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University Partnerships with the Corporate Sector
Faculty Experiences with for Profit Matriculation
Pathway Programs 1st Edition Carter Winkle Digital
Instant Download
Author(s): Carter Winkle
ISBN(s): 9789004259263, 9004259260
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 1.10 MB
Year: 2013
Language: english
University Partnerships with the Corporate Sector
Innovation & Leadership in
English Language Teaching

Series Editor

Martha C. Pennington (City University of Hong Kong)

VOLUME �

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ilelt

 University Partnerships with
the Corporate Sector
Faculty Experiences with For-Profit Matriculation
Pathway Programs

By

Carter A. Winkle

LEIDEN | BOSTON
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
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Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
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Fees are subject to change.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Connie Winkle

∵
Contents

Preface ix

Part 1
Contextual Perspectives

1 The New University Context: Outsourcing and Corporate

Partnerships 3

2 The New Context of English Language Programs within the

Outsourcing Movement 18

3 An Exploratory Study 31

4 Methodology for Researching Practitioner Perspectives in the

Corporate Sector Partnership Programs 46

Part 2
Front-Line Perspectives on Corporate Sector Partnership
Pathway Programs

5 English Language Program Administrators 67

6  nglish Language Program Administrator–Faculty Border

E
Crossers 117

7 English Language Teaching Faculty 162

8 Faculty in Academic Disciplines 194

Part 3
Reflections: Looking Backward and Forward

9 Review and Discussion of Findings 221

viii contents

10 Into the Future 234

References 269
Index 277
Preface

Education can be acknowledged as a sort of Winkle “family business.” Just as

doctors, lawyers, engineers, musicians, athletes, and farmers seem to run in
families, so too do educators. Both of my parents worked in a public university,
and each had parents who were educators. A brother and two sisters are also
teachers, as are a great number of my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Whether it is
our nature or nurture that we have in common, there is something in us
Winkles that inclines us to pursue careers in education and, in general, in
service to others (including pastoral). Consequently, although it took me a
while to find my teaching vocation, having first pursued careers in both
the performing arts and corporate finance in New York City, it would seem
perhaps inevitable I would become a teacher.
I got involved in English language teaching after the events of 9–11, which
set in motion a period of reflection, questioning, and self-reassessment
that led me to a decision to pursue an occupation of service to others.
My first experience was with the for-profit Berlitz Language Center in Miami,
Florida, where my status as a native speaker of English was deemed suffi­
cient to justify putting me as a teacher of English language learners. I had
gone to Berlitz as a way to “try on” teaching, to see if it would be a good
fit for my disposition. My first day with students I had not yet completed
the absurdly condensed, week-long required teacher-training activities. Still,
this initial step to the front of the classroom, which occurred long before
I understood concepts of curriculum, pedagogy, or indeed the linguistic
features of my mother tongue, confirmed English language teaching as my
new vocation.
Perhaps my interest in issues related to the corporatization of English
language programs stems from these early experiences as an English lan­
guage instructor with Berlitz. The Berlitz Method I was taught to use in my
classes followed a mechanical “3Ps” – presentation, practice, performance –
approach, presumably designed to be teacher-proof, in which the materials
were prescribed and highly pre-structured. As a native English speaker, I had
subconsciously acquired the rules governing English’s grammar; but early
in my teaching, I was not far beyond merely being able to identify the
most basic elements of language. The limitations of Berlitz’ instructional
training were being highlighted on a daily basis, and it was not long before
I started looking into university Master’s programs in Teaching English
to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and applied linguistics in order
x Preface

