Sakura by Keith Mallett

虹と言えば

君への架け橋

風と言えば

愛の言葉を

ささやいている

Speaking of rainbows

Is a bridge to you

Speaking of the wind

Is like telling you

Tender whispers of nothing

For full details of the Student competition which is only open to UNNC students please email Dr. May Tan-Mullins or have a look at our notice board!

Well, first the exam scripts are brought back to the Faculty Office where they are counted and checked. Then they are sent to the module convenor who will start marking them right away as turnover times at UNNC are less than a week even for very big classes. Every division has its marking criteria defined in its Student Handbook or, in the case of the Division IS, in the Essay Writing Guide.  Although formulated slightly differently, marking criteria across the divisions take into consideration three features of the exam: the sophistication and clearness of the argument, the written presentation and the knowledge base demonstrated in the exam answers. In order to make sure that marking is fair, exam scripts are marked anonymously and moderated where necessary. “Moderation” is how we call the process by which scripts are second marked and checked upon by the external examiner. The marking procedure at the Division IS complies with all criteria set out in the Quality Manual of the University of Nottingham on assessments: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/quality-manual/assessment/index.htm

In the entire process the roles of the exams officer and of the external examiner are crucial. The exams officer actually organizes the entire process of examination in the division. She, in this case Dr. Rosaria Franco, manages the setting of exam questions and supervises the marking process, assembles the marks and prepares the internal exam board. The external examiner is a senior academic colleague appointed from a third university (in our case the UG EE is from the University of Liverpool and the PG EE from the University Hamburg).  Before the exams ,he/she checks the question to see whether they are consistent with what was taught in the module, if they are clearly and unambiguously formulated and if they give all students a fair chance to succeed in the exam. She/he furtheron checks the marks and the marking procedure for all modules. From every module we second mark about 10% of the scripts which are usually the borderline cases (49, 59, 69), all firsts and all fails. Second marking is also anonymous and marks are discussed between the first and second marker. If after the second  marking student marks are still borderline, fail or first, these scripts are sent to the EE together with the essays. The role of the EE is not only to take a final and usually binding decision but also to check if marking was fair and consistent across all modules and within one module. If the borderline, fail and first scripts do not represent 10% of the class, the exam officers sends more sample scripts to the EE, usually by picking some from the range of the 40, of the 50s and 60s. The EE compares with the module handbook and the class readings and material, and then comments on the marks, the exams and our comments to essays and exams. The marks confirmed and signed off by the EE are final. Marks cannot be appealed and this for the good reason that the anonymity of the marking, the second marking and external marking procedure are seen as sufficient safeguards against arbitrariness or unfairness.

Module convenors, too, pay extreme attention to their marking in order to remain fair and just in their judgments. Experience teaches them to look a second time at scripts they have given extraordinary low or extraordinary high marks, and they will, besides the formal second marking procedures, seek advice with colleagues, the exam officer or the Head of Division in cases of doubt. Lecturers in our division also devote much time to writing essay and exam feedback in order to show students ways to improve their performance. The advice for essay writing, exam preparation and dissertation writing we give you in the study skills series (available in the Faculty Office) results from this experience. The aim of our marking is to help students improve their study experience and to show us their best.

In Germany all political foundations but one were inaugurated after World War II and they are since then playing an important role in political education, explained Mr Awe. The rational behind this was the assumption that the lack of civic culture in Germany was one of the main causes of such extraordinary and brutal acts of destructiveness as the killing 6 Million people of Jewish origin and of about another 2 Million people considered “unworthy lives” in concentration camps, or as the launch of the bloodiest modern war with about 55 Million dead. A famous testimony of the hypothesis of political culture was Gabriel Almond’s and Sydney Verba’s study “The Civic Culture: A Study of Five Nations” where the authors found through survey methods that the political culture in Germany, Spain and Italy was less “civic” than in the US or UK.  The study is not only a groundbreaking work of political science which established the dominance of behaviouralist methods in the discipline, it also caused wide-spread debate and critical reflection on complex concepts such as political culture and its influence on state institutions and politics. The authors later revised many of their propositions and findings, and notably attenuated their evaluation of Germany’s political culture (The Civic Culture Revisited) but they still remain THE political science reference for the hypothesis that one major cause for the rise of Nazism was the anti-liberal, anti-democratic and anti-semitic political culture of Weimar Germany. The list of authors who have, in other ways, explored this idea is far too long to reproduce fully here but the question of mentality, knowledge, ideas and unjust politics has troubled the spirits of philosophers, political scientist, sociologists and historians. A list would include such divers authors like Eugen Kogon (The Theory and Practice of Hell), Hannah Arendt (The Origins of Totalitarianism), Theodore Adorno (The Authoritarian Personality), Alexander & Margarete Mitscherlich (The Inability to Mourn: Principles of Collective Behaviour), Elias Canetti (Crowds and Power), or the very disputed Daniel Goldhagen (Hitler’s Willing Executioners).

