| Description | Interview with Kenny SimRecorded on 10 December, 2002 by Jennifer Carter.
Transcript of Interview :
JC Remind me Kenny, although I know we have spoken about your university days a bit before, but remind me where you came from and why you chose Aberdeen university. How it came about.
KS I was fairly used to the North East, my father coming from this very town of Fraserburgh, and when it came time to go to university I fancied one of the traditional Scottish ones, so Aberdeen became the natural choice.
JC You were at Fraserburgh Academy?
KS No. I was born and bred in Lanarkshire, in darkest Lanarkshire! But Fraserburgh was the holiday destination through most of my childhood. So I knew Aberdeen a bit as a summer holiday tourist.
JC So you came up to renew your links with the north-east as it were?
KS Yes. To see it in a completely different light.
JC And what was your original ambition in coming to university? What degree were you originally aiming for?
KS I don't know that ambition was a word that came into the equation too much! I knew that I wanted to go to university. I knew that I had an interest in subjects like English and French, which are amongst those which I followed, but I think at that stage my subsequent intentions were fairly vague. I had notions of Civil Service, journalism and teaching. These were the three things most whizzing about in my head at the time.
JC And teaching was the one that ultimately came through, but we can come back to that later. Interesting, that you say that you came up to Aberdeen because it was vaguely familiar to you as it were. It was that rather than a specific course. You just wanted to do a degree?
KS Yes, that's right. I have to say that at the time I wanted to be as far away from home as possible, and Aberdeen was certainly the furthest!
JC Did your school send many pupils to Aberdeen?
KS No, not at all.
JC Not at all. You were unusual in your choice?
KS Yes. Wishaw High School was my secondary school and Glasgow and Strathclyde universities were by the far absorbers of our output.
JC But you weren't discouraged by the school from applying to Aberdeen?
KS Not at all, not at all. Quite the opposite.
JC Just wondered. So you came up and you had a first year, well with three years indeed, but graduated with an Ordinary degree, taking a range of.. what.. English, French ..?
KS Sociology, History of Music, which was available at that time and Philosophy.
JC Why did you settle for an Ordinary degree? Did something go wrong in second year that you didn't get into Honours, or did you just want to finish sooner?
KS It was quite simple. I didn't work! I was a lazy bum, basically! That's the sum and substance of it.
JC So you didn't get into Honours. You would have aspired to Honours, but at that time didn't get in.
KS In point of fact, leaving with an Ordinary degree was a big disappointment. I felt that I had let myself down, so coming back subsequently was, as I saw it, having a second bite of the cherry that not many people have.
JC Very good. Lazy or was social life just too exciting?
KS Oh, a good mix of both, but laziness has always been part of my make-up! Only in the maturing years have I been able to do something about it.
JC But you got in easily, did you? Or did you scrape in. I mean in terms of Highers and things.
KS Again, I had been lazy at school. I actually worked for a year, prior to coming. I had to achieve a further two science Highers, Physics and Chemistry, so I worked in a steelworks, no longer existent, for a year and did evening class. I had been accepted for Stirling University, but I was keen to come to Aberdeen and so persisted.
JC And marked time for a year, and go through what must have been quite a tough situation for a youngster leaving school and also studying?
KS I don't think one saw it at the time. I mean I was 18 and you just had to wait another year and go and do something about it. I don't think I every felt it was impossible that I couldn't do it. I think one had a certain amount of confidence in one's self, so one did that. So time was not a big factor. You know, you always thought, well it will happen eventually!
JC Thinking back, I am trying to recall, this would have been a period when you would have got a grant of course, and you got a full grant, or a partial grant?
KS Partial grant. My father was always in steady work. He was a tradesman and so we were never financially stuck, but at that stage it was a partial grant with parental contribution.
JC And they were happy to pay up?
KS Oh, yes.
JC There wasn't any financial problem dragging you down?
KS No, they encouraged us, and my two younger sisters subsequently went on to train as primary teachers. So we were the first generation of the family to go into Higher education.
