False Claims by Cambridge?

My gripe was substantial:

1. Cambridge's summer school had told us that certain teachers were "Member[s] of the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge"; whereas

2. That same "Faculty of English, University of Cambridge," denied it.^[1]

The contradiction was hard to miss, despite the slight flutter produced by Director Sarah Ormrod's arm-flapping.

When my inquiries persisted even after she'd been magnanimous enough to acknowledge my inquiry ("We make every effort to be accurate at time of going to press, but changes of title do happen from time to time, and we will check all information in the current brochure to make sure it is up to date"), Ormrod adopted the perfectly natural course of ignoring me.

What to do?

Incidentally, in attempting to satisfy questions about my motives raised by some of the e-forum participants, including Psychologist Claudia, I'd stated that if teachers' credentials had been misstated, what was called for was:

• Acknowledgement;

• Correction.

This only heightened my critics' suspicions. What was I about? Clearly my inquiry had been acknowledged. Didn't Ormrod's response make that plain as could be?

One gets the sense from some of the forum traffic that this "acknowledgement" I was favored with is far more than hapless grad students at Cambridge can normally expect from their administration (which may account for some of the bitterness).

I, however, had dared imagine a higher order of acknowledgement: Acknowledgement of error.

An early response in the first of the two threads regarding Cambridge's "false claims," False Claims by Cambridge?, suggested 3 avenues: Contacting 1) Ormrod's superior; 2) the webmaster, if I thought the Continuing Education website was making false claims; and 3) the English faculty, "as it's potentially their name that's being misused."

I didn't bother with (2) or (3), as it didn't seem likely they would care much. Ormrod's superiors, on the other hand, would bear personal responsibility if they too ignored my complaint and failed to act on matters within their jurisdiction.

My trusty English lit summer school timetable handbook indicated two people superior to Ormrod: Dr. Kate Pretty, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Special Responsibilities); and Prof. Richard Taylor, Director (another "director"!) of Cambridge's Institute of Continuing Education.

So I sent an email addressed to both, providing the prior correspondence with Ormrod and requesting their "assistance in clarifying the situation." And within 24 hours I had a reply ... from Ormrod.

Again, Ormrod's response left scattershot marks everywhere but the bull's-eye, scrupulously avoiding any overt admission of error:

• "The teaching structure in Cambridge is complex: the advice I have been given is that the list of members of the Faculty is up-dated annually."

• "I can confirm that all of the information in the brochure and the printed timetable for 2005 was as 'reasonably up-to-date' as possible at the time of going to press."

• "If changes are made to records -- changes of which we were not aware -- then all we can do refresh our records for the next academical cycle."

And all in all, Ormrod assured me, her opinion was that "our participants had the information they were entitled to."

Who could have guessed it? Even this failed to quell my obsession. I sent Ormrod a further followup.

Ormrod had told her bosses there was no point acknowledging me. But bosses never listen to the people who know the terrain. Anyway, Ormrod now reverted to the course she'd known to be correct: Silence.

A week later, I sent a second message to Pretty and Taylor, saying I hadn't heard back from them, and explaining that Ormrod's latest message did not resolve my concern.

But by now they understood the wisdom of Ormrod's advice.

Skeptical readers may inspect the original correspondence, if they wish, at http://urielw.com/cambridge/corr.htm.

The next step up the Cambridge hierarchy would be the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alison Richard. It is encouraging to learn (from a Cambridge webpage) that she has a doctorate in primate biology and "is widely known for her research into the evolution of complex social systems among primates." On the other hand, she appears not to entertain petitions via email, as no email address is provided.

I'm a bit disappointed by Director Taylor's unresponsiveness, since otherwise we seem to have some ideas in common:

Education is an important element in civil society. There is perhaps too much emphasis today on the economic domain, and rather too little on the centrality of education and learning in the development of a truly democratic, inclusive and participative society.

We have aimed to instil a critical, reflective approach to the exploration of matters of social, political, artistic and intellectual significance.

It can be agued that the need is greater now for such work than it has been in the past. Many aspects of contemporary society are undermining the very foundations of the democratic polity: ...the disenchantment of many people with party politics (but not with politics per se, as demonstrated by mass social movement activity of both Left and Right), and the trivialisation of the media.

[Edited excerpt from editorial by Richard Taylor appearing in April 2005 issue of the Institute of Continuing Education's journal.]

(To be continued....)

[1]     see letter #16, Was it Cambridge? -- II.