even be professors now" said Gus. "Or maybe even a Dean" he added as he looked out of the window to see Dr Paige Turner our Dean go past. "Didn't she get her degree from Harvard?!"

Gifts, bribes and threats

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

This morning when I arrived in the cafeteria Mike Rowe, Gus Johns and Bob Bunn were all taking about something they had read about in yesterday's newspapers. Apparently a Chinese student at the University of Bath had attempted to bribe his professor into passing his dissertation which had been classified as a failure. He put £5000 on the professor's desk. He said that he was a businessman and if the dissertation was given a pass the professor should keep the money and say no more about it. The professor was having none of it and told the student to take the money and leave immediately. He would be reported and punished for what was a very serious breach of university regulations and possibly even criminal activity. Then, as the student got up to leave, a starting pistol fell from his pocket so that the professor also felt threatened. The student was later arrested, charged and convicted and has now been sentenced to twelve months in prison.

"£5000 was not worth the risk then!" said Mike. "You cynical old economist!" said Gus in response. "Some people have absolute ethical standards about that kind of thing."

"Maybe most people" said Bob "but do you think that nobody at USE has ever taken a bribe?"

"It might not have been money" commented Mike "Maybe the odd sexual favour!"

"Well, I guess there are some bad apples in every barrel" said Gus, "But I can't believe that anyone in our department would respond to that kind of thing. And with the possibility of sacking and even imprisonment if you were caught, it would surely be too much of a risk to take".

"Aren't you allowed to accept any gifts from students?" I asked. "I thought that so long as you declared them to your Head of Department so that they were registered it was OK". "Yes" said Mike "but just token gifts at the end of the course once all the marking has been completed. The odd bottle of wine or box of chocolates. The Greeks often give you a bottle of ouzo, while the Chinese favour boxes of tea or good luck charms. Those kinds of thing are OK".

"Talking of bad apples" said Bob " reminds me of that Cypriot student back in the seventies who tried to bribe Martin with the crate of oranges from his family's citrus company."

"Yes" said Gus, "Martin tried to give them to a local vicar for some Vietnamese refugees he was looking after at the time, but the vicar wouldn't accept them. It was at the time that somebody was injecting dye or poison into oranges as an anti-Israeli protest and the vicar said that he couldn't be sure that the oranges he was being offered had not been affected."

"So what happened to the oranges?" I asked. "I think they just got dumped" said Gus.

"What about threats then?" I said. "Have we had any cases of students threatening staff if they don't get the grades they want?"

"Not exactly threats" said Mike, "But you do get all those tearful stories about the effect that failure or low grades will have on the students' parents who have forked out so much money in support of their dear little lovelies."

"Actually" said Bob "If I recall correctly that Cypriot student kept going on to us that that if he was to be kicked off the course and be sent home his father was in danger of dying. He had already had a by-pass operation and was very weak. We had the full medical picture described in great detail."

"Well" said Gus. "A couple of years after that I went on holiday to Cyprus and in the taxi ride from the airport to the resort the driver asked us if it was our first time in Cyprus. When we said that it was I mentioned that as I had taught economics to a number of Cypriot students back in England it was a place that I had really wanted to visit. The taxi driver asked me to give him some names of students that I had taught - perhaps he knew some of them. I thought it highly unlikely but one name I mentioned caused him to stop the car."

"Look" he said, pointing to the citrus groves on either side of the road. "These all belong to him"

"But" Gus continued "He is still only a young man - surely this is his father's business?"

"No. Very sad." said the driver "Didn't you know that when the young man came back here having been kicked out of your university for failing all his exams his father took it very badly. He had a bad heart condition and a few months later he had a massive heart attack that killed him. But the son must have learned some economics in England. The business has been even more successful under him than with his father."

Visiting a placement student

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

The other day I had to visit one of our undergraduate students who is on a work placement. It was an interesting day out at the UK headquarters of a multinational company in Uxbridge where Rachel Carroll has been working in the finance department. She is really enjoying her time there and says she has learned many new skills and a lot about working in a corporate environment.

USE has a special Placement Office to assist students who choose to apply for twelve month placement positions between the second and final years of their undergraduate degree programme. The Placement Office has contacts with many companies looking to recruit placement students (they often call the Interns) and advertises the jobs that are available both on notice boards and via the USE VLE. The Placement Office doesn't match students to jobs - it is up to the students themselves to apply for an advertised vacancy - but the people working in the office will offer advice on completing the application form, and putting together an accompanying CV and cover letter. They will also help them prepare for any online aptitude tests that they might be required to undertake and for an interview.

An increasing number of students are seeking placement positions even though our economics degree programme does not have a sandwich course structure as such. Some students find that, after a successful placement year, they will be offered a job or at least a further training position with the company. Even if that doesn't happen they will have gained valuable experience which will increase their employment chances after graduation. It also seems to be the case that students who have been on placements regularly achieve Upper Second and First Class Honours degrees as the whole experience has helped them mature and adopt good work practices. However, getting a work placement place is highly competitive so there may be more than a bit of self-selection bias here.

Anyway, as part of the placement programme each placement student will be visited by a member of the academic staff to talk to them, and the person at the company who is supervising them, to ensure that the placement is fulfilling its objectives. Hence my trip to Uxbridge.

First, let me tell you what went well (once I had got there!). I was met by Rachel and her supervisor who, to my surprise, didn't look much older than Rachel herself. It turned out that only three years earlier he himself had been a work placement student at the company so he was very much aware of what he needed to do in his supervisory role. Not too much, though, he said as Rachel had settled in very quickly, making the most of all the training opportunities being offered. Early on she had been given a data cleansing task to carry out which she completed very efficiently and soon found herself actually heading up projects and writing up reports for senior management. Our discussions took place over lunch in the staff restaurant (which is a little bit posher than the university cafeteria!). I should have got to Uxbridge by coffee time but, despite leaving home early, I hadn't anticipated quite such long delays due to an accident on the M25 which meant that I was nearly two hours late arriving. And it was just as bad on the way home. I am thankful that I only have a short commute to work at USE.

If any students who might be interested in applying for a work placement are reading this blog, please note the following. 1 Start applying early - right at the beginning of your second year as the vacancies have usually gone by the New Year. 2 Do make sure that you make use of the help that can be provided by the Placement Office. They won't match you with a job but they will help you in lots of other ways. 3 Remember, you will get paid while on placement. I am told that the current average salary is somewhere between £15K and £17K. 4 On completion of a successful placement year you will be awarded a USE Certificate of Professional Practice. Good luck!

Staff appraisal

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

I had my annual Staff Appraisal the other day. Mike Rowe has delegated some of the appraisals to his deputy Gus Johns and I was one of these. Of course I chat to Gus quite regularly so much of what was said in the meeting was just revisiting previous conversations. You may remember that as my mentor Gus had asked me before whether or not I was ambitious - if I was perhaps I should look to moving on as it was often harder to gain promotion in the department where you have been working for some time than moving on and moving up.