JC Interesting. So you left with an Ordinary degree. Can you recall much about that three years with us. I mean, where did you stay for example?
KS Halls of Residence.
JC All the time?
KS No, just the first couple of years, where you in fact were warden!
JC Johnston Hall
KS Yes, then we moved into a flat, which was provided by the University. It was off Rosemount, in a street called Richmond Street, and it was condemned property, which the University had temporarily taken over and furnished.
JC It must have been one of the numerous housing crisis that the University had.
KS But at the time it was a very cosy flat and we were very happy there as I recall. So I never had a hard time with accommodation, but I know that at that stage not all of my peer group were in a happy situation.
JC And you enjoyed being in Johnston? It worked for you. You were one of those for whom it worked?
KS Yes, I think that by the time we moved out it was time to go. We would have to have gone in any case, but we felt we wanted to spread our wings a bit.
JC Did you carry friends from there?
KS Yes, three of us who moved into the flat were all ex-pat Johnsonites, so yes.
JC And have they stayed friends for life or not?
KS In point of fact, both of them are the two major friends that I have stayed in contact with from University days. One is now in France and the other teaches in Aberdeen.
JC And neither of them were people known to you before you went up to university.
KS No, but ironically one of them came from Motherwell, which is a joint burgh with Wishaw, and we had not known each other until we arrived in Aberdeen, and we ended up two doors away in B. Block in Johnston.
JC It was the social geography of the Hall that determined your friendship for life.
KS Absolutely, and part of my holiday destination and base for journeys related to the studies in the later study period, because one of the chaps now lives in France and it was his house that I used as a base quite frequently when going back over there.
JC What took him to France. What does he do there?
KS He married a French woman! He also taught and he ended up marrying the Assistant who was in the school where he was teaching, in Carluke in Lanarkshire, and they moved back over to Argenteuil, just outside Paris, where he is working, well teaching in a peripatetic role, as an English teacher. So it has all worked out nicely.
JC Enjoying the superior French life-style we are always hearing about now! Not such a common move in those days?
KS No, it was quite a shock when he decided to go. He moved over and we wondered whether he would stay. I say they married, they actually decided to stay together and moved over to see how things worked out and subsequently they married and settled and it worked out nicely.
JC So you came out with your Ordinary degree, and did what before you came back to us as a part-time student?
KS Quite simply I did a year's post graduate Teacher Training
JC College of Education?
KS Yes and then, by pure coincidence, I ended up working here in Fraserburgh, in the local academy, for about 8½ years and since then I have been here in the college teaching in FE.
JC And there was no difficulty in getting a job in the academy because of not having an Honours degree, or did it limit your career in any way?
KS Yes, I think it did, although there was no problem getting job, but I think that Honours grads. were given better treatment as far as promotion was concerned. I have to say that is not an official line, but I think it was fairly evident.
JC Did they actually have a salary advantage, because there was one period when they did, but maybe it had stopped before your time.
KS The advantage was that you came in a step higher up the ladder.
JC So there was an actual salary advantage.
KS Yes, but you reached the same ceiling ultimately.
JC And you were teaching there, what subjects ?
KS English, just English.
JC And then moved here to the College of Further Education, also teaching English?
KS No. There was some English taught, but in FE you move to a situation where the main part of what would be English is now Communication, but there was a major difference also in that teaching in what was called then the General Studies department, one found that one was expected to cover a range of other subjects. You had to be a bit of a "jack-of-all-trades" and that suited me quite well, and led, incidentally, to my later return to the University doing French.
JC In what way? Because there was a demand for language teaching?
KS There was a slight demand for language teaching. I was the only one in the section that had any language at that stage I had a French first year pass and I used that later on as a lever to have the College sponsor me into the French department, and I think I am right in saying that it was something new for the University French department. They did say that they hadn't had anyone coming in doing one-off language modules or units at the time, but they were prepared to do it and it worked out I think fairly well. It certainly did for my point of view.