to more formally and concretely prepare for the discipline of language

teaching.
While pursuing and after completing a Master of Arts degree in Applied
Linguistics, I taught adult English language learners in both IEP and EAP
courses – most frequently grammar and composition. The programs where
I taught were all housed in public colleges or universities and were adminis-
trated and taught by employees of those institutions, though both contexts
relied heavily upon part-time adjunct instructors in non-tenure-track, contin-
gent faculty status. Whether as cause or effect, these programs were largely
viewed by those from other academic disciplines as remedial and ancillary.
Yet I and many of my colleagues perceived what we were doing as central to
the university mission and, moreover, as academically rigorous and profes-
sional. In my case, having pursued a Master’s in Applied Linguistics degree
through a program which included expectations for conducting and reporting
educational research, I had always seen myself as an academic – one engaged
in ongoing classroom-based inquiry, empirical research, and the presentation
of research findings and the sharing of curricular and pedagogical strategies at
professional conferences.
It was then natural for me that, after a number of years of teaching, I decided
to pursue a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with a specialization in TESOL.
My immediate intention in entering this doctoral program was to develop
my understandings of curriculum design and pedagogy so I could connect my
teaching ability and knowledge to my past managerial experiences in corpo-
rate finance in order to one day explore the possibility of an English language
program directorship. At first I thought to secure a job teaching English in the
university where I was enrolled as a Ph.D. student. However, recalling my early
experiences of the corporate sector in English language teaching, I was disap-
pointed to learn that the language program on my university’s campus was
outsourced to a for-profit subsidiary of Berlitz: an ELS Language Center. Rather
than return to the for-profit sector from which I had long-since departed, I
continued teaching grammar and composition to ESL adult students at Miami
Dade College as an adjunct instructor. Eventually, I secured a position as an
adjunct instructor in my university’s teacher education programs, where
I taught courses preparing pre-service early and middle childhood teachers,
school counselors, school psychologists, and future educational leaders to
meet the cultural and linguistic needs of children for whom English is a second
language.
A most significant event on my path toward this book occurred in March of
2009, when I attended and presented (Winkle, 2009; Winkle & Moya, 2009)
Preface xi

at the International TESOL1 Convention held in Denver, Colorado. There,

I attended a session given by Sheila Mullooly, a former instructor in the
Oregon State University (OSU) English Language Institute, entitled
“Privatization of IEPs” (Mullooly, 2009). Mullooly’s former employer, OSU,
had announced 8 months prior to the TESOL Convention a contracted
partnership with INTO University Partnerships, Ltd. (INTO). INTO OSU offi-
cially began serving students in its English language programs in June 2009
and in its pathway program in September 2009. Mullooly presented findings
from what was described as a four-participant study of program director
attitudes toward corporate sector partnerships between private educational
service providers and universities with academic English language teaching
programs. Only one of the study’s four participants – the Center Director from
the INTO program at University of Manchester in the United Kingdom –
shared positive experiences about their university’s for-profit corporate sector
partnership.
While ostensibly presenting findings from her research study, Mullooly’s
clearest intention for her TESOL convention session was that she had come to
warn us: “This is what is coming. Beware.” She stated that her self-initiated
departure from OSU, as well as the departure of numerous others, occurred
because of the partnership negotiations, which she said were handled badly,
and Yerian (2009) reported that as a result of the partnership with INTO, OSU
lost its Commission on English Language Program accreditation (CEA; http://
www.cea-accredit.org). According to Mullooly, INTO and university adminis-
trators were engaging in a top-down strategy of getting buy-in from university
provosts and presidents, intentionally circumventing participation by IEP
administrators or faculty. Attendees of the TESOL session – who were for the
most part hearing for the first time of the “threat” of takeover of university
English language programs by private companies – were agitated and aggres-
sively queried Mullooly for additional information: “What can we do?” “How
can we protect our institutions?” In order to prepare for such overtures,
Mullooly suggested that teaching professionals would have to educate them-
selves and then go back to their academic institutions to educate their univer-
sities’ governing authorities before they were approached by outside for-profit

1 Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc., or TESOL, is the dominant interna-
tional professional association for professional English language educators. It organizes an
annual international convention, as well as numerous national and regional conferences
around the world.
xii Preface