Of course there is paperwork to deal with for the appraisal. The appraisee has to submit a form to the appraiser before the meeting in which he or she reflects on how well the priorities and targets agreed that were agreed at the previous appraisal have been met and also to set down what will be the main priorities and targets for the coming year. Then there is a section for the appraisee to request any staff development help that he thinks may be appropriate. When the appraisal is being conducted by someone other than the Head of Department, as in my case, It can be a bit unrealistic if these requests carry with them direct financial costs, or even indirect ones if you are asking for relief from teaching or other duties. Only the Head of Department can really make such budgetary and time off decisions so Gus would not be able to make me any binding promises.

I was happy that my targets for the previous year had been achieved, in terms of publications, teaching and administrative duties. Gus asked me first about my teaching as he knows that I enjoy it. Was I happy with the modules that I was looking after? Had there been any issues that had been flagged up in student consultations or via the External Examiner? I referred him to the reports that I had produced for each of my modules at the end of the teaching year and to the supportive comments from the External Examiner.

Next he asked about my research. Although I have enough good papers for me to be entered into the Research Excellence Framework exercise maybe I should try to aim a bit higher in terms of the journals to which I submitted. I said that this was exactly what I was attempting to do as he would see from the section of the form where I outlined my plans for the next year.

Gus then asked about administrative duties. For the last two years I had taken on responsibility for Open Days and Preview Days. The Open Days were times at which potential students and their parents could visit the university to find out more about the courses we offer and all the other important matters that might affect a student's choice about where to study. These days were mainly for students currently taking their "A" levels before they had actually completed their UCAS forms. Preview Days on the other hand were for later in the year when students were clear about where they wanted to go but before the "A" level results were out. On these occasions more specific information about accommodation, books and other equipment that would be needed for the course etc. would be given. For each type of occasion I had to make a presentation, coordinate with the other staff assigned to the particular day (everybody was supposed to be involved on at least one occasion a year but it didn't always seem to work out that way), and recruit student helpers who could show people round and provide a picture of what it is like to study economics at USE. I also had to liaise with the Marketing Department and the Registry. By and large I enjoyed the experience and I felt that the high proportion of people who actually went on to apply to us after coming to an Open Day session was a mark of how well we had been doing.

Gus said that everyone agreed that I was doing a great job, but maybe I should think about taking on some other role in order to freshen up my CV. Mike had told him that he would like to rotate some of these roles this year so what did I think about being admissions tutor, peer observation coordinator, staff seminar organiser, exams officer, library coordinator or final year tutor? I said that given the choice it would be one of the final four rather than the first two, but I guess it also depended on what other people wanted to do.

Gus then said that, off the record, I should try to avoid taking on anything that was too much of a burden and distraction from my research.The reality was that promotion these days was primarily down to research output, publications and successful grant applications. Although the smooth running of the department depended on people taking their administrative roles seriously he felt that maybe it should be down to the established members of staff like himself to do the time consuming jobs, allowing the younger staff to get on with their teaching and research. He suggested that I offered to take on the role of staff seminar organiser, or maybe library coordinator as he had heard that I wanted to work more closely with people in the Library (he winked at me as he made this last comment and I realised he knew about me and Jenny!).

I asked Gus whether he knew what research money would be available to us next year. Was the Dean sticking to the same allocation and distribution mechanisms as this year or had there been any proposals for change. Gus said that there should have been an item about this on the staff meeting agenda. There would be no automatic individual budgets this year. Instead you would apply to the Head of Department who would have discretion over where to allocate the money. But if I was looking for money to finance a conference attendance it would probably be OK so long as I was presenting a paper.

After asking me if there was any other points I wished to raise he said that I should complete the final section of the form where I should outline my version of the discussions we had had and return it to him within a week for him to agree and sign off.

Economics jokes and cartoons

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

Gus was talking again in the cafeteria about how to lighten things up in his lectures with the odd joke or cartoon - preferably related to the topic in hand. I asked him where he got them from. "Lots of places" he said. "But you could start with JokEc"

Here is one they have included that is from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams, Chapter 16. Not so much a joke but a nice quote. 'Arthur awoke to the sound of argument and went to the bridge. Ford was waving his arms about. "You're crazy Zaphod," he was saying, "Magrathea is a myth a fairy story, it's what parents tell their kids about at night if they want them to grow up to be economists, it's..." '

And here is a light bulb joke from JokEc - there are lot's more there.

Q: How many Chicago School economists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None. If the light bulb needed changing the market would have already done it.

Gus said that he always looked at Ted Goff's business cartoons - have a look at this one for example. Or this one

Randy Glasbergen also has some great cartoons too - look here

And you should never forget Dilbert! After all Scott Adams studied economics. Here are a few you might like http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1996-10-27/ ; http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-02-19/ ;http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-11-21/ ; http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-10-18/

Here is another source but it doesn't get updated very frequently

xkcd is more maths related but some cartoons can be relevant - see for example

And this one reminded me of the great JAY-Z spoof by the metrics gang from Berkeley

Kal's cartoons in The Economist are sometimes useful. If for no other reason you can include them just to remind the students to read The Economist!

Or you can just do a Google search with the word cartoon followed by a relevant keyword. Like this one ; or this one on oil prices

And to end with here are a couple of econometrics related cartoons http://sdickman00.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/regression-analysis1.jpg ; http://tvhe.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/phd100108s.gif

Lunchboxes and olives

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

Going to the cafeteria for lunch today I remembered that it was Thursday and so it would be extra busy.Thursday is the day that they do their curry special, either chicken, prawn or the vegetarian chickpea, sweet potato and spinach option. Many people think this is the best food that they do in the cafeteria and so Thursday is always the busiest day.

Of course, despite the requirement that you should only eat food sold in the cafeteria many people bring their own lunchboxes. Bob Bunn has a nice little tupperware box that he brings in every day with a range of meze items bought from Marks and Spencer on Sunday. It will always include dolmades (vine leaves stuffed with rice), keftethes (meatballs) and a few Kalamata olives. It makes me laugh because I am Greek but I prefer the cafetria's cheese and tomato paninis.

Chaz Carter makes his own bread and always brings his own sandwiches using his home baked bread. Sometimes it is onion bread, sometimes sundried tomato flavoured, sometimes it is covered in sesame seeds. It always looks very nice but the slices are so big Chaz has to open his mouth really wide in order to take a bite.

Younis Khan from Pakistan brings in his own neat container with the Asian food that his wife has specially prepared for him. He says that he wouldn't dream of eating what the cafeteria calls curry.

Then there is the chap from the Accounting Department who, every day, religiously places a Mars bar on a plate and cuts it into small slices using a knife and fork. Then he uses the fork to pick up each slice individually. Slightly weird! And that reminds me of the woman from Social Studies who gets out a wet wipe to clean up her cutlery before she eats. Obviously she doesn't think that the cafeteria dishwasher can be trusted.