JC Good for you and good for them. It is certainly interesting, the date though, because this was the period when there was that temporary upsurge and enthusiasm for Europe, 1992-1993, and kids were wanting to learn foreign languages. Seems to have died completely now.
KS I don't know if the language thing every came up. It was a sort of political thing, goes all the way through. It's in primary as well. There are various initiatives ongoing to try and increase language but it is something that we British don't seem to be termed good at and are terribly enthusiastic about, but from my point of view it did provide enough work within the department to justify my going off and furthering my studies, because I certainly did not feel too confident teaching French, even at a basic level, without some sort of refresher.
JC When you signed up to do it part-time at University, did you repeat first year work, or did you go into second year work?
KS No, they allowed me to come into second year when I explained what my history was and it was a case of suck and see and it worked out because the pass marks were quite reasonable.
JC And you were presumably putting quite a lot into it too. You were more committed this time!
KS A hell of a lot more than prior! I grabbed the chance when it came because I was more enthusiastic about doing some study then.
JC But it must have been quite an effort. I am thinking you are up here doing a full-time job and you are having to race down to the University for classes. Or did you get time off here, or what?
KS There was no time off as such, but my section head was very flexible in arranging my timetable around the times when I had to go to Aberdeen. The only compromise on my side was that I didn't always manage to choose the options later on which I might have gone for had time been absolutely free in choice.
JC Well that is very good. I think it is a story that reflects extremely well both on you and on the ability of the system to accommodate you. Both at the College and at the University.
KS Indeed. I have to say that the University department was always extremely positive and very helpful when ever any sort of problem arose, but that said, the idea of studying… it is no false modesty, to say that it didn't seem like an effort. There was something really enjoyable and my prior history I had been pretty lazy about it all. It was a chance that I appreciated that few people will find coming to them.
JC What class of degree did you finally graduate with?
KS A 2.1
JC Pretty good, part-time. So you are one of these unusual people, apart from the distinction of having come back like that, who have had, you said yourself, had two bites at the university cherry. Now I appreciate the circumstances in which you came back made it a very different experience, but what sort of changes struck you when you re-enrolled as a student? How different did the place, the students, the system ……
KS Well a couple of things. Inevitably, coming back as a middle-aged adult, you know, you felt that you were different in how people responded to you, and also the fact that I was doing it part-time meant that I was this strange older guy who came and went and rarely got to know many of the students terribly well and I have to say that I didn't try and intrude on their consciousness too much, because I think I felt aware of how they would think of me. So I tended to be fairly anonymous with most of my co-op.
JC Though there quite a few mature students in the University by then.
KS Indeed. That was one of the changes. I was aware of that before I had come, because working here in the College, one of the tasks I have is of course tutor for the SWAP course which is Scottish Wider Access Programme, that is designed primarily for adults returning to education. So I was aware that there was a higher proportion of adults than before of adults going back into the system, which was good.
JC But probably not all that many of them doing languages I would guess
KS Oh no, I think very few, but you mentioned the differences. The other difference which I was aware of was of people talking about work and part-time jobs, that I think if I look back that was the single biggest change. Because when I was there first time round I honestly cannot remember anyone doing part-time work.
JC I think it was very heavily discouraged by the University authorities. Quite right, I would have thought.
KS Absolutely.
JC But we have to give way to necessities. That was the only way people could keep bread in their mouths. But that was noticeable to you as a student that people were tearing off to do bar work, in the evening.
KS Exactly, you took the words out of my mouth!
JC The one I was always amused by was "I am terribly sorry Dr. Carter, I can't do a nine o'clock tutorial because I have a job as a waitress doing breakfasts at the hotel" that one. Yes.
KS We had trouble enough getting up for breakfast in Johnston Hall, let alone going to wait on someone else!
JC I don't think it was an excuse, I think it was genuine. What else struck you about the change in the student life and what students were like, between your two experiences here.
KS I don't know how accurate it was because I never spend much time round at the Student's Union second time round, but I felt from listening and talking to students that now students leave a more integrated life, in the sense that their socialising seemed to focus less around purely student based things. You know we used to go to the Union dances and the wherever, the Northern College, places like that, but it was pretty largely within the student body, whereas now I think the social life has widened out, and there certainly seem to be a lot more places around Aberdeen for socialising.
