Author: David Beaver

[What follows is a guest post from Robin Cooper, Professor of Computational Linguistics, Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, and Director of the Graduate School of Language Technology, University of Gothenburg. He reports on the ill-considered and appallingly executed destruction of the Computational Linguistics group at King’s College London. — David Beaver]

The crisis at King’s College, London and in particular the targeting for redundancy of its computational linguists and logicians has stirred significant international protest (see http://sites.google.com/site/kclgllcmeltdown/). Many hundreds of highly distinguished scholars from around the world have organized letters of protest querying the rationale behind these moves, which have happened at the same time as the College invested more than £20 million in acquiring Somerset House, a prime piece of central London real estate. Moreover, in contrast to universities that have undergone similar budgetary pressures in the US (e.g. in the UC system where senior faculty have been asked to take pay cuts in order to preserve jobs), at KCL moves towards firing permanent staff has been the first resort.

As discussed previously in Language Log, in December Jonathan Ginzburg was informed that a panel comprised of Professors from the School of Physical Sciences and Engineering (PSE), including a number of Computer Scientists, as well as some external members, had decided not to select him for membership of the new department.  This panel is referred to in the documents cited below as “the School panel”.  He was told that the reason for the non-selection had nothing to do with the quality of his research, which the School panel acknowledged to be of high international standard. The grounds for non-selection were alleged lack of “research fit” with the plans the administration drew up for the new department.  Here is a relevant quote from these plans for the new department of Applied Logic and Theory of Computation (ALTC):

The focus of ALTC should be on the following domains: The general theory of applied logical systems, with a particular emphasis on applications in Artificial Intelligence and in Agents and Intelligent Systems. Of key importance will be logics for spatial and temporal reasoning, for reasoning about beliefs, belief revision and defeasibility, and for reasoning about actions, intentions, preferences and norms.

Ginzburg lodged an appeal (for which there was a hearing on 25th January), based on two main points:

A. There was noone on either the departmental or school panels who is familiar with work in the areas he specializes in and who could properly evaluate its fitting with the specification of the ALTC. In particular, the external member of the panel who decided not to select him for the new department, Prof Paul Layzell (University of Sussex), is a software engineer whose specific areas of research are remote from logic and artificial intelligence oriented aspects of computer science. There is also public evidence that Layzell has a history of collaborating with members of another research group in the dept of computer science, Software Engineering, all of whom were selected for membership in the department. Layzell is also the Pro-Vice Chancellor of Sussex University, whose treatment of its own academic staff (detailed e.g. in the Times here, and here, and on the web here) is not unlike the KCL administration’s actions.

B. Ginzburg’s work covers the areas outlined in the specification of the restructured department. Ginzburg argued this case by pointing to various of his articles that directly addressed the departmental specification, as well as pointing to his other professional activities.  Three internationally renowned experts in the area of Logic and AI wrote detailed and highly cogent letters arguing that Ginzburg’s work fit the specification.

The appeal panel consisted of Prof Keith Hoggart (dept. of Geography, KCL), Prof. Simon Howells (Biomedical Science, KCL), and Ms Claire Harrington (an independent legal adviser). The specification of the terms of reference of the appeal panel indicated the following:

The decision of School panel has been reached following due consideration and having made an informed judgement and the appeal   panel will not change the decision of the School Panel unless it can be demonstrated that there was not due consideration or an informed judgement had not been made in which circumstances it will be remitted back to School panel for review on the specific point(s) of appeal identified by the Appeal Panel.

This sentence appears to assert part of what the appeal panel is meant to determine (whether the decision had been reached following due consideration and on the basis of an informed judgement).  Furthermore it appears that the appeal panel is only empowered to hand back the case to the School panel (i.e. the people who made the original decision) for review if problems should be discovered.

Concerns about the composition of the appeal panel and its terms of reference were raised in a letter to the principal of KCL, Professor Rick Trainor, by myself and Professor Ruth Kempson. That letter was answered by Mr Brent Dempster, the KCL director of Human Resources, on Professor Trainor’s behalf.  We were assured that

Dr Ginzberg (sic) has had an opportunity to present his case and  full and appropriate consideration will be given to his submission.  The College is confident that the appeal process is both robust and fair and that the correct decision will be reached  following these proceedings.

