Talk:London Metropolitan University/Archive 1

University ratings
(I'm posting this to all articles on UK universities as so far discussion hasn't really taken off on WikiProject Universities.)

There needs to be a broader convention about which university rankings to include in articles. Currently it seems most pages are listing primarily those that show the institution at its best (or worst in a few cases). See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Universities. Timrollpickering 23:53, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

'Campus' sections
A lot of the material here was a copyight violation from the University's 'History' page, and this subpage. I've removed it, but those pages are a good source (if properly cited) for adding more material to this article. When doing so, please consider whether the material would be better deployed in London Guildhall University or University of North London. Thanks — mholland 09:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Request for intervention at WP:ANI
I have submitted a request for administrative intervention at WP:ANI#Edit war at London Metropolitan University. This article appears to be the subject of a severe edit war. Dr. Submillimeter 13:50, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Press release
Wikipedia isn't really the place for copy&paste press releases, especially those that format badly, but if anyone wants to put some details in the article here's the relese: Timrollpickering 12:53, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Events, however have moved on and a recent joint press statement was issued: JOINT PRESS STATEMENT

'London Metropolitan University and UCU are pleased to announce that, following a meeting, chaired by Brendan Barber (General Secretary of the TUC) on Wednesday 18 July 2007 at the TUC, London Metropolitan University and UCU have reached an agreed position in relation to the issue of union recognition and talks on proposed redundancies. Both sides have endorsed a set of principles for future joint working. The terms of the agreement are attached.'

18 July 2007

LONDON METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY AND THE UNIVERSITY AND COLLEGE UNION (UCU)

Principles:

In a spirit of partnership, Management and UCU agree to an exploration of new approaches in pursuit of the University’s strategic goals and objectives:

Both parties:

1. agree to conduct themselves such that industrial relations between the University's     managers and union representatives is undertaken constructively and with integrity and mutual respect at all times. In this regard, management accepts the right of UCU representatives to represent the views of their members and UCU accepts the right of    managers to manage.

2. commit to working together openly, to ensure transparent and timely communication and discussion of issues of mutual interest.

3. accept that they have a joint responsibility to seek to enhance the quality of educational provision.

4. will seek to promote conditions of service, including financial and non-financial rewards, that reflect the value of staff, within the resource constraints of the University.

5. commit to develop and promote ways of working that promote equality of opportunity, work/life balance and the health and welfare of the University's staff.

6. commit to resolving issues of disagreement through agreed internal mechanisms before taking any action or initiating any publicity of any kind.

The realisation of these principles will be facilitated by an agreed collective bargaining framework, established by means of formal recognition and facilities agreements.

Given the agreement now reached between London Metropolitan University and the University and College Union (UCU) on the above issues, it is agreed that UCU will cease both its boycott of the University and its planned ballot for industrial action for the duration of time-limited talks. As well as covering the above points these talks will also include all the currently proposed redundancies, whether of full-time or part-time staff, including hourly paid part-time staff; with a view to reaching agreement by the end of September or earlier if practicable, therefore no action to initiate redundancies will take place within this timescale. It is further agreed that the only statement that shall be issued to staff, union members or any external party to the University is this press statement.

Student Union
Please note mholland that Recently performances have included Maximo Park, the Real Stone Roses, DJ Spoony, Loose Cannons, Wiley, 80’s Matchbox B Line Disaster, DJ Hanif, DJ Luck & MC Neat, Jeff Mills, Lab 4, Frantic, Hallucinogen, Latina Max and London’s largest Brazilian Carnival. is at least two years out of date. The list of recent performers provided by myself (and deleted by yourself) is far more accurate. If you were to go by the current article, you might as well include Jesus and the Mary Chain or Jools Holland.

It is worth pointing out that both of the venues are owned and run by the university for profit, and have nothing at all to do with the student union. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.156.185.95 (talk) 00:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Fair enough: I've swapped the list for yours - it's unsourced and I've no feelings either way on how recent the list of acts should be. Feel absolutely free to go ahead and fix problems as you find them.  That is Wikipedia's great strength. — mholland (talk) 00:52, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Writing Style
This article reads like an advert. Can someone clean it up so it's not quite so one-sided? Hardcastle 11:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Industrial relations
I added a section detailing the troubled record of industrial relations since the merger. At various points I have edited out a negative tone that I had allowed to initially creep in, and thus stick to the facts, which I have referenced. Unfortunately, the entire section has been deleted more than once, with one user claiming that this section was "a hoax". My text has been replaced with more PR-friendly (to London Met) material, but without any referencing as is required under the Wikipedia guidelines. In re-instating my material, I have also inserted some of the material that was added by the other - mainly anonymous - authors, but I do not feel obliged to go to the effort of finding ways to insert the material of people who delete entire sections of writing. I presume my material has been deleted because it is politically inconvenient, but Wikipedia Universities is not a branch of the PR departments of the named institutions, so any factual material has a right to be online. Should further such deletions occur, I shall have to report this to the regular Wikipedia editors as an instance of vandalism.

Crewsaver 15:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Once again my text has been deleted. I am restoring the old version.

Crewsaver 10:26, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Alterations have been made today by the user at IP 163.167.99.92. As previously, this has involved deleting chunks of text. Furthermore, the references are completely messed up in the text that is left, and text that is added is not properly referenced. At this point I want to see if someone else is going to make alterations/additions/reversions, but as the Wikipedia guidelines are still not being adhered to in respect of the above then I don't think this edit can stand.

Crewsaver 17:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

That looks like a London Metropolitan IP number. Philculmer (talk) 15:08, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Alumni
The entry for Sir Mark Thatcher (listed here) does not record him as having been to any university. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bill Tegner (talk • contribs).