JC With more young people generally. Yes, I was just going to say, that the clubs didn't exist in your first student experience, whereas now, they are the main focus of social activity.
KS Yes, and the Union by contrast seemed to have faded a bit, certainly it was reduced in its size because of the building had been taken up by other enterprises.
JC Yes, sold-off. Yes, Interesting. So although the second time round people were more worried about money in a paradoxical way they were probably spending more than you spent on entertainment.
KS Probably, looking back, I honestly, I can't remember how much we used to get, because the change in the money has escalated had things to such a degree I can't remember how my grant was, or how much we paid for a pint of beer at the time, but we were never huge spenders. It didn't seem to be a major problem.
JC Whereas now, although, as I say, it is so difficult and so many people are scraping a living, they nevertheless seem to spend, quite expensively, on nightclubbing and pubs and so on.
KS And the bit I found quite worrying was listening to them talking about increasing their student loan, in the knowledge that it had to be paid back, which we didn't have to do.
JC And you would have probably been pretty horrified in your generation at the prospect of graduating with thousands of pounds or more in debt.
KS Paying back a grant! Oh god, yes! But in speaking to people now who have come through and out of the system, either slightly before myself or during that time, it is now part and parcel.. My wife, for example, who graduated the same year as me, second time round, she is busy paying off the last of her student loan, and its now taken as part and parcel of life, along with the mortgage and some people have car loans and things like that, they pay off their student loan at the same time.
JC How much of a debt did she graduate with? Do you remember?
KS No, I don't. £3,000 pounds rings a bell.
JC A relatively modest sum.
KS Yes, very much so, because as an adult she would have been much less inclined to stretch it.
JC Apart from the money aspect, what other ways there were social changes between the two times?
KS I think to a large extend, what surprised me was the fact that I didn't with the exception of the afore mentioned, I found myself often hypothesising a bit how it would have looked had I appeared back say dressed as I had been in the early '70's, and I actually found that there wasn't a huge difference. You know if one did the comparison looking back 30 years, from the '70's to the '40's, then one could see a much more massive difference, but I think with the exception of electronic music there was so much that was culturally very similar.
JC Were you using computers very much the first time round?
KS No.
JC And a lot in your second incarnation?
KS I can remember that I was in that period, encouraged very strongly the teachers in the French Department to word-process stuff, which for reasons which became obvious, you know, were good ones and that in itself ….although I teach here in an FE college, at that stage we were still submitting stuff to be word-processed for us and so on. Going back and doing the course and learning to type up things myself, and of course with the word processors were an awful lot more easily done than prior years. But, yes, I think that was something I actually learned through going back.
JC What about the internet. Did you use that for purposes of research and so on?
KS The first time I used it, when I was doing my dissertation on the Academe Francais, and again if I were to do it now, I would make a better job of it. But that was the first sort of splash into the water!
JC What about other facilities the University offers. I mean the Library, was it important in either of your spells at university?
KS Second time!
JC Second time! The first time you didn't know where it was!
KS I knew where it was. It was the place you walked by! The point you are getting at with the computers, is that the modern methods of IT methods had spread to the library and that I found intensely useful. I mean from here, because I didn't have a home PC here at that stage. We bought one in my last year and a half, but up until then I would be using this place, and I found that here in Fraserburgh I could simply log in, check up on the availability of a book and if it was available I could book it, I could reserve it and pick it up next time I was in. Which when you look back, comparatively speaking, and that was amazing .
JC That wouldn't have been possible first time round, even if you wished to do it!
KS They were still using, as far as I am aware, cards and so on in the libraries then. And the system worked at the time, don't mistake me, but when one compares it with now .. and going back as an adult I have to say that I was aware of how friendly and helpful the University Library staff were. They were incredibly helpful at times.
JC What other aspects of university struck you as different, perhaps? You mentioned some which were different and some which were the same. The size of the place must have been pretty different, wouldn't it?