There are some staff that never eat in the cafeteria. They come in for a takeaway sandwich which they take back to their offices and eat at their desks. They probably get crumbs all over their computer keyboards! And then there are some people who come in occasionally but usually go out to somewhere in town for lunch. They probably do a bit of shopping while they are there too.

There is a little group from the Maths department who sit in the corner doing the Times crossword every day. And some people use the cafeteria as an office. Maybe they are part-time staff who don't have an office, or maybe they just don't want to be bothered by students who would find them if they were in their offices. You also get really noisy groups whose conversation overwhelms any other talk. Mind you, I think our little group of economists is often a bit like that. So apologies to anyone reading this who gets annoyed with our raucous laughter. We don't mean to be a nuisance - honestly!

Dr Mavros is coming

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

As soon as I arrived in the cafeteria for coffee this morning I realised that I had made a serious mistake in posting yesterday's blog. Richard and Jack were there, and Dimitris and Petros. And they all rose from the table to greet me saying "Here he is", and "How did it go last night?" and "Did you and Jenny have a good time?". "Please" I begged "Not so public!"

I told them that it had been a very nice evening, that we had both enjoyed the film (it was a good choice I told Jack) and that I would be seeing Jenny again. But that was all I was going to say. From now on I would be more discreet about what I wrote on my blog. I needed to remember that a blog is on the public record and not a private diary.What if Jenny herself should read it?

"So what else is news?" I asked.

"Dr. Mavros is coming" said Richard. "He accepted the offer straight away after last week's interview and will be joining us in September."

"Actually" added Jack "the concerns that we all had about him at the shortlisting stage seem to have been unfounded. He gave a pretty good mini-lecture in the morning and apparently captivated old Paige Turner in the afternoon interview." Paige Turner is the Dean. She is from the United States and is notoriously hard to impress. "Yes - it wasn't just the fact that he has great publications and the promise of an EU grant that he can bring with him - he is quite a character". Jack said that he had turned up for the interview in a black t-shirt rather than in a suit.

When Paige Turner had commented on this he had responded by asking whether she wanted to hire him to do research or just to look good. Turner was quite disarmed and was almost flirting with him. The other candidates didn't stand a chance.

I asked what was his area of expertise, having not seen his CV. Richard said that most of his work was on discrimination of various types, involving race, gender, age, even sexual orientation - in both labour and housing markets. In fact he had a paper on the topic in the latest Quarterly Journal of Economics. "You might be able to work with him Kostas, as that is something you have worked on too isn't it?"

Richard said that Mike Rowe, our Head of Department, was really excited about Mavros joining the department. And he might even arrive before September. His current post is in Cyprus and he is keen to get out of there as soon as he can. I could understand that in some ways but I think if it was me I would have wanted to spend at least the first part of the summer in Cyprus before coming to England.

Richard said that he had heard Mike talking to Gus about whether Mavros might be the man to take over as Head of Department when Mike's current term was up. "But what about Gus himself, or Tony Steel?" I asked. "Oh no" said Richard. "Gus definitely doesn't want the job. He has been happy in his role as Deputy but he enjoys the teaching and he would have to give up most of that so that he could get to all the meetings if he became Head." "And Tony has his eyes set on a bigger prize. He wants to be Dean" said Jack. Richard said he might be deluding himself if that was his plan. He thought that Paige Turner would want another term of office in that role before she moved on.

Well, at least all this talk of faculty politics had got people away from the subject of my personal life. What a relief!

A visit to the Library

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

I didn't go to the cafeteria yesterday lunchtime. Instead I went to the Library for a browse and then a snack in the Library coffee bar. I don't go to the Library much these days. With all our journals available online in electronic form, and with any data that I might need accessible via the network, there is no real need. It is a shame really as one of the real pleasures that I had as a Masters student was working in the university library. Search tools are a very efficient way of tracking down relevant papers, and with automated contents alerts for journals too you should be able to get hold of anything you require from your desk, or even on the move via your laptop. But you do miss out on the times when you just stumbled serendipitously on something that you weren't really looking for but turned out to be of great interest.

I also used to like browsing through the more popular periodicals like the New Statesman and New Scientist. I do get tweets these days from people who point me in the direction of interesting articles in these magazines but I miss out on the letters page and other smaller items.

Wandering around the Library for the first time in a while I noticed that things have been configured rather differently from how they used to be. There are still shelves of books, but not so much space is devoted to journals. I guess we only subscribe to electronic versions of most of them now.

As well as the desks and benches where students were sitting working, usually with their laptop or iPad out rather than a notepad, there were also a number of round communal tables for students to work together in groups. It wasn't noisy, but there were conversations going on as presentations or project work was being planned or put together. In the old days you would soon have been hushed if you spoke in anything louder than a whisper.

After perusing the racks where the newly acquired books were on display I left the Library itself and went through to the Library coffee bar. It doesn't have the full range of food and drink that you can get in the cafeteria but I was able to get a coffee and a nice sandwich for my lunch.

I looked around hoping to see Jenny Jones, or some other friendly face but, apart from a few economics students who I recognised, there was nobody there that I knew.

I found a seat in the corner at a table where someone had left a copy of the university newspaper. The main story was all about a scam that was being attempted on students in rented accommodation. Men would turn up at the house saying that the landlord had sent them to undertake repairs to the shower. Once inside they would steal any easy to grab items - money, mobile phones, even laptops. The police were warning students not to admit anyone who didn't have proper looking identification. If you were not sure about someone there was a number to ring. The police had held a meeting with some of the main landlords and had asked them to inform their tenants in writing ahead of any work that needed to be done, and to arrange specific times for the work to be carried out, preferably when either the landlord or a student could be present.

As I was reading the story I suddenly became aware of someone at my shoulder. Turning round I saw that it was Jenny. "Can I join you?" she said. "Oh, please do" I replied and she sat down next to me with her cup of tea and tuna baguette.

I tentatively entered into conversation with her, remarking that she had done awfully well on the film questions in last week's pub quiz. She said that she really loved the movies. In fact, apart from travelling, watching movies was probably her biggest hobby. Remembering Jack Cork's suggestion that I should ask Jenny to go with me to the film club and that there was a Woody Allen movie showing this week I took the plunge and asked Jenny if she wanted to go with me. She said that she had been planning to go herself but that it would be great if we went together. I said that would be excellent and perhaps we might meet for a drink beforehand. "Why not?" she said. "We need to be at the film club by about 7.15 in time for the 7.30 start. Maybe we can meet at The Ship at around 6.15. She said that we ought to book tickets in advance as you can't always get in if you just turn up without a ticket. She said I could leave that to her - she would do it online when she got back to her desk in the Library.

We chatted a bit more. I showed her the story about the workmen scam in the paper. After a while she said that she had to be getting back, and off she went. I noticed then that I hadn't drunk any of my coffee which was now cold. Never mind I thought - I may have a cold coffee but I have got a hot date!