To avoid a repetition of Nazism, political education became a central part of democracy in Germany. Political education is diffused through foundations like the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation, through schools where it constitutes an own subject-matter, through the “Zentrale für politische Bildung” which exists on national and federal level and through a variety of organisations and other foundations, of projects and activities like the Children’s Parliament. Even though not explicitly asked a question hanging in the air at Mr Awe’s presentation was: what is the difference between this kind of political education and pure propaganda? Aware of the sensitive nature of the term “political education” Mr Awe set out to explain that two fundamental principle are to guarantee that political education serves the objective of pluralist dialogue: one, the diversity and variety of actors involved in political education, and two, the independence of the organisations.

Just as there are six different foundations which are close to the six political parties represented in the German parliament, there are many more actors who are involved in political education in Germany and they are all non-governmental actors. Even though each of them follows their own political agenda, it is their collective process of exchanging opinions and thoughts, of debating ideas and concepts, and of dialoguing (sometimes quarrelling) over policies and political values that makes political education different from propaganda. The aim is not to prove any kind of ideological supremacy but to explore collectively and to deliberate collectively about solutions to political problems such as social justice, environmental sustainability, economic stability etc. And they can do so because these actors were independent from the government… despite receiving financial funds from the government.

“But what kind of independence can that be?”, asked many students “if you are receiving funds from the government?” The institutional setting of these organisations’ funding is key to understand their independence. The main point of the financial assistance for non-governmental actors through the state is that they receive money not on the grounds that they follow state directives and policies but because they have a legal

Mr Awe taking critical questions from the audience

entitlement to receive money. In the case of the party foundations like the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation, they are allocated money according to the number of seats “their” party has gained in the parliamentary elections which are held every four years. The government has to give this money whether the foundations “behaved properly” or not and it cannot cancel, alter or refuse these payments. These payments are entirely unconnected to what the foundations actually do. The money goes into the foundations’ capital for which they are accountable in yearly financial and fiscal audits (after all it’s the taxpayer’s money). But they are not politically accountable for what they do with their funds! No government institution has the right (it’s a law!) to hold the foundations, or any other non-governmental actors they finance for that matter, politically accountable for what they do. Hence, foundations and other non-governmental actors cannot be sanctioned financially for anything they do. That is what independence means: they are legally protected to receive funds no matter what they do or say. That is the rule of law.

Furthermore, foundations such as the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation, do not represent particular interest groups. In this way they are different from specific industrial interest groups for instance. Whereas these lobbies (they are called so because their representatives would wait in the parliament’s lobby for parliamentarians to convince them to defend their particular interests) have clear instructions from their stakeholders and defend specific, narrowly defined interests, foundations and many other non-governmental bodies similar to foundations are held by law to work for the common good and the collectivity. They are non-profit organisations which are not allowed to gain materially from their activities.

So, what are they doing then in China? This was indeed the main topic of Mr Awe’s presentation and a central concern of the students who kept on asking for examples of the foundation’s activities in China. The foundation tries to incite, or rather “ignite” as Mr Awe’s favourite expression goes, the same kind of plural debating culture in the Sino-German context. Here too, experiences, ideas and opinions can be and should be exchanged and debated in the transnational and globalised context of today’s world. Germany, Europe and other countries in the world have political models that can inspire China’s political problem solving and China’s formidable experience of rapid economic and social modernization can teach the world. The Konrad-Adenauer Foundation, and by the way other actors in China like the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation, the social-democrat German foundation, see their role as facilitators and enablers of such a dialogue and exchange. One way to do so is to enable the “brain circulation” as Mr Awe called this by offering studentships to Chinese student to pursue studies in Germany but also by organising conferences, seminars and roundtables, through book exhibitions and publications, and, last but not least, through visits throughout the country like the one yesterday at UNNC (the full overview over their activities can be here). Our students indeed grasped the opportunity to discuss and debate during and after the presentation, giving a fine demonstration of the dialogue and critical thinking skills they have learnt at UNNC.