educational service providers such as INTO University Partnerships, Kaplan

Global Pathways, Navitas, and Study Group (see Chapter 2).
That session at the TESOL Convention was for me the most memorable
conference presentation I had ever attended, as I felt the attendees were fight-
ing for their academic lives – their identities as teachers and as academicians.
That single presentation – my own experience of it, as well as the feelings
of fear, concern, and disorientation shared with previously unknown
colleagues – set into motion the central inquiry of my Ph.D. thesis. There is
little literature examining the phenomenon of corporate sector partnerships
in developing and managing credit-bearing EAP matriculation pathway
programs, so I decided to enter the field, see for myself what was happening,
and then share my findings with others.
I finished and defended my doctoral thesis at Barry University approxi-
mately 2.5 years after attending Mullooly’s memorable TESOL presentation,
after having presented findings associated with my exploratory study at Phi
Delta Kappa’s Research Symposium (Winkle, 2010a) and at the Southeast
Regional TESOL Conference (2010b), both held in the Miami metropolitan
area. It was with great anticipation that I returned to TESOL’s Annual
Convention and Exhibition to present my dissertation thesis findings in
Philadelphia in March of 2012 (Winkle, 2012a). The session was well attended
by both English language program administrators and teachers as well as by a
number of individuals who I presumed to be representatives from one or more
of the corporate education service providers who engage in the types of part-
nerships being explored in my study. The reception was extremely positive
overall, but I did encounter some push-back from those I imagined to be from
the corporate sector. Reaching beyond the international community of TESOL
professionals, in April 2012 I presented findings specifically relating to the
experiences of the faculty teaching disciplinary content courses to pathway
program students at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research
Association (AERA) in Vancouver, Canada (Winkle, 2012b) as part of the
Narrative Research special interest group. In addition to that presentation’s
emphasis on the faculty’s experiences teaching in the pathway programs at
their universities, this presentation also included discussion of the narrative
inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) research methodology employed for
my study.
By this time, I had submitted a proposal and was in discussions with the
editor of the Innovation and Leadership in English Language Teaching series,
Professor Martha C. Pennington, who also attended my TESOL 2012 (Winkle,
2012a) presentation, about crafting a book for the series from my Ph.D. thesis.
In committing to do this book, I was not only committing to do another “pass”
Preface xiii

through the text of my thesis, in order to rethink it and recast it in a new

and more discussion-embedded form, but also to add to it by including a new
section exploring institution-developed alternatives to corporate-partner
matriculation pathway or bridge programs in tertiary settings. This new
section includes descriptions of “home-grown” alternatives developed and
implemented by five U.S. universities that created conditional admission, or
other alternative bridging programs rather than contracting with a for-profit
education service provider. Suggestions for needs analysis are also included.
In developing this work, I have substantially rethought and reworked my
Ph.D. thesis, with major revision and rewriting of every section. Of particular
note is that I have added much more than was included in the original report
of the research of my own reflections and analysis, in an attempt to further
digest the information from participants in the context of the literature review,
including some new sources added for this book, and to make relevant
connections and observations for readers. These changes have inevitably
altered the findings presented and broadened the orientation beyond the
specific confines of narrative inquiry as adopted for the thesis project, while
still retaining most aspects of the underlying philosophy and qualitative stance
of the original research.
There are multiple audiences for whom this volume will have interest. First,
it is of direct interest to English language program faculty and administrators
who work in universities that are being targeted, who anticipate their institu-
tion being targeted for a corporate sector partnership, or who are currently
operating under one of these partnerships. It also has obvious interest for uni-
versity administrators such as university presidents, provosts, academic deans,
international program directors, and department chairs working in institu-
tions which are being courted or which anticipate being courted by for-profit
education service providers for the purpose of engaging in corporate sector
partnerships resulting in matriculation pathway programs for international
students. Another audience of this book is faculty in academic departments,
most of whom are impacted by the increasing number of international
students in their classes and so by their institution’s policies for recruitment
and for cultural and language support of those students. A final potential audi-
ence is university faculty and scholars with interest in the changes occurring
as universities become increasingly corporatized by outsourcing various func-
tions and by setting up partnerships with for-profit companies.
I close this preface with a brief acknowledgement. First and foremost,
I extend my deepest gratitude to the participants of both my exploratory and
dissertation thesis inquiries for having trusted me to accurately and ethically
share their stories. I am thankful to the academic community of the Adrian
xiv Preface