Acronyms

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

A few of my recent posts have included the use of acronyms for institutions, surveys etc. (HEFCE, HEIs,NSS). One reader of my blog has contacted me to say that I shouldn't assume that everyone knows what these acronyms relate to and, at least on the first occasion that I include them, I should spell them out in full, or possibly put in a link to a web page that provides that information. I think that is probably a fair point and it started me thinking about how many acronyms we come across in every day life, or in the more specialised area of higher education and in studying economics at degree level.

I assume that everybody knows by now that USE stands for the University of the South of England. Hopefully if I mention the BBC I won't have to spell that out in full. But I have tried to sort out a few acronyms under various categories that an economics lecturer or student ought to know about. If you think I have omitted any important ones please let me know.

Education related acronyms

1 HEFCE - or perhaps it should be hefce (Higher Education Funding Council) ; 2 UCAS (University and College Admissions Service) ; 3 HESA ( Higher Education Statistics Agency) ; 4 DfE (Department for Education) ; 5 HEI (Higher Education Institution) ; 6 CNAA (Council for National Academic Awards) ; 7 CATS (Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme) ; 8 GNVQ (General Vocational Qualification) ; QAA (The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) ; 9 UCE (University and College Union; 10 NSS (National Student Survey) ; 11 REF (Research Excellence Framework) ; 12 FTE (Full Time Equivalent) ; 13 SLA (Service Level Agreement) ;

Economics and business institutions etc.

1 IMF (International Monetary Fund) ; 2 OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) ; 3 WTO (World Trade Organization) 4 GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) ; 5 HMT (Her Majesty's Treasury) ; 6 OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) ; 7 ECB (European Central Bank) ; 8 IFS (Institute for Fiscal Studies) ; 9 NIESR (National Institute of Economic and Social Research) ; 10 NBER (National Bueau of Economic Research - USA) ; 11 CBI (Confederation of British Industry) ; 12 IOD (Institute of Directors) ; 13 NEF (New Economics Foundation) ; 14 OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) 15 FSA (Financial Services Authority) (now replaced by the FCA - Financial Conduct Authority ).

Economics societies and associated services

1 RES (Royal Economic Society) ; 2 AEA (American Economic Association) ; 3 ASSA (Allied Social Science Association) ; 4 RFE (Resources for Economists on the Internet)

Economics Journals

1 EJ (Economic Journal) ; 2 AER (American Economic Review) ; 3 JEL (Journal of Economic Literature) ; 4 JEP (Journal of Economic Perspectives); 5 AEJ (American Economic Journal) 6 JSTOR ; 7 JPE (Journal of Political Economy) ; 8 QJE (Quarterly Journal of Economics) ; 9 RES or REStud (Review of Economic Studies) ; 10 REStats (Review of Economics and Statistics) 11 EHR (Economic History Review) ; 12 SJPE (Scottish Journal of Political Economy) ; 13 EER (European Economic Review) ; 14 EJLE (European Journal of Law and Economics) ; 15 IER (International Economic Review) ; 16 IJF (International Journal of Forecasting) ; 17 JOBES (Journal of Business and Economic Statistics) ; 18 JASA (Journal of the American Statistical Association) ; 19 JOES (Journal of Economic Surveys) ; 20 JRSS (Journal of the Royal Statistical Society) ; 21 JET (Journal of Economic Theory) ; 22 JEF (Journal of Economics and Finance) ; 23 JF (Journal of Finance) http://www.afajof.org/details/landingpage/2866131/About-the-JF.html ; 24 JLE (Journal of Law and Economics) ; 25 JMCB (Journal of Money, Credit and Banking) ; 26 JRS (Journal of Regional Science) ; 27 JTSA (Journal of Time Series Analysis) ; 28 OEP (Oxford Economic Papers ) ; 29 CJE (Cambridge Journal of Economics) ;30 SJE (Scandinavian Journal of Economics); 31 IREE (International Review of Economics Education) 32 CHEER (Computers in Higher Education Economics Review)

There is a full list of economics journals here --> http://www.oswego.edu/~economic/journals.htm

Newspapers 1 FT (Financial Times) ; 2 WSJ (Wall Street Journal)

Data sources

1 ONS (Office for National Statistics) ; 2 FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data - US) ; 3 PWT (Penn World Tables) ; 4 EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit)

There are links to lots of economics data sources on the rfe site.

Software

1 SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences or Statistical Product and Service Solutions) ; 2 Stata (Statistical Analysis)

There is a full list of statistics and econometrics software on the rfe site.

Economic concepts

1 AC (Average Cost) ; AVC (Average Variable Cost) ; 3 OLS (Ordinary Least Squares); 4 CES (Constant Elasticity of Substitution) ; 5 PACF (Partial Autocorrelation Function) ; 6 IROR (Internal Rate of Return) ; 7 NPV (Net Present Value) ; 8 RPI (Retail Price Index) ; 9 CPI (Consumer Price Index) ; 10 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) ; 11 GNP (Gross National Product); 12 VAT (Value Added Tax) ; 13 CBA (Cost-Benefit Analysis) ; 14 B2B (Business to business) ; 15 SME (Small and Medium size Enterprise)

Quiz

How many of these non-economics acronyms do you know?

1 HMSO, 2 DVLA, 3 GCHQ, 4 NATO, 5 JPEG, 6 KPMG, 7 OFSTED, 8 SATS, 9 TEFL, 10 YHA.

Pub quiz

Hello. My names is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

I had a really nice evening yesterday at the staff pub quiz held in the staff bar. Our team, the Econoclasts, consisting of me, Jack Cork and Richard Gardener, didn't do very well. In fact we lost out in the first round to the Bibliophile team from the Library. But Jenny Jones was in that team and I did get to have a nice chat with her later in the evening. I might even have a date with her soon!

Actually we did OK on the economics and politics questions (as you would expect). So we knew that the Office for Budget Responsibility's GDP growth forecast for the year is 0.6%, that the new Governor of the Bank of England is Mark Carney and that the full title of Adam Smith's famous book is "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.". We were quite good too on the football and pop music questions. There isn't much that Richard doesn't know about the Beatles and we all spend far too much time watching and reading about football. We know that Sunderland are the Black Cats and Hull City are the Tigers! Jack covers eighties music and I surprised my self in being able to answer a question about Emile Sande. I saw her on Jools Holland's TV programme and was knocked out by her singing. But we fell down a bit on the questions about art, theatre and literature. I know something about the Pre-Raphaelite painters but we couldn't identify which painter had painted which picture. We all knew that Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright but we couldn't say which play Judge Brack was in. It was embarrassing too that we couldn't answer a question on Charles Dickens' characters. Needless to say the Bibliophile team was pretty hot on these areas. And Jane had a very good knowledge of the movies.