However, with widening access to universities and notably with the introduction of fees these attitudes became inacceptable. Now universities have to make sure that the teaching is well done and that all students have fair chances of learning properly what they are supposed to learn. SETs and SMEs are means to make sure that a high level of quality teaching is provided. Both forms are sent back to the module convenors and the Head of Divisions. SETs are additionally processed by the Human Resources department back at the University of Nottingham. Lecturers need to provide their scores when they are applying for promotion. Aggregate SET scores above 2.5 necessitate a talk between convenor and Head of Division – in our division this has not happened ever as there have been only twice scores above 2.0 and the average score is regularly around 1.6. Lecturers write a report on their SME results in which they explain what conclusions they draw from the SMEs and what they intend to change, if changes seem necessary. These reports are published on the share drive so that students can see the reactions to their feedback. So, SETs and SMEs are not simply forms that disappear in some mysterious drawer but are taken very seriously by academic staff, the Heads of Division and the university.

Students have hence a high responsibility when filling in the forms. They are not only giving their opinion on the module they have just experienced but they are also shaping the outlook of future modules. Students have to think carefully about the answers they give. They need not only tell us what they liked or not but also what they learnt or not. This is indeed the difficult part as often we learn a lot in those modules which we like the least. When I was in my masters degree I had one very charismatic lecturer who was a brilliant speaker (and who later moved on to become Minister in his home country) but, frankly, I would not know anymore what he said and I even cannot remember the title of his lecture. On the other hand, I had this dreadful European Law lecturer who would, every session, read his lecture notes in the same monotonous and high pitched voice, and I would regularly fall asleep in this overheated and stuffy classroom… but today I do not only remember which French expressions this lecturer taught me (“en tant que tel” was his favourite) but also quite some things about European law: the Cohn-Bendit case and the Cassis judgment,  the fact that European law does not exist “en tant que tel” but only as delegated national law (at that time) but that national courts can transfer cases to the European Court of Justice, that its decisions cannot be appealed and so on. It was exactly because his lecture was so tiring and hard to follow that I worked much harder on that class and, in the end, I learnt masses – something I cannot say of the other lecturer whose lectures were clearly fun but as nutritive as a KFC lunch. So, even if you resent a module you might be learning a lot in it, so let us know and think twice which box you are going to tick in those evaluation forms!

http://webusers.globale.net/josborne/OsborneCartoon.jpg

Carsten Tietje, Annegret Brandau, Gernot Klantschnig at the Shanghai Half-Marathon

Gernot, Annegret, Carsten and Julie had decided to use this race for charity fundraising, a very British tradition. The runners ask friends, family, colleagues and actually everybody interested to donate money for the team and the team will, if they accomplish their task successfully, pass on those donations to a charity of their choice. If the sportsmen fail their task, there are no donations. The donations are thus a motivation for the runners to go all to the end of their race and it has the wonderful side effect of making the lives of other people better. In this case, all runners accomplished the race (Julie Miles in even less than two hours!), cheered and supported by many colleagues and friends from UNNC, among other Sergey Radchenko from our division. All collected donations will now go to COCOA whose mission is to improve the fate of children and babies in China’s orphanage by providing equipment, medicine and trained staff. If you want to support the UNNC team now and now more about the charity run you can still do so at http://www.justgiving.com/UNNC-Team.

At the same time as Gernot was running through the streets of Shanghai, the Head of Division, Catherine Goetze, was mobilizing against AIDS at the UNNC Youth Volunteer’s Association’s “Take AIDS seriously, respect LIFE sincerely” campaign. In the icy wind around Wanda Plaza, the YVA had arranged for a formidable show. The UNNC cheerleader team started the action with their great stunts which attracted a larger public. Followed speeches from representatives of Yinzhou District and of Catherine Goetze, and with games for the public to inform and discuss about AIDS.

"Take AIDS seriously, respect LIFE sincerely" campaign at Wanda Plaza

The relatively low incidence of AIDS and the fact that anti-retroviral therapies are now saving more and more lives should not make people believe that AIDS is a disease only others get, Catherine warned. The disease continues to spread and is touching now also low-risk populations as information and prevention are still not sufficient to make people stop taking risks. AIDS is a sexually transmissible disease and everyone having sexual relationships (and most adults do, don’t they?) can get infected. The full text of the speech can be found here. UNAIDS has just published its annual report on the state of HIV and AIDS in the world with a well-researched section on China: http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/EpiUpdate/EpiUpdArchive/2009/default.asp

While Gernot and Catherine were fighting the cold winds of China’s beginning winter, May Tan-Mullins was off to Bali where she is participating in a meeting of the National Bureau of Asian Research (http://www.nbr.org). Let’s hope that there is as much work as sun, otherwise we would all have to get jealous for such a great conference location…

Global Governance graduate Du Ran with the Head of Division International Studies,wearing the UNNC MA gown: black gown, Edinburgh style black hood with light blue and carlett lining.