Dominican School of Education at Barry University, and most especially

my dissertation thesis committee, including Drs. Victoria A. Giordano
(Chairperson), Jill Beloff Farrell, and John “Jack” Dezek. I give thanks to a num-
ber of English language program administrators who were generous with their
time and expertise, allowing me to discuss with them and include in the final
chapter of this volume descriptions of their institution-developed alternatives
to corporate partnership models: Randy Hardwick, Tobie Hoffman, Jacqueline
McCafferty, Nicole Sealey, and Scott Stevens. I am also especially thankful to
my husband, family, and colleagues for their patience and understanding as
I foolishly (some would say) “jumped from the frying pan and into the fire” by
taking on an extensive book project so soon on the heels of completing my
Ph.D. dissertation thesis. Finally, I am exceptionally thankful to Professor
Martha C. Pennington, editor of this series. Certainly I am grateful for the
opportunity she afforded me to have my work included in Brill’s Innovation
and Leadership in English Language Teaching series, but more significantly,
I am thankful for the stalwart and caring mentorship she has provided me
throughout this project.
 part 1
Contextual Perspectives

∵
 Introduction to Part 1

Part 1 of this book is organized as an orientation for readers of contextual

matters related to my research, the foundation of this book. Part 1 begins
with an exploration into the contemporary trend toward corporatism and
outsourcing in higher education (Chapter 1). Chapter 2 discusses and reviews
the ways English language programs – specifically those which had historically
been developed, administered, and implemented by host universities and
their faculty – have now become part of the outsourcing movement through
private sector and university partnerships. Also included in Part 1 is my report-
ing of an exploratory research study which I conducted in the context of an
intensive English program on the campus of a university which was, at the
time of the inquiry, in negotiation with an education services provider for the
purpose of developing matriculation pathway programs (Chapter 3). Finally,
Chapter 4 provides readers with an orientation to the narrative inquiry
research methodology employed for the dissertation research project, as well
as methodological clarifications of how the thesis has been reanalyzed, recast,
and transformed for the purpose of this book.
 chapter 1

The New University Context: Outsourcing and

Corporate Partnerships

Introduction

First they outsourced the university cafeteria, and I didn’t speak up

because I wasn’t a cafeteria worker (Glickman, Holm, Keating, Pannait, &
White, 2007). Then they privatized the university bookstore, and I didn’t
speak up because I didn’t work in the bookstore (Gupta, Kanthi-Herath, &
Mikouiza, 2005). Then they outsourced university library’s cataloging,
but I didn’t speak up because I was not a librarian (Dhiman & Sharma,
2010). Now they are coming for the Intensive English Program.1

My intention through my research inquiry is to examine issues related to the

targeting of colleges and universities – in particular, those with institution-
administered Intensive English Programs employing English for academic pur-
poses curricula – by for-profit educational service providers for corporate
sector partnerships resulting in matriculation pathway programs. My own per-
spective on the topic arose from the synthesis of my subjective experiences
vis-à-vis the topic and my review of existing literature. This chapter provides
readers with an overview of literature exploring both overt and covert forms
corporatization of higher education which helped to situate my research study.

Framing the Investigation in Context

Outsourcing of non-instructional services, such as cafeteria services, bookstore

operations, and campus security, have become accepted practice at institutions
of higher education (Gupta et al., 2005), as such support services are considered
to be outside the core academic mission of colleges and universities. Such out-
sourcing is part of a trend toward a more corporate model of higher education
(Andrews, 2006; Fink, 2008) that has recently been accelerated by the creation
in academic departments of public-private partnerships such as with research

1 The introductory preamble is an homage to Pastor Martin Niemöller’s poem, “First they came
for the Communists,” circa 1946 (Marcuse, 2010).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi ��.����/�����������63₋��2

4 chapter 1

institutes, hospitals, and corporations. A less obvious form of instructional

outsourcing can be observed in the use of adjunct or contingent rather than
full-time, permanent faculty (Lerner, 2008). This form of outsourcing results in
commodified and downsized university faculties who have a less central and
less significant role in university governance and policy-making, as academic
administrators take on the role of corporate manager or CEO (J.A. Jones, 2008).
The implications for faculty working within a corporatized model of higher
education are neither well understood nor well described in the literature.
Both the outsourcing of ancillary services (Glickman et al., 2007; Gupta
et al., 2005) and less obvious forms of instructional outsourcing, such as the
elimination of tenured faculty in favor of contingent and adjunct faculty, are
taking place in higher education and have been well-documented in the litera-
ture (Andrews, 2006; Fink, 2008; Fulcher, 2007, 2009; Lerner, 2008; Levine, 2001;
Meyer, 2006; NEA Higher Education Research Center, 2004). Less noticed have
been cases in which entire instructional departments or programs have been
outsourced or privatized (Fulcher, 2007, 2009; University and College Union,
2013; Weinstein, 2000). One prominent type of case is that of the university
English language program.
Universities often house intensive English programs (IEPs), typically located
within Continuing Education divisions, English or Linguistics departments, or
International Studies programs, charged with preparing English language
learners for university study (Hamrick, 2011). These programs, which generally
have a history of affiliation and standards connected with such organizations
as TESOL (www.tesol.org) and NAFSA – Association of International Educators
(www.nafsa.org), are undergoing significant change, as their host universities
are being targeted by for-profit educational service providers aiming to set up
corporate sector partnerships that will incorporate the functions of the IEPs
(Reeves, 2011). Such partnerships typically include the corporate partner’s
assumption of responsibility for recruiting international students and for
administering the English language program, within a structure that includes
English for academic purposes (EAP) matriculation “pathway programs.” The
corporate partner puts these pathway programs into place and then is to man-
age students’ course of study within them as well as the articulation of those
programs with other academic departments in the university. These EAP
matriculation pathway programs are set up to make it possible for advanced-
level English language learners who have not met language requirements to be
provisionally admitted into credit-bearing, disciplinary content courses and
programs (Fulcher, 2007, 2009; Mullooly, 2009; Redden, 2010; Yerian, 2009).
These courses are often taught by faculty who have little or no experience
teaching international students with developing English proficiency and who
The New University Context 5

may be neither willing nor able to provide the cultural and linguistic support
which those students need (Fulcher, 2009). The IEP faculty, on the other hand,
who are experienced in providing for these needs, may have their role reduced,
as international students take fewer or shorter English classes and are moved
out of English classes and into classes in academic departments at an earlier
stage than in the past. In addition, the IEP faculty, who have generally oper-
ated with a degree of curricular and pedagogical autonomy within the overall
university structure, albeit oftentimes in a marginalized status (Case, 1998;
Fulcher, 2009; Jenks, 1997; Jenks & Kennell, 2011), may have their freedom
threatened by the control of the for-profit corporations running the programs
where they work (Redden, 2010; Yerian, 2009).
The phenomenon of corporate sector partnerships between universities
and private, for-profit educational service providers setting up matriculation
pathway programs for non-English-speaking international students is rela-
tively recent, particularly in U.S. contexts. This phenomenon has been more
prevalent in the United Kingdom and Australia, where such partnerships are
relatively well established. Universities in the United States thus appear now
to be the new frontier for these partnership efforts (Graves, 2008; Jenks &
Kennell, 2011; Lewin, 2008; Moser, 2008; Mullooly, 2009; Neznanski, 2008;
Redden, 2010; Yerian, 2009). While there has been journalistic attention given
to the phenomenon (Graves, 2008; Levin, 2010; Lewin, 2008; Moser, 2008;
Redden, 2010), research on these kinds of partnerships has been minimal in
U.K. (Fulcher, 2007, 2009) and Australian (Dooey, 2010) contexts, and published
literature examining the impact of such partnerships on faculty status and
implications for curricular and pedagogical autonomy in U.S. contexts is non-
existent. The present work considers these types of partnerships as an exten-
sion of the general trend toward corporatization of higher education through
privatization and outsourcing (Andrews, 2006; Dickeson & Figuli, 2007; Fink,
2008; Fulcher, 2009; Lerner, 2008), aiming to describe their impact on English
language teaching professionals and other university faculty.

Privatization and Outsourcing: A Trend Toward Corporatization

Due to its perceived cost-saving advantages, outsourcing, or privatization,

which in educational contexts involves a shift from public to private financing,
has become increasingly accepted practice (Glickman et al., 2007). In educa-
tional contexts, such a shift to private financing may take place for a number
of reasons, including those related not only to cost savings and generation of
revenue, but also to such matters as improvement of the quality of service,
6 chapter 1

management of human resources, concerns of safety and liability, and the

acquisition and maintenance of equipment (NEA Higher Education Research
Center, 2004). Given its perceived advantages, privatization and outsourcing
are often seen by educational administrators as a desirable way forward, affect-
ing instruction and a wide range of other institutional functions in academic
contexts, from elementary to university level. While the terms privatization
and outsourcing are often used interchangeably – both in the literature and in
this book2 – others make the distinction that privatization involves movement
not only of practices but also of policy-making and management responsibili-
ties to the private sector (Dhiman & Sharma, 2010).

Types of Outsourcing

Savard (2004) studied the outsourcing of different kinds of services in Canadian

K–12 settings, noting the influential role played by governmental policy and
media rhetoric during the Reagan and first Bush administrations in the United
States in driving the outsourcing of instructional services in Canadian schools.
Savard categorized the types of services outsourced in the Canadian primary
and secondary schools as hard, professional, and instructional soft services.
Payroll, transportation, food services, security, nursing, and janitorial services
are examples of those classified by Savard as hard services, while provision of
clinical psychologists, speech pathologists, or sign language interpreters would
come under the heading of professional services. Some examples of instruc-
tional soft services are driver education, physical education, tutoring and
remedial instruction, and – significant to Savard’s research focus – English
language instruction.

2 For the purposes of confidential and ethical reporting – in both this book and the research
studies from which the experiential stories of university professionals working in corporate
partnership settings originated – I have intentionally adopted a somewhat ambiguous or
interchangeable orientation to the concepts of privatization and outsourcing. Each corporate
educational services provider’s partnership model differs in its degree of management and
policy shifting from university “control” to that of the corporate partner, ranging from
insourcing, to outsourcing, to privatization. Indeed, even within an educational service pro-
vider’s portfolio of partnerships, individual agreements with host universities will have their
own negotiated characteristics. By adopting an ambiguous and less specific orientation to
outsourcing and privatization, my intention is to afford an additional layer of privacy to my
research participants, while also noting the connection of these two types of business-ori-
ented practices in university development and specifically English language program devel-
opment at the present time.
The New University Context 7

As in K–12 settings, higher education has a history of outsourcing both hard

and professional services in Savard’s (2004) terms. A study by Gupta et al. (2005)
based on a survey of 138 private and public university presidents or vice presi-
dents in the U.S. states of Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia found that a
number of services were commonly outsourced – especially food and vending
services, bookstore operations, custodial services, and security, but also the ser-
vices of housekeeping in dormitories, laundry, janitorial and facilities manage-
ment, mailroom, and payroll. Survey respondents identified several motivations
for outsourcing these non-instructional, hard services – such as cost savings,
pressure from peer institutions to improvement of quality of services and staff-
ing, moving responsibility from full-time employees, and concerns of safety
and liability – and they reported that the university presidents were generally
satisfied with these outsourcing decisions. As Gupta et al. (2005) and others
(e.g., Glickman et al., 2007) maintain, outsourcing such non-instructional ser-
vices makes it possible for universities to concentrate on their core functions
and areas of competence, that is, educational instruction and research.
Counterbalancing such positive views of outsourcing in university contexts
are other studies that report some of its negative impacts, such as an in-depth
case study by Glickman et al. (2007) on the outsourcing of food services on one
university campus. Glickman and colleagues report a number of difficulties
that arose from outsourcing food services to an outside vendor, most notably
student dissatisfaction and high employee turnover based on perceived job
insecurity, which led many of the university’s most skilled employees to apply
for similar jobs at other in institutions. In addition, the private vendor report-
edly violated contractual terms related to the university’s hiring standards and
compensation policies.
Beyond the hard services, which have been a main target of outsourcing, a
type of professional service that has been impacted by outsourcing in universi-
ties is that of library services, primarily electronic cataloging (Buttlar & Garcha,
1998; Dhiman & Sharma, 2010; Libby & Caudle, 1997) and information technol-
ogy services within libraries (How, 2007). In the context of library services and
information centers in universities, Dhiman and Sharma (2010) define out-
sourcing as the “contracting to external companies or organizations functions
that would otherwise be performed by library employees” (p. 95). The authors
specifically distinguish between outsourcing, which is payment to outside pro-
viders for services such as electronic cataloging – the most common form of
outsourcing in library contexts – that would otherwise be performed by library
staff, and privatization, which includes not only specific functions but also
policy-making decisions and core day-to-day management of library services
by for-profit organizations outside of the library.
8 chapter 1

Libby and Caudle (1997) carried out a randomized survey on the outsourc-
ing of cataloging services in university libraries listed in the American Library
Directory. Based on 117 survey responses, Libby and Caudle determined that
only 28% of respondents had or were outsourcing cataloging services at that
time, leading the authors to conclude that such outsourcing was “not a prevail-
ing trend among academic libraries” (Libby & Caudle, 1997, p. 556). However,
a randomized survey published the following year by Buttlar and Garcha
(1998) of 275 academic libraries reported different results. Buttlar and Garcha’s
study, which captured job function changes of catalogers over a retroactive
10-year period, indicated a trend toward outsourcing of university library cata-
loging functions, coupled with a trend towards “catalog librarians…spending
more of their time managing the system and less time cataloging” (p. 319).
Buttlar and Garcha’s survey results further revealed a consensus among
respondents that the outsourcing of cataloging provided more time for admin-
istrative and professional activities.
The situation of academic librarians is relevant to that of English language
teaching professionals. The contexts in which both of these groups work show
similar trends towards privatization, and thus can make for useful comparison
in terms of the changes and issues involved. In addition, both groups have tra-
ditionally been viewed as professional service providers rather than scholars,
and both have therefore been subjected to a framing of their work as funda-
mentally different from, and of lesser importance than, that of other university
academics. This framing of their work has resulted in a continuing condition of
marginalization and questioning of their professional rank and status within
the academy (Bolger & Smith, 2006; Gillum, 2010; Riggs, 1999; Weaver-Meyers,
2002; Wyss, 2010).
Instructional outsourcing in higher education can also be seen in moves
to reduce or eliminate tenured faculty positions in favor of shorter term,
contract-based contingent or adjunct faculty positions (Andrews, 2006; Fink,
2008; Fulcher, 2007; Lerner, 2008; Levine, 2001; Meyer, 2006; NEA Higher
Education Research Center, 2004). This is also a trend which is having a strong
impact on English language teaching at universities – and, more generally, on
all kinds of faculty employment.

Shift from Tenure and Secure Employment

Many studies point to policy shifts away from an academic tradition of ten-
ured faculty as a sign that an institution is trending toward a corporate model
(Andrews, 2006; Fink, 2008; Fulcher, 2007, 2009; Gupta et al., 2005; NEA Higher
The New University Context 9

Education Research Center, 2004; B.A. Jones, 2008; J.A. Jones, 2008; Lerner,
2008; Levine, 2001; Meyer, 2006; University and College Union, 2013). In univer-
sities across the English-speaking world, university administrators are taking
opportunities to reduce tenured positions by attrition, as faculty positions
which have formerly been tenured are no longer ordinarily filled by tenure-
track personnel when vacated (see, e.g., Fink, 2008; Fulcher, 2007, 2009; Gupta
et al., 2005; J.A. Jones, 2008; Lerner, 2008). In addition, academic positions for
long-term, full-time faculty may be filled when they become vacant by faculty
in categories of employment representing a lesser commitment by the univer-
sity, such as short-term or part-time instructors. As a result, adjunct or part-
time contingent faculty become the norm, with saving to the university in the
way of non-instructional expenses – such as health and retirement benefits
and office facilities costs – and additional financial gain, as adjunct instructors
can often be employed for teaching courses which generate the most income,
such as high-volume introductory courses (Lerner, 2008).
In the context of university-based English language preparation courses
in Britain, Fulcher (2007, 2009) maintains that English has been commodi-
fied as the academic lingua franca, which has generated a strong consumer
market for language instruction and a financial incentive to employ contin-
gent faculty to teach English. Within this perspective, international stu-
dents are viewed as revenue generators for educational institutions, and
English language teaching is viewed as a commercial activity whose profits
can be maximized through what Fulcher describes as a de-professionalization
of English language teaching manifested in the hiring of adjunct faculty
and the outsourcing of English language instruction to third-party vendors, as
is happening in the United Kingdom. Added to Fulcher’s observations of the
lowered position of English language teachers, the University and College
Union’s (UCU, 2013) Stop privatization campaign pack: Privatization and how
to stop it: A briefing for activists cites instances in the United Kingdom in
which full-time English language faculty were transferred out of