The Bibliophile team didn't make it through to the final though, losing out to the team from the Maths Department called the Primes. Actually they were very good and went on to win the final where they came up against a team called The Milky Way, which had two people from the Astronomy Department and the Manager of the Cafeteria.

I had a really nice chat with Jenny after the final while we enjoyed the refreshments that you get at these quiz sessions. I found out that she comes from St Albans, went to Nottingham Trent University and loves travelling and the movies. She even said that she would be happy to come with me sometime to the Film Club which is in town, just behind the railway station. When I told Jack this he said "What! You just left it at as a possibility that you might go out with her to the film club at some unspecified time. Get back to her at once and ask her to go with you next Tuesday evening. They are showing Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. That would be a great movie for a first date." Yes. Perhaps I should give her a call later today and see if she will come with me next week.

Staff meetings

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

I wonder if it is the same in other departments here at USE, or indeed in various departments at other universities? Staff meeting discussions just seem to go on about the same old issues year in year out. It's like Groundhog Day. Why isn't there enough car parking space and how can we prevent students from parking in designated staff places? Why are there always problems with the networked printers - why are they always jammed or out of paper? Why don't some lecturers from other departments vacate teaching rooms at ten minutes to the hour as they are supposed to do so that staff and students have time to get their classes started on the hour? Why do some lecturers use the wrong kind of pens on the white boards so that they leave a permanent mark? Why are teaching rooms so cold on the first day of term because the heating has been switched off over the vacation and does not come on again early enough for the rooms to be warm for the first scheduled class?

Of course these are all important issues but somehow they never seem to get solved so that we just return to them again and again at each successive staff meeting. And we spend so much time going over the same old ground that there is barely enough time to discuss important new topics like the Dean's Faculty restructuring plan and the cutback in teaching time for each module that the university is imposing. Or the new security system which means that you have to carry an electronic campus card with you at all times or you won't be able to get into some buildings. I can understand why some colleagues don't ever come to staff meetings because they say they have heard it all before and nothing ever gets done to change things.

And why do the minutes of the meetings never bear much correspondence with what was actually said. Sometimes I think they are written before the meeting even takes place. Well, I suppose as the discussion is so similar to what took place on the previous occasion all Molly needs to do is just edit the minutes from last time.

Gus says that actually the topics do change - over decades anyway. He says that in the 1970s it was the state of the toilets not the printing that always came up. But then again at that time everyone got their work typed up by one of the three departmental secretaries that we used to have - you didn't have to word process and print your work yourself. It reminded him of one of the secretaries, Sally, who seemed to have the knack of incorporating every kind of Freudian slip into your work. Public sector became pubic sector, interest rates became incest rates, homogeneous became homosexual, and externalities became externatities! She may have done the typing for you but you certainly had to check the work carefully and make sure the changes were made before copies of the handouts were prepared to give to students. Of course it might just have been that the lecturers' writing was illegible and Sally did the best she could to interpret the scribblings.

Now that has reminded me of another important issue that we should have debated more fully at the last Staff meeting - the ruling that we must limit our handouts for students to just the initial module handbook. Everything else must be put up in electronic form of the VLE. Apparently it is part of the university's Green Agenda - to reduce the use of paper wherever possible.They say that students are happy with the plan and that these days they all use mobile phones and iPads. But I have seen students printing off everything from the VLE, saying that they still want to have a physical hard copy of course materials. The trouble is that they might print off the notes but in some cases there is precious little evidence that they have ever read them. Maybe we should just give them video clips to watch and do away with written material altogether? Or perhaps we should go back to getting them to write things down as we used to do. At least that way the ideas might pass through their brains once.

Now, listen to me. I have gone off on a rant about students when I started by complaining about colleagues going over the same old ground in staff meetings. Moan, moan, moan, moan. I must resolve to be more positive and forward looking!

Staff affairs

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

I had to pop in to Molly May's office this morning to leave a finance expenses form for Mike Rowe to sign. I couldn't get away for ages as she wanted to talk to me about what she calls my "Love Life". "Hello dear" she said, "Did you have a nice Easter break?" I replied that it had been a nice break away from teaching and meetings and that I had caught up a bit on my research.

"You really need to get out more, dear, and have some fun." said Molly. I protested that I had spent a very nice evening last week with Jack and his wife Fiona, and that I had also met up with Jack, Richard and Sian in the pub a couple of times. And I do get out quite often going to the cinema and football with Jack, Petros and Dimitris. "They are all happily married" she replied. You need a girlfriend" "What about Sian? She is a lovely girl. Why don't you ask her out somewhere?"

I said that I like Sian very much; she is good company but I didn't think we were suited in a more serious way. "Well are there any other potential girlfriends we can find for you I wonder?" said Molly. I said that I did used to have a girlfriend back in Greece, Maria. "And when did you last see her?" asked Molly. I said that it was probably in 2011 when I was last in Greece. Molly said I must be kidding myself if I thought she would still be interested in me. Had she been in touch by email or phone? Not even Facebook. Forget her!

Then she laughed. "You know there was a rumour going round that you were having an affair with your cleaner!" she said. "What! Kylie! Why would anyone think that?" I exploded. "Well you do get in to work very early and have been seen spending a lot of time talking to her" said Molly. "That is ridiculous" I responded. "I bet it was Colin the caretaker who started that rumour just for a laugh."

"Well there are some affairs going on in this building" said Molly. "I could tell you about one of the Professors in another department who is having a fling with his secretary. They go out together for very long lunch breaks. And there was that couple in Marketing. They got married eventually but were seeing each other for a long time before that." "But they were both already divorced" I pointed out. "There was nothing sordid about it. "

"And what about Gus Johns?" said Molly. "You can often see him in the cafeteria chatting up that girl in Computer Science". "Don't be silly Molly" I said. "Gus has been happily married to Heather for years. And anyway the Computer Science girl is gay. She and Gus just have a mutual interest in the use of social media in education." And at that point I decided I had had enough of this conversation so I left.

Sitting here now though I am thinking that maybe I should make more of an effort to find a girlfriend. And then I remembered that there was going to be another Pub Quiz Social Evening soon. And last time I had really enjoyed the company of Jenny from the Library. I wonder if she will be there again this time?

Then and now

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

When I joined Gus Johns and Bob Bunn in the cafeteria this morning they were reminiscing about old times at USE. Bob had commented about how the university had changed since they both arrived in the 1970s. Then all the staff were from the British Isles (except of course Ted Engel, the Head of Department, who had come to Britain as a refugee from Poland). And the students were mainly British too, although there were a few Greek Cypriots and students from Hong Kong and Malaysia. Now things are very international on both the student and staff side. Gus said that he had recently worked out that over the years he has taught students at USE from over fifty different countries. The turning point had been in the late 1980s when the department had expanded its Masters programme and been more proactive in recruiting PhD students. There was a big influx of students from China and Africa at that time. Gus said he remembered some wonderful international food evenings that we used to have in the nineties, before we moved to the new building. The postgraduate students were allowed to take over the refectory kitchen for the night and cook dishes from their own countries' cuisine. It was a shame that we didn't do that kind of thing any more.

