Lost in Translation

The Translation Unit of Imperial is under threat. There is currently a “consultation period” going on. This will decide the fate of the Unit. The idea being that it doesn’t fit with College’s strategy. Maybe it doesn’t, but how is anyone supposed to know given that when you ask them they refuse to say what that even means.

Many of you will not know about this Unit. Maybe some of you don’t care. But wait, who will be next? Given that a Unit that makes money can be axed, what about anyone else, especially those that are losing money? I fear that they will go the way of the Life Sciences: they will be cut like a DJ’s sampler from the 90s (that’s one for all you ‘old school ravers’ out there – sorry, I’ve been playing a lot of Oxide and Neutrino in the office recently).

You may think this is rather presumptuous to say it is closing. Well, there certainly is international support for it to remain open. Just look at the petition to keep it open and you’ll see how many signatures, and where they are from, it has accrued in such a short space of time. When was the last time you managed to get 10 people to do something, let alone nearly 5000. That’s impressive. I worry that this “consultation period” is going to not really be that. I think it will be one of those consultations where it turns out the original suggestion is what happens in the end after consulting with people just because you need to show everyone that you are asking about. One of those studies where you stick your finger in your ears and scream “LALA I’m not listening, sorry, was working on my excellent (apparent) leadership skills” when people reply to you. Just in case College are wondering: look, you’ve consulted, people have said your idea sucks, sorry to have to break the news to you.

Maybe you will think that you don’t care about all of this as you don’t think it is important. If not, that is fine. You can have a reasoned debate about why you think that, but you can’t deny that many people all over the world think the opposite. As well as this,consider the fact that it isn’t losing money. This is what makes the decision strange.

Perhaps you still don’t care. In this case, put yourself in the lecturer’s shoes. Image you have been told all of a sudden that you are possibly going to be made redundant when you thought it was all going well. It’s a bit like walking into lectures one day and being told that there is a consultation period on whether or not to kick you out. You may be a bit concerned and think that perhaps they have already chosen to get rid of you.

I asked College if the staff are going to stay on until all current students are finished, as they will need them to supervise the projects. The answer I received was a non commital “we’re in consultation before any final decisions are taken so aren’t at that stage.” That sounds like a ‘possibly not, but, for now, we have to just say something incredibly non specific’. Surely that would be somewhere on the agenda when discussing this. I mean, the people who made this decision are all accomplished individuals who have words like ‘professionalism’ and ‘expertise’ flying around their bios. Wouldn’t one pipe up and say “erm, you know how we say no students will be affected, well, what about the staff supervising them through their PhDs? Will they stay on to keep supervising them? Let’s discuss this and make an informed decision on that outcome to not cause distress and uncertainty”.

Luckily, there is hope that it will be able to at very least move to a different university. However, the heavy emphasis on science is what leads me to believe that this is a good place for it, but I could be wrong. It will be interesting to see how this develops. I think that translation is important and hope that College reverses this decision and at least finds a new home for the Unit.