KS Yes, but again I would think in my narrow minded way I hadn't taken in the scope… the one factor was that life has shifted more on to the King's campus. When I was there first, Marischal was very much still an active spot, and that was quite strange going back to find that it was very much less used nowadays.
JC Did that impact on the facilities, the difficulty of getting a cup of coffee or…
KS No I didn't find much of a problem, that way at all, but then again I had been spoiled, because, two years in Johnston Hall, you just went back to your rooms. You weren't really dependant on the facilities on campus.
JC I was thinking more of your second incarnation, when you were travelling down from Fraserburgh, if you wanted to eat at the University and so on.
KS Truth to tell I didn't. The situation was always one where you were whizzing in and out. You were arriving here about half-past nine to be back, say to take a class here at one o'clock, so that precluded any possibility of hanging about.
JC How did you travel, as a matter of interest?
KS Car and motorbike. I had a few speeding points on the licence, trying to get to classes on time! Which leaves me to one other point. Parking! Again as you will remember at Johnston Hall, there were things called parking spaces, but nowadays around University Road or anything because students have cars and in our day very few did.
JC That is one of the things that had changed with taking in many more mature students. Many of them are juggling outside commitments, not always work, but family commitments, and you know the only they can cope is if they have the car to hand so they can dash back and pick up the kids from school, or whatever it may be. The University certainly has not adapted to that situation at all.
KS It would be difficult, because space is at a premium.
JC Well I always thought, if I had the money to invest, I would build a huge multi-storey. I am sure there is the demand.
KS You were asking me other changes in the University, I mean again I think a lot of it was part of my perception rather than actual change and I think of tutorial groups and so on where as an adult you were so much more aware of the university teachers as human beings and I think you were more appreciative of what they did as well. You know, given the human failings which we all demonstrate.
JC You were probably a fairly participating student in tutorials?
KS I think overly so at times! I think I had to be told, discreetly, to shut up! I think I was being told discreetly to shut up a couple of times.
JC Back in your first time at university probably tutorial groups were pretty quiet, were they?
KS Yes, I remember the syndrome of going to classes and starting sentences when absolutely forced into it, with absolutely no idea of how that sentence was going to finish, because I hadn't been to the library.
JC So your main object was to keep the head down and not respond.
KS Absolutely! Where as second time round you felt that you wanted to absorb as much, to partipate as much .. and it was interesting as an adult when people were not willing to say anything, you didn't like embarrassing silences and you pitched in, and that in a sense is a negative feedback loop. If there is someone there willing to do it then…so I was discreetly asked to turn the volume down on more than one occasion!
JC But that implies that the other students in your group were fairly quiet still, not as vocal as I would have expected. I would have expected that might have been one of the big contrasts. Because it certainly was in my subject, history, you know by the later part of my teaching career, students were just more willing to participate.
KS It is a difficult one for me to judge on, because first time round… as a teacher one is much more used to speaking so you don't tend to notice if others round about you are doing the same. You would have a better perspective on that than I do.
JC Fascinating. What haven't we mentioned, Kenny, that you think we should have covered? Because if feel you are a relatively unusual student in the way in which you have structures your life at university.
KS The point which I am curious about, and it is perhaps not a fair one to bring in, is how standards have shifted, that is more of a question from me to you, and that is not supposed to be what we are doing, but having taught for quarter of a century now and having seen the changes that have taken place and having heard the outcry from various areas of the media and so on, I have often wondered what the impact at university level. What sort of standards you now look for coming and going out.
JC I think coming in the standard is much, much more variable than it probably was at the time when you first enrolled. Admissions tutors, partially because they are always seeking for more heads …
KS Or bums, you know bums on seats!
JC You know will accept qualifications which perhaps in the past would have been frowned down. Though, that being said, Aberdeen had always been fairly liberal. I mean I remember, way back, somebody being accepted, a mature student admittedly, simply on the basis of a published volume of poetry, and no formal qualifications at all! But I think that the standard school leaver often now gets in more lightly than would have been the case when you were a standard school leaver.