On the staff side things have changed quite a bit too. First we had appointed a couple of Greeks, then a Pakistani and now we had Italian, French, German, Latvian and Australian colleagues. In fact only one of the last six appointments had been a Brit. Gus reminded Bob that we did have an Indian guy in the department back in the 1970s, Dilip Rao, who sadly died far too young at the age of only 30 after he had a knee operation. Yes, Bob had said, but although he was born in India he had been to school and university over here.

Gus commented that we did have quite a few visiting lecturers here from overseas before we started appointing them to permanent posts. There was Yoko from Japan, not to mention others from Norway, Canada and Sierra Leone whose names he had forgotten.

Returning to the student mix, Gus said that as well as becoming more international, with a large number of exchange students from Spain and Germany, in terms of the British students things had become more localised. Where once we recruited students from all over England, and particularly South Wales, nowadays most of our British students tended to be from London and the South East. More students were living at home and coming to their local university, probably an inevitable consequence of the changes to the fee regime. But today's British students do come from more varied ethnic backgrounds with British born Asian, African and West Indian family histories.

Gus remembered the teenage Italian students that we used to get during the summer vacations. In the old building the teaching rooms were along the same corridor as the staff offices and it was so noisy that you could hardly hear yourself think. Bob recalled the time when a couple of amorous Italian students had been snogging up against Martin's office door. He went outside and said "Would you like to come in here and make yourselves more comfortable?" No wonder they ran off!

Bob then took the conversation back to the 1970s, asking Gus if he remembered the long all day meetings they had had revamping the degree programme. Ted Engel never left the room, not even for a comfort break, and they had wondered if he had a specially adapted chair! But good old Dermot, who liked his Guinness, had to excuse himself on a number of occasions. We had to cover for him and tell Ted that he wasn't very well and that something he had consumed at lunch had disagreed with him!

Talking of degree revamps, Gus recalled the incisive comments of Meghnad Desai when he had been brought in as an adviser in the 1980s. He had immediately spotted that the four undergraduate programmes that we had planned, Business Economics, Natural Resource Economics, Political Economy and "straight" Economics could be labelled as the Blue, Green, Red and White pathways.

Thinking of Dermot, Gus remembered that, through Dermot's connections, we used to hold Staff-Student Socials at the local Irish Club. He remembered the band that used to play with the old woman on the drums and her little dog that had peed up against the base drum. Bob then reminded Gus of a later social event at the end of the eighties when he and Tom Roberts had done their Hale and Pace type act. Gus laughed and said that it was intended only to be a short semi-scripted act but, responding to the student heckling, they had just gong on a roll for nearly an hour. I asked who Hale and Pace were - a popular comedy double act of the time I was told - look them up on Wikipedia.

Gus and Bob remembered chatting about the jobs they had all done as students in the vacation. Gus had been a gravedigger, Bob a bus conductor, and other colleagues had been taxi drivers, sold donuts on the beach, or worked as an ice-cream delivery driver. Nowadays students would look for jobs that would give them work experience and help them build up their CVs. In the old days you just wanted to earn some money and get away from studying for a while.

Gus and Bob then talked about how in the eighties they all used to play table-tennis at lunchtime. In the new building there was no room for that kind of leisure activity. It was a pity really as all they did now was sit in the cafeteria and drink too much coffee.

Gus said that in many ways things had been better in the old days. He still enjoyed the teaching and the research but these days there was too much form filling and, with the big class sizes, massive amounts of marking with a requirement for very detailed feedback for each student (even if quite a few of them never even collected their marked coursework). Once we had lecture groups of 40 to 50, now the group sizes are usually 150 or more.

Bob asked Gus why he didn't retire. He could always come back and do a bit of part-time teaching to keep up his contact with students and to maintain the social links with the university. He might even become eligible for the Last of the Summer Wine ex-staff dining club! Gus said he would think about it. With the VC himself going next year that might be the time to go - and leave the brave new world to younger people, he said, looking at me.

Rumours

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

When I got to the cafeteria this morning today I found the place in uproar with a whole range of rumours swirling around. Some were just about things happening here at USE but there was also one more general HEFCE related issue.

Gus, Richard, Jack, Sian and Bob Bunn were all there, with several people from other departments joining in the frantic discussion. The biggest local issue was the rumour that the university is to close the Physics Department and make all the academic staff redundant. The unions had been given no warning of this and John Hansen, the Business School union rep, was fuming.

But on top of this there were several other rumours in the air. Departmental timetablers had been told that for the next academic year, in addition to evening sessions, they might have to schedule classes on Saturdays and possibly even Sundays.

Then we heard that in 2016 there was a plan to make some undergraduate courses into two year degrees by squeezing in a "fourth term" during the summer months.

As if that wasn't enough some people had heard that all staff would be required to attend an "Enterprise Awareness Workshop" to ensure that we would be able to provide support and encouragement to students who want to set up their own businesses.

Another rumour concerned the replacement of the Campus Card that we use to swipe our way into university buildings with a new card which would contain an RFID chip so that staff whereabouts could be tracked at all times.

And lastly there was the story that HEFCE plans to introduce a supermarket style "traffic light" system for universities and degree programmes to make it easier for potential students and their parents to see where there were good quality courses, NSS scores, support services and employment prospects. Green (good) would indicate that the university or course was rated in the top 20%, amber (satisfactory) would apply to the next 40% while red (poor) would indicate a bottom 40% rating.

When the turmoil had subsided and people from other departments had left I heard Bob Bunn quietly say to Gus that he should not get too exited as he (Bob) had personally started several of these rumours himself, just to see whether they would be believed and how quickly they would spread.

Gus smiled but told Bob that he really had to be careful making up radical ideas even only in fun. Some people higher up in the university might latch on to them and put them into practice. He was reminded of the 1980s TV series "A Very Peculiar Practice" by Andrew Davies, set in a university health centre. Whenever the university writer in residence came up with an off the wall idea it subsequently actually came to pass!

Smokers' Corner

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

We had an email the other day from the Dean to remind those of us who smoke that they shouldn't smoke within 20 metres of the entrance to the building. Ideally they should go to the special smokers' shelter next to the bike sheds.

As I am not a smoker it doesn't affect me directly, but I do agree that it is not very pleasant entering or leaving the building when you have to pass through a haze of smoke from people smoking close to the entrance.

It is interesting to see who the smokers are. Gus reckons that there is over representation from Heads of Department and faculty managers (but not the Dean herself, of course). Gus says that he hasn't established the direction of causation - do they smoke because of the extra pressures that they are under or are people who smoke more ambitious? Anyway, he suggests, most of the key policy decisions are probably taken by the little smoking group outside the building before later getting nodded through at the Faculty Executive Committee.