Saturday saw the first graduation ceremony for our MA Global Governance students. In black gowns with black hoods which are lined in light blue students received the congratulations of the President of UNNC, Professor Yang Fujiya and the Provost, Professor Roger Woods, as well as of their Head of Division, Dr. Catherine Goetze.
For some the professoral procession into the hall at the sound of Georg Friedrich Haendel’s Water Music seems like a peculiar form of carnival, for others it constitutes one of the most solemn moments of their lives. But where does this tradition of procession, congregation, and gowns come from?

Dr. May Tan-Mullins from the Division International Studies, wearing the UNNC PhD gown: carlett gown with light blue lining, Edinburgh style carlett hood with light blue and white lining.

When the first universities were founded in Europe in the Middle Ages (Bologna 1088, Oxford around 1170, Paris around 1200, Salamanca in 1218, Heidelberg in 1386, St. Andrews in 1413 – just to name a few), European societies were divided in internally and externally hierarchically structured professional corporations and guilds. Corporations and guilds were what the modern sociologist Marcel Mauss would call “total” institutions as they defined the lives of their members in all aspects, not only with respect to their profession but also with respect to their marriage and children, their norms and behavior, and even their clothing. Vestimentary codes were omnipresent. Each guild had its own dress and within each guild dresses were distinguished according to the status of the bearer. Additional signs would furthermore indicate local origins, marital status, relationship to the King or religious confession. The dress code would include also the insignia of the craft which were heralded on buildings, furniture or, evidently, on the dresses themselves. These insignia would be tools such as square and compass for carpenters which later on became famously associated with freemasonry, or the hammer for blacksmiths; there would also be in Germany for instance the Brezel for bakers. Furthermore, the feudal division of society defined each professional group with respect to their distance to the King and to God (or the Pope and Bishop as God’s representation), hence, the guilds and corporations defined each individual’s place in the overall society. Dress codes were important to clearly designate the belonging of an individual to his community and to its social status.
Universities were guilds just like any other. In the words of the French medieval historian Jacques Le Goff, the founding of universities represented the professionalization of thinking and teaching. Universities were guilds of teachers and corporations of students. Graduation ceremonies were the ritual admission of new members to the guild itself and to the different statuses within the guild. As all others, universities too were subdivided in three layers of apprenticeship, companions and masters. In the Middle Ages masters, companions and apprentices were not only bound to each other by a relationship of seniority but also of personalized obligation. Masters did not only decide what apprentices and companions would learn but also when and who they would marry, where and when they would settle, how much they would earn and be allowed to keep, what roles they were to take over in the community, and also, importantly, who would to be punished for ill behavior and how. The worst punishment, even worse than any harsh physical punishment, would be the exclusion from the guild which withdrew protection from the individual and made him an outlaw. These individuals would often be physically marked as outlaws, through branding or tattoos for instance or, like in the case of German carpenters, through ripping off the earring they would have been conferred in their companion graduation ceremony. In German “Schlitzohr” (slit ear) is still a common word for swindler and rascal.
Of all this, our current graduation ceremonies are only distant memories. We do not live in a feudal society anymore, dress codes are now dictated by H&M and Prada and not our relationship to the King and to God, and failure to obey the rules of the profession do not result in being outlawed anymore, even though deontological codes are still very important (note that for instance proven cases of plagiarism may result in exclusion from university and that other universities will refuse registering students who have been excluded on the grounds of plagiarism). Yet, even more interestingly, academic graduation ceremonies have survived in those societies who either never had the tradition of guilds like the US-American society or who have very early in modern history destroyed guilds and corporations like the British society. In Germany and France where guilds and corporations were only abolished in the past 100 respectively 200 years and where universities are still clearly marked by the hierarchies of professors, doctors and students, there are no official graduation ceremonies like that we witnessed last Saturday.

1968 student revolt in Germany

In fact, the universities of Paris and Heidelberg were, in 1968, even the starting point of the radical student movement which led not only to a profound rethinking of the role of knowledge and teaching in universities but also to the abolishment of gown processions. “Unter den Talaren, der Muff von 1000 Jahren” (The gowns of a 1000 year’s pong) was the battle cry of the student revolt.
What has remained hence is not so much the hierarchical idea of graduation, the initiation of an individual into its specific place in a given hierarchy within a guild, but rather the more general and egalitarian idea of admitting a new member to the community. Contemporary graduation ceremonies are more about honoring the achievements of the students and celebrating their result than about fitting an individual into a hierarchy and set of rules. The solemn feeling comes from the satisfaction over successful studies and not from the grace accorded to the student by the corporation. It is a students’ celebration now. And so all staff of the Division International Studies congratulates all UNNC MA graduates!!!