(The misspelling of Ginzburg’s name appeared twice in the email we received, suggesting that it was not simply a typing error…)

The panel took a considerable amount of time to come up with their verdict. It was announced on February 19, some 10 working days later than the KCL statutory deadline and a considerable amount of time after the date stipulated in the terms of reference: 29th January. Hence, the decision could not be deemed to be a rushed decision. But despite their claims to have considered Ginzburg’s evidence carefully, the panel did not address any of the points he or the three experts who wrote for him raised beyond saying that he had not made his case.  Nor did they indicate any response by the school panel, to whom they indicated they had passed on the material.  In part the letter Ginzburg received read:

By means of background to your appeal, the New Departmental Panel considered that, while your research was considered to be of a very high standard, your case was not made on grounds of research fit and this recommendation was agreed by the school panel, as detailed in the letter from Chris Mottershead dated 18th December 2009….

Following consideration of the feedback on the additional information, it is with regret that the Appeal Panel concluded not to uphold your appeal i.e. the original rejection remains.

A final piece of evidence that procedures concerning restructuring decisions at KCL are not all they should be is given by the experience of one of the academics who wrote on Ginzburg’s behalf on 10th December, the day that he was handed his letter stating that he was at risk by Chris Mottershead, Vice Principal (Research and Innovation). A few hours after Ginzburg’s supporter had emailed the principal with a cc to Mr Mottershead he received a reply from Mottershead:

Rick

Problems always occur where you least expect them! I have spoken on a one-to-one basis to most people in PSE in the last two days, and everybody who is at risk – expect Jonathan, who has been away. I am due to see him at 2:30 today.

I am concerned how he and others have found out what we decided before I give him his letter today. As background – we would agree with these comments.  The issue is that we still have too many theoretical computer scientists, although far fewer than before – and Jonathan’s work does not relate to the other activities of the Department, and is at the periphery of computer science.

The decision about Jonathan was strongly supported by our external advisor on computer science – Paul Lyzell – who is PVC for research at Sussex and was on the CS RAE Panel.

Chris Mottershead

It is unclear why Mr Mottershead sent this letter to Ginzburg’s supporter (who is not named Rick). Perhaps it was inadvertent and meant for the Principal of KCL who is so named. Interestingly, this letter appears to indicate that the case against Ginzburg and his logician colleagues was quite different from what had been stated publicly and that the real motivation was to reduce the number of “theoretical computer scientists”, an issue that was never raised in the restructuring plan of the department or mentioned to Ginzburg in connection with his redundancy risk or appeal.

A further point of concern, which could have legal consequences, relates to discrimination. Ginzburg, as well as the other two people who were identified for redundancy in the Computer Science Department, and the three people selected for termination of employment in the Philosophy Department are all foreign born and raised. There is a clear matter for concern that the College may be discriminating against them on the basis of national origin. While this may not have been an explicit criterion for selecting employees for dismissal, it is clear that whatever criteria have been used have given rise to adverse discrimination by virtue of national origin.

It is indeed worrying to see an institution of the stature of KCL not only make foolish decisions to make some of its leading world-class scholars redundant but also pursue these decisions with what appears to be administrative ineptitude of sitcom proportions.  It would almost have been funny if it had not involved our valued colleagues.

[Guest post from Robin Cooper.]

[What follows is a guest post reporting on a very disturbing situation at King’s College London involving the sacking of senior computational linguists and others in a secretly planned, tragically stupid, and farcically implemented mass-purge. The author of the post is currently employed at KCL, and for obvious reasons must remain anonymous here.

Although it is clear that KCL is suffering from severe budgetary problems, the administration has reacted to the problems inappropriately and unconscionably: the administration is sacking some of KCL’s most successful, academically productive and influential scholars, showing arbitrariness and short-sightedness in its decision making, and acting with extreme callousness in the manner by which the decisions have been imposed on the victims.

For those out of the field, I would note that I and other Language Loggers are intimately acquainted with the work of those under fire at KCL. It is among the most important work in syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and computational linguistics, presenting ideas that many of us cite regularly and have absorbed into our own work, and which nobody in the field can ignore. – David Beaver]

Philosophers have been aghast at recent developments at King’s College, London
where three senior philosophers, Prof Shalom Lappin, Dr Wilfried Meyer-Viol and Prof Charles Travis, have been targetted for redundancy as part of a restructuring plan for the KCL School of Arts and Humanities. The reason for targetting Lappin and Meyer-Viol has been explained to be that KCL is `disinvesting’ from Computational Linguistics. One of the many puzzling aspects of this supposed explanation for targetting Lappin and Meyer-Viol is that there is no computational linguistics unit in Philosophy to disinvest from. (For detailed coverage see the Leiter Report here, here, and here, and these letters protesting the actions taken in the humanities.)