It is interesting to see who smokes what too. Some seem to go for vey upmarket brands, while others prefer to smoke rather weedy roll your own ciggies. There is even a pipe smoker amongst them who likes vanilla flavoured tobacco.

The university has a heavily promoted "Smoking Cessation Programme". Whay can't they just call it a "Stop smoking" or even a "Quit smoking" programme? I sometimes wonder what it consists of. Do they provide free nicotine patches, special hypnosis sessions or is it just individual or group counselling?

I'm lucky, I suppose, that I never started smoking as we all know that nicotine is highly addictive and it must be difficult to kick the habit once you have been smoking for a while.

I do remember one of the lecturers who taught me when I was a student who managed to give up - but he then seemed to get through about four packets of mints every day.

It must cost a lot of money to smoke these days. I decided to look online to find out. I came across an interesting website for the Tobacco Manufacturers Association (TMA) at They say that popular brands now cost an average of £7.98 for a packet of 20. So if you smoke 20 cigarettes a day that would be nearly £56 a week or about £2900 a year. That is a lot of money -- more than I spend on coffee for sure!

Actually there is a lot of very interesting information on the TMA website, although of course they try to use the information there to lobby for reductions in tax and excise duty. Apparently 77% of the price of a pack of cigarettes goes in tax and duty. The total tax revenue from cigarette sales in the UK in the tax year 2011-2012 was about £12.1 billion - £9.5 billion in excise duty and £2.6 billion in VAT.

According to the TMA about 20% of the population over the age of 16 are smokers. That works out to over 10 million people. This is down from 27% in 2000. They also refer to the effect of the "duty escalator" which was introduced in 1993 which automatically put up cigarette prices by more than the rate of inflation until 2000 when it was temporarily put on hold. Because of the rapid rise in the price of cigarettes over this period the TMA argue that there was also an increase in what they call Non UK Duty Paid (NUKDP) consumption - that is cigarettes legally brought in from other EU member states where prices are lower, or smuggled in illegally. This could mean that HMRC missed out on up to £3 billion of tax revenue over that period.

I know that one of the exercises that students taking the econometrics module have to do is to model cigarette demand with a view to estimating the price elasticity of demand for cigarettes. Of course because of their addictive nature this is quite small (cigarettes are price inelastic). There has always been a debate about whether the large excise duty is there to deter consumption or just to raise tax revenue. To be fair, the government has spent a lot of money over the years on anti-smoking propaganda and forcing cigarette manufacturers to display ever stronger messages about the negative health effects of smoking. And now cigarettes must be hidden away from public view in shops and supermarkets. Let's hope it works - although it will make it harder for our students to model the effects of these non-quantitative factors. But that will just make it a more interesting task!

Gender balance

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

The recent 2013 Royal Economic Society conference, held at Royal Holloway University of London, included a special session organised by the Womens Committee called State of Play: Female Economists in Academia, Business and Government. Professor Karen Mumford of the University of York gave a presentation on the Relative Position of Female Economists in UK Academia, while Bronwyn Curtis from the Society of Business Economists led on Women in Business and Helen Carrier from the Government Equalities Office led on Women in the Government Economic Service. As I wasn't at the conference I can't report on what was said at these sessions, but I have had a look at some of Professor Mumford's papers and I will identify some key points from one of them later in this blog post.

There is also an interesting paper by some American economists (Hsieh, C-T el al), recently made available via the National Bureau of Economic Research, which I found via a story in the Wall Street Journal by David Wessel. The key point of the Hsieh et al paper is that a large part of the growth in productivity in the US economy between 1960 and 2008 can be linked to the removal of barriers that had previously blocked white women, and blacks of both genders, in the labour market. The authors go on to argue that although great progress has been made, there are still huge gender imbalances at the top level of industry and commerce. Only 14% of the Fortune 500 CEOs are female. This is despite the fact that in 2011 more than 57% of bachelors degrees went to women, 51% of doctorates, 47% of law degrees and 45% of business Masters.

I thought it would be interesting to see if I could find similar relevant data for the UK. At the HEFCE website I found data on the number of male and female students in HEIs at different levels and in various subject area. Overall 56% of undergraduates are now female, and they form the majority in modern foreign languages (66.5%), Arts, humanities and social sciences (62.3%) and clinical subjects (59.3%). Males still dominate in engineering, computer science, mathematics and physics. [The detailed data can be found in Table 2.7 which is part of a downloadable Excel file].

I couldn't find a source for the number of women in CEO positions in the UK but this is where some of the Mumford research can help a bit. A paper that she wrote with Marie Drolet in 2010 looks at gender earnings differentials for private sector employees in Canada and Britain. In both countries men typically earn 26-28% more than women (measured by average hourly wages), although it varies a bit by age group which could be down to differences in educational attainment. Sure enough when a semi-logarithmic wage equation was estimated that controlled for factors such as educational attainment, age, marital status, ethnic group etc., the differential came down to about 14% in Britain and 16% in Canada. Given equal opportunities legislation which is in force in both countries this is still quite shocking.

I wondered if any analysis of the student body had been undertaken at USE and was pleased to find that in 2009 an Equality and Diversity Report had been produced. Here are some key findings. The number of male and female students at USE is roughly 50% for each gender, which proportions are pretty much the same in terms of applications. However for HEIs in the South East of England overall there are now more female students - they made up 59% of the student body in 2006-07.

What was interesting though was how the students performed. At USE a greater proportion of females progress to the next stage of study without referrals or trailing modules. A higher proportion of male students were excluded (two and a half times as many males as females), and a greater proportion of females obtained "good" degrees (First and Upper Seconds) as males. Employment prospects were better for females too. Twice the proportion of male graduates were unemployed as females.

I went back to the HEFCE web site to see if I could find out how many female Vice Chancellors there are. Alas, I couldn't get this information, I did notice that all the recent appointments listed there are males. Clearly there is some way to go yet before this glass ceiling is lifted.

Thought for the Day

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

The talk in the cafeteria all week has been about what the university chaplain, Luke Desmond, would talk about when he did the Thought for the Day spot on BBC Radio 4 today.

Would he focus on the topic of austerity economics? Or the new welfare "reforms"? Or the so-called bedroom tax and the new measures to help people wanting to buy a house? Issues of inequality and social harmony could be the theme. Or maybe issues about the continued development aid Britain provides to India? Perhaps he would ask questions about the problems of the Eurozone and what Cyprus and Germany should be doing? Or maybe he would choose the government's stance on immigration, looking particularly at how it affects foreign students coming to Britain to study. Or the lack of jobs for young school leavers and graduates? Or what UKIP stands for? Another option could be to pick up on Paolo Di Canio's appointment as manager at Sunderland or the far right groups in Greece, raising again the spectre of Fascism in Europe.

Or perhaps he would ask questions about the government's changes to the school curriculum? Or the privatisation of the NHS? Possibly he would identify issues in the Middle East and especially Syria, with the religious divisions between different Islamic groups. Or the international tensions brought about by the North Koreans? Or Argentina's renewed claims to the Falkland Islands?

