Dear Colleagues, Thanks to all of you who responded to my crisis circular. There has been a swift and constructive response. There does, encouragingly, seem to be a broad consensus for the approach I adumbrated, which might be summed up by saying: Since we think that it is an unquestionably good thing for our students to go abroad, we shouldn't make it any more difficult for them than necessary by insisting on the letter of the law. However, since writing that first mail I have discovered that the situation has worsened: The four-month semester AS OF NOW means: September to December, and the five-month semester will start on 12 January 2004 [sic!] Since Hull want their International Students to arrive BEFORE the beginning of term for their various induction sessions (makes sense as such), this means our students are supposed to be in Hull on 5 January, i.e. even before our Christmas break has finished, and that in turn means that they would be missing out not just on a couple of weeks but on five teaching weeks or one third of our own semester. So the question arises, how far can we go with the flexible liberal attitude we all seem to share in principle. Are we then still prepared to stretch a point or has this passed the point beyond which we cannot make any concessions? Naturally, I think we should protest to Hull in no uncertain terms - what they are doing is making it practically impossible for our students to study effectively within both systems. Not that I expect our protest will have much effect - in fact, I am beginning to suspect that they don't really want our students anyway the whole manoeuvre is anti-European and an attempt to limit student immigration. Yours PHM To end on a positive note - may I remind you of the reception for incoming ERASMUS students on Wed. 5 November, 7 p.m. in B 8/9...