In contrast to the explicit targeting of the non-existent computational linguistics unit in the school of Humanities, in the sciences a more stealthy approach was adopted. Already last June Dr Jonathan Ginzburg, a senior lecturer in the Computer Science dept, whose research spans formal semantics, logic, and dialogue, was informed that computational linguistics would be omitted as a domain of research in the Informatics dept into which Computer Science was mutating. However, in contrast to what happened in the Humanities, in Computer Science the disappearance of computational linguistics was not explicitly proclaimed. It was an indirect speech act: the spec of the Applied Logic and Theory of Computation group simply omitted any mention of computational linguistics. By doing this, Ginzburg could be declared as not fitting the declared areas of research of the group, and more generally, the department.

And indeed in December, Ginzburg was informed that a panel comprised of Professors from the School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, including a number of Computer Scientists, as well as some external members, had decided not to select him for membership of the new department. There were no complaints about his productivity or standing in the field—his research was acknowledged to be of an international level (indeed his g-index of 42 was the 4th highest in a department numbering 25 permanent staff.). The grounds for non-selection were lack of `research fit’. Consequently, he is at risk of redundancy.

Luckily for Ginzburg, in a way, the panel contained not a single person from his own research group or anyone with competence in the area of NLP or formal semantics of NL. The panel’s ‘expert witness’ was an expert in software engineering, Prof Paul Layzell of Sussex University (a university that pioneered the wholesale laying off of its academic staff; see here, here, and here for details). He, and his fellow panel members, were apparently entirely unaware that Ginzburg’s research, centered on the formal analysis of dialogue interaction, actually fits the spec that had been drawn for the group of applied logic and theory of computing rather well. That, supported by expert testimony of a number of leading AI researchers, is the basis for his appeal against the decision, an appeal that is still pending.

The situation at King’s is a worrying development for linguists of all stripes, but more generally for all academics in the UK—it seems clear that the moves by the KCL administration, far from being an aberration, will be aped by university administrators throughout the UK. In contrast to universities that have undergone similar budgetary pressures in the US (e.g. in the UC system), at KCL firing permanent staff has been the move of first resort. No attempt is being made to seriously explore alternative ways of reducing the College’s budget deficit. Indeed, KCL has just announced it is in the process of buying a wing of the palatial Somerset House to the tune of > £20,000,000. No less ominously, these moves usher in an environment where administrators impose their quite arbitrary visions of what constitute acceptable areas of research. So while computationally-oriented linguistics is flourishing in academia in the US and Canada, with increasing numbers getting hired out of graduate schools, with both Google and Microsoft boasting big teams of researchers in this area. And while a significant number of successful graduates have emerged in this area from Philosophy and Computer Science, with its staff pioneering research in areas such as dialogue, logic, and language acquisition, the administration at King’s has decided it has a different vision. Why? No reason has been given.

But why target linguists? Of course linguists are by no means the sole target of the various restructuring exercises. In the sciences at King’s the entire division of Engineering was shut, whereas a host of other disciplines have been targeted in the humanities (including Classics, Paleography, and American Studies). Linguists at KCL are scattered across a number of depts, so are an easy target for slogans like `only units with critical mass will be retained.’ There had been discussions several years back about forming a linguistics department from the dozen or so linguists spread across CS, Philosophy, Greek, German, Education etc, but the administration decided against it.

Still, it’s probably true that the marginal position of the field (neither hardcore humanities, nor hardcore science, nor hardcore engineering) and the widespread lack of awareness of what linguists do or why is an important contributing factor. Mark Liberman has, with some justification, been castigating linguists for their part in this over the pages of this blog. How critical this problem is is illustrated by the current crisis, though alleviating it is of course a long term project.

In the short term, the situation at King’s might still be reversed if the administration is reminded that its boast of being ‘one of the top 25 universities in the world’, proudly embossed on , will become an empty one if it gains a reputation for treating its staff with the disdain it has shown in the current crisis. (On how to remind them, see e.g., this page, which relates solely to the humanities restructuring, and this page for details concerning CS.)

[Note that by classifying the above guest post as “Linguistics in the news”, what I mean is that it *should* be in the news. -David Beaver]

That’s the tagline for Banksy’s soon to be released film Exit Through the Gift Shop. This is turning out to be a good day for sentences you need to read twice. And it’s rare to find one which says nothing and everything (about street art, grammar, movies, you name it) so precisely.

[via the Guardian]