Another possibility might be a discussion about human mortality following Iain Bank's announcement that he was terminally ill with cancer. Or could he talk about the evil streak that some people have, linking it to what happened in Derby when Mick Philpott set fire to his house. Or the weather and links to climate change and the effect on the jet stream?

Or maybe he would focus more on church matters now that there is both a new Pope and a new Archbishop of Canterbury - perhaps linking it to gay marriage or the perception amongst some Christians that they are under attack from a secular state? Or our place in the universe - science and religion - Richard Dawkins and all that.

Well if you heard him this morning you will know what he said. And if you missed it you can always catch up with it on iPlayer. Or, if you just want to read what he said rather than hear the spoken version you can read on.

"Good morning John, good morning Evan, good morning everyone."

"When it became known at the university that I had been asked to appear on the Thought for the Day spot there was a lot of speculation about what I would want to talk about. Would I focus on the topic of austerity economics? Or the new welfare "reforms"? Or the so-called bedroom tax and the new measures to help people wanting to buy a house? Issues of inequality and social harmony could be the theme. Or maybe issues about the continued development aid Britain provides to India? Perhaps I would ask questions about the problems of the Eurozone and what Cyprus and Germany should be doing? Or maybe I would choose the government's stance on immigration, looking particularly at how it affects foreign students coming to Britain to study. Or the lack of jobs for young school leavers and graduates? Or what UKIP stands for? Another option for me could be to pick up on Paolo Di Canio's appointment as manager at Sunderland or the far right groups in Greece, raising again the spectre of Fascism in Europe.

Or perhaps I would ask questions about the government's changes to the school curriculum? Or the privatisation of the NHS? Possibly I would identify issues in the Middle East and especially Syria, with the religious divisions between different Islamic groups. Or the international tensions brought about by the North Koreans? Or Argentina's renewed claims to the Falkland Islands?

Another possibility for me might be a discussion about human mortality following Iain Bank's announcement that he was terminally ill with cancer. Or I could talk about the evil streak that some people have, linking it to what happened in Derby when Mick Philpott set fire to his house. Or the weather and links to climate change and the effect on the jet stream?

Or maybe I would focus more on church matters now that there is both a new Pope and a new Archbishop of Canterbury - perhaps linking it to gay marriage or the perception amongst some Christians that they are under attack from a secular state? Or our place in the universe - science and religion - Richard Dawkins and all that".

"The thing is these are all important matters, but how do you prioritise them? So I decided not to pick out any of these topics as the focus of my talk. Instead I want us all to think about what we can do personally in our lives today to make things better for those people with whom we come into contact. Let's all live together in harmony whatever our religious or political beliefs, skin colour, ethnic group, gender, even fashion preferences!

"Let us remember what St Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthians '..though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love'."

University software

Hello. My name is Kostas Economides and I am a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of the South of England (USE for short). Well, actually that is not true really as the names of individuals and institutions in this blog have been changed to protect the innocent - and the guilty!

Along with everyone else in the Faculty I got an email this morning from Dave Starr, the Faculty Learning and Teaching Champion, reminding us that if we want any new software to be available to be used in the next academic year (starting in September) we would need to fill in the relevant form and submit it to the Learning and Teaching Committee for consideration at its next meeting at the beginning of the summer term. Only software approved by this committee would be ordered and it would take time for the IT people to install it on the university network. Of course the form that we need to fill in, like many other university forms, never quite seems to have been designed to reflect the needs of users. Mike Rowe, our Head of Department, has also insisted that all applications from the department go through him first as the payment will come out of the departmental budget, not that of Learning and Teaching.

There are three categories of software that the university allows on its computers. 1 University wide software such as the VLE, Microsoft Office products, the email client and bibliographical referencing software. These are the only software products that the IT section agrees that it will fully support. 2 Specialist software needed for teaching and learning in specific subject areas. For example, in our department this would be econometric software, some computer algebra software and the instructional and quiz software that we use to accompany the basic micro and macroeconomics teaching. 3 Specialist software used by staff in the research or consultancy activities.

Any problems that staff or students have in using software in the second category will not be addressed by the IT section, but will be referred to the person who placed the order and who is assumed to have the relevant expertise to deal with requests for help. Even with the fully supported software you don't always get help straightaway when there is a problem. I can remember several occasions when I phoned the Help Desk to ask about a problem I was having with the VLE only to be given the reply "This is a known problem"! To be fair the VLE is a very clunky product and full of bugs.

A problem that we tend to get with the second category of software relates to differences of opinion withing the department as to which package is best for use in teaching. For example Gus Johns swears by Oxmetrics software for teaching econometrics whereas some younger members of staff favour EViews or Stata. Similarly a while ago we developed some interactive microeconomics material using Mathcad, but more recent appointments favour other computer algebra tools like Maple and Mathematica. Mike is reluctant to let us all have whichever package we like best so compromises have to be reached which is not always easy. Also, he quite rightly argues, you can't expect students to cope with a different package each time they move on to a new module.

Some people are unwilling to give up using the software that they have become familiar with. I am told that it took several years for Gavin Alexander to stop using WordPerfect after the university had decided to switch to MS Word. He also wanted to carry on using WinEcon rather than adopt Aplia as had been agreed by the department.

Another point of contention is which browser we should use. The Microsoft product Internet Explorer is the default browser, but the more nerdy members of the university want to use Firefox. And then there is the whole issue of Windows/Intel software versus software for the Mac computers.

The university wants us to put all our teaching material inside the walled garden of the VLE, rather than put it up on the web for anyone to access. We are supposed to make use of the wiki and other tools that come with the VLE rather than using free online and web based tools like PBWorks. They also say that we must only communicate electronically with students via the university's email system. The problem with that is that the students prefer to use their Google or Hotmail accounts and don't often look at their official university email. Many of us think that the official university stance is not only wrong, but is unsustainable. Students themselves are communicating with each other via Facebook, messaging and using other social networking and Web 2.0 tools. They are looking for interesting apps for their mobiles and instructional videos on YouTube. As Steve Wheeler has argued students will develop their own Personalised Learning Environments and engage in Collaborative Learning via the cloud rather than getting trapped in an institutionally controlled VLE. You can see his lecture on Future Learning Environments online.

I will finish by passing on a story that Gus Johns told me. About a decade ago the then Head of the IT section, Archie McDonald, reacted strongly to a communication from Microsoft informing him about their new software licensing and payment arrangements which involved a massive price hike. He organised a meeting with the IT Directors at some other universities where they formulated a joint response, saying that unless Microsoft modified its position they would be forced to look for alternative software options. Then, one afternoon, he had a phone call from a woman Microsoft employee from America. The story goes that at one point in the conversation the woman said to him "Tell me, Mr McDonald, are you a communist?". "No dear", he replied, "I'm a Scot!"