Talk:Koen Lamberts

Academic career
The sentence on the Department of Archaeology in the lead is recentism in the extreme, given the department hasn’t been closed yet. And a citation is needed for ‘oversaw’. It would be more accurate to say Lamberts is Vice-Chancellor during the proposed closure of the department.

The sentence “Since becoming a Vice-Chancellor, a chief executive position within university, Lamberts has had less time to carry out research, later commenting that "you have to devote every waking moment to [being Vice-Chancellor]".[12] distorts a statement of support for researchers into a complaint about being VC. In fact, Lamberts is referring to having to ‘devote every waking moment’ to research rather than being VC. The original quote in context is “One of Lamberts' research projects focused on understanding consumer choice… "It was great fun," he says wistfully. These days he struggles to even stay abreast of developments in his field – top-level research is so time-consuming. "It’s an all-encompassing activity, it takes you over, you have to devote every waking moment to it. With a job like this it's impossible..."”

The INTO University announcement came from Lamberts but it was the University of York’s Senior Management Group that decided not to pursue the plans any further. This information should be included for clarification.

Suggest adding more context to 2014 pension scheme strike passage in order to move to non-neutral pov. One possible option to work from, from the same citation used elsewhere in this passage - “In the letter to staff, Professor Lamberts says the university had initially announced the sanction because it wanted to send a “clear message to staff that assessment and feedback are an essential part of our students’ learning, and that it is not acceptable for staff to refuse to undertake them...”

There are six citations in the University of York section, three of which are from one source - York Vision - a student newspaper. This section would probably benefit from a broader pool of citations.

The statement in the University of Sheffield section that Lamberts spent more than £8,000 on chauffeured cars is incorrect. The Tab story cited states that £8,734 was spent by the 11 members of the University Executive Board rather than just the Vice-Chancellor. The £11k air travel figure should be highlighted as from a previous role. NPOV might be helped with a quote from Lambert’s speech on the subject, ie - “As a large research university, we are in a truly unique and powerful position to help tackle climate change and make a positive impact on the world we live in.

The passage on the Department of Archaeology is a good example of recentism, being twice as long as the passage on Lamberts’ response to Covid-19.

“In May 2021, Lamberts commissioned a review of Sheffield's Department of Archaeology.” This would benefit from a citation like the earlier description of Lamberts as ‘overseeing’ the closure.

Aside from assigning the review to Lamberts as outlined above, the only mention of the VC in the passage on Department of Archaeology in the University of Sheffield passage is the open letter to Lamberts. Passages outlining the process and individuals’ response to the news might be better placed on the department’s Wikipedia page.

Editorial bias
Does User:Richard Nevell Richard Nevell’s public stated support for the #savesheffieldarchaeology hashtag on Twitter, combined with the number and type of edits in the timeframe of the last 6 months, highlight a conflict of interest?” — Preceding unsigned comment added by DeeConjuror (talk • contribs) 20:36, 3 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Hi DeeConjuror, when you made a similar post at Talk:University of Sheffield I suggested that you should seek input from Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. I believe that would still be relevant, especially as even fewer editors watch this page than the University's, so if we are seeking third-party input we will have to actively go and look for it. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:10, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
 * DeeConjuror, I hope you don't mind that I have implemented some of the changes you suggested in the section above, as visible here. These are instances where the information was incorrect or in one case needed more context. Apologies for introducing errors. The remaining points would of course be worth discussing. Richard Nevell (talk) 22:53, 3 November 2021 (UTC)