 * Indeed. Mark Thatcher did not go to university, but he did fail his accountancy exams three times.  He must have taken them somewhere.  Anyone got a source? — mholland 23:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Prior to the 1992 Education Act turning the polytechnics into universities someone who went to one of the institutions that now form London Met could quite legitimately be said to have "not gone to university". That said I have no idea one way or another where Mark Thatcher sat for his accountancy exams. Timrollpickering 11:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the fictional character 'Alan Partridge'. 13:05, 11 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.86.165.63 (talk)

Tony McNulty was a lecturer at the University of North London, which became part of LMU, from 1983-1997. He may well still be on a leave of absence and could in theory work at the LMU at some stage- but he graduated from other universities.--86.130.91.100 (talk) 21:45, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Industrial relations material
Can anyone here account for the awful over-length of the Industrial relations section? It looks to me like obvious undue weight. The section has engulfed the article, and I'd suggest that most of it ought to be summarised and cut or branched into a separate article. Wikipedia is not the place for a running commentary on an industrial dispute (including cut-and-pasted press releases). I also have severe WP:BLP concerns relating to the Board of Governors section (which I suspect is by no means unrelated to the coverage of the staff dispute). The section certainly shouldn't be carrying a disclaimer.

In the absence of any objections, I intend to shorten some of the material here quite a bit. — mholland (talk) 16:06, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I regard the industrial relations material as very important to the article. The university has been continually engulfed in industrial disputes and it is important that these be noted as part of the current institution's short heritage. I am upset that I can trace the deletion of many of the criticisms of London Met to an IP from within the institution. I understand that this is a controversial practice and has seen much media attention in the past weeks in the UK.


 * I intend to register as a wiki user and make my own contributions to the article. I have a range of sources that will corroborate the industrial relations material that is in dispute. It may be worth suggesting that the industrial relations material be allocated its own article so that the university article can conform to wiki standards? Please get back to me on this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.156.185.95 (talk) 22:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * A short, neutral summary of the recent industrial dispute would be fine. What we had as of this revision of 22 August was an awful, thinly-sourced, blow-by-blow account of an internal dispute which was pieced together by IPs on both sides of the dispute, many emanating from the University.  The material was removed outright by registered user Jesi Chan.  I don't seek to ascribe a motive to that user, but I think that in making cuts, he/she did the article a favour (although I notice that some material added was equally poor).  Please do register an account and please add material, but note that Wikipedia is not a soapbox or a battleground for factions within a university to play out a dispute. — mholland (talk) 23:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your prompt response mholland. I am both a student and an employee of the university and hence this may compromise my impartiality. My main concern is that I traced edits to London Met, I do not wish to see the unbiased nature of wikipedia compromised in this way. I am reasonably sure that much of the information conveyed in the industrial relations section is accurate and will seek references for any further edits I make. Please excuse my ignorance of wiki protocol, I have only been a reader until now. Thanks again.
 * I think something of the industrial relations of the university does need to be included. Recently the university was back in the news over the HEFCE funding situation. The university faces a difficult financial future with massive cuts to it's funding (further details on exact amounts to be released by the end of February 2009) that have already forced budget cuts and jobs will be lost as a part of this. The news covered staff and students protesting about the possibility of job cuts and the effect this would have on the institution. Part of this included interesting details about the wages of the senior management of the university; specifically that the Vice Chancellor is the highest paid in the UK. Surely some or all of this and previous disputes with UCU must be included somewhere? I look forward to some response. — KlickingKarl 13:35, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I have to laugh out loud now at the crumbling masters of the uni. I think in view of the backlash, they'd have very little hope of editing the article to keep it on their message. I reckon there are people on that. Bye bye Roper. I hope that union campaingers get Roper's severance package revealed under FoI rules, lets see what that stirs up! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.129.122.225 (talk) 07:14, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

It appears that since all of the above discussion, the entire Industrial Relations section has been removed. There are a few paragraphs on the financial crisis and redundancies of 2008-2010, but this does not adequately represent the continual and unusually severe industrial relations problems at this university since it was founded in 2002. There are a string of articles on the BBC and Times Higher from the last 8 years explaining how this university became such a notorious employer, it might be worth replacing some of the original text. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.158.151 (talk) 10:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposed Alcohol Ban
Added the proposed alcohol ban and a ref to 'dhimmitude' as that has been a associated term used in the media in regards to the proposal. Twobells (talk) 19:50, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Unsourced or false alumni
I have removed eighteen names from the list of alumni mainly because they have either not attended LMU or any of its antecedents or in some cases there is no evidence they attended university at all. 90.200.179.189 (talk) 12:41, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Proposed merge with London Metropolitan University Students' Union
LMUSU is a very short, entirely unreferenced article that provides little information.Although split into 8 sections, most of these are barely a paragraph long. The whole article could be merged into the Student Union section of LMU. FunkyCanute (talk) 07:58, 18 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree. It makes sense. Pjposullivan (talk) 18:52, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120913093124/http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/about/160-years.cfm to http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/about/160-years.cfm
 * Added archive https://archive.is/20071013222135/http://student.independent.co.uk/into_university/az_uni_colleges/article2807263.ece to http://student.independent.co.uk/into_university/az_uni_colleges/article2807263.ece
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120104110056/http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/news/new-directions1.cfm to http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/news/new-directions1.cfm

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External links modified
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I have just modified 3 external links on London Metropolitan University. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130413083107/http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/news/news-releases/2013-press-releases/international-sponsor-status-restored.cfm to http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/news/news-releases/2013-press-releases/international-sponsor-status-restored.cfm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051219022452/http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/international/howtoapply/scholarships/merit-scholarships/merit-scholarships.cfm to http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/international/howtoapply/scholarships/merit-scholarships/merit-scholarships.cfm

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