KS That has been my observation and so I wonder what the effect and the through put ..
JC And the knock-on effect is that people demand much more teaching. The demand comes from, in a sense, two different directions, on the one hand, mature students are often extremely demanding in the best possible way, because they are motivated and they want to get a lot more out of it, but in a subject like history where there is a high content of opinion and low content of fact in many cases. Shouldn't be like that, but it often is! You know, the phenomenon of wanting a second opinion is not uncommon. But the other kind of demand is from the lost souls, who have come in really with qualifications that are not adequate and need an awful lot of spoon-feeding to get them through.
KS One of the changes which I noted and I think it was for the better, was in the CAS, the Common Assessment Scale, from a students point of view, I certainly found it most useful, because of course the programme which I was following is now largely continuously assessed and that itself was useful because it gave you a fairly good ongoing progress report and if you were doing well it encouraged you to sort of keep up the standard. Whereas in the past there was always a tendency to say I will work near examine time, which in my case was fatal. But this idea of having partly continuously based and also assessed on a scale where you could readily see where you were going with it, I found that very, very useful.
JC And it was a very good discipline for University teachers too, because previously each department you know, had its own mad scheme, and the students couldn't tell if they were doing better in Psychology or French. It took a lot of fighting through to get that one accepted by the University.
KS It was a fairly radical change, and these types of changes do.
JC But I think, a very desirable one.
JC What I think about the end product is that the good people are just as good, but in the middle somewhere, I think, a lot of people are getting by who probably in the past would not have got 2.1's. There has been in that sense a bit of grade inflation and there has also been a tremendous amount of pressure to award more First's, from all sorts of directions, partially because the number you awarded became a performance indicator for the University. In history for example, I mean Firsts used to be given out incredibly sparingly, far too sparingly, I think. I can think of many superb students who were denied Firsts, in my early years, who now certainly would not be. And I think that was just a piece of silliness on our part. It was the ethos of the time. And that has gone, which is change for the better. So I think the good students are just as good, I think that in the middle there is a little bit more of a mix and bit of grade inflation and I don't know about the really bottom end, because there has never been a serious problem with failure. There has been a problem with drop-out, but not a serious problem of failure ever, I think. So here's me chatting to you! Wrong way round!
KS I apologise!
JC Not at all, it is your skill, and the interest in what we have been talking about. But is there anything we haven't covered, that you think we should have done?
KS Well there is nothing that strikes me as obvious. What I would reiterate is that I am happy with the fact that the University has and does now seem to have broadened out its approach in terms of intake. That's not just the University, but the whole of higher education. I mean what you just said a minute ago I think outlines the problem that the pressures that are on institutions to pass people. There is this two-stage thought, you take them in, and then once in, you are pressurised to pass them, because they are there, rather than on merit and I think.. Another thing that is a sort of contradictory statement is that I would like to see the standards kept up and at the same time the breadth of entry maintained or indeed improved further.
JC I think that it what a university like Aberdeen aims at. I think the main problem about standards, probably are in other kinds of institutions, where the pressures must be immense. With us the pressures are there, but they tend to be subtle and subdued. Like the pressure I was describing to award more Firsts. I mean it was a very subtle pressure and I think in many cases, in fact, it was a very salutary one. You know it was foolish the way we treated them before. But I don't think there have been any really serious problems about standards in a University like Aberdeen, a traditional university, in a huge incubus of traditional standards, as it were.
KS It was certainly something, I have to say, that I didn't feel that there had been any diminution of the standards in the lower stages. I wasn't aware how that effected in the lower echelons of the three year type degree and what sort of standards were required to get that, but certainly felt that into third and fourth year to achieve fair marks, you certainly felt, well I did, that you had to work towards. It wasn't something that was given.
JC Well I think that's as it should be. Don't you?
KS Absolutely.
JC Well it has been lovely talking to you and thank you very much for your time.
KS A pleasure.
JC Thank you.
End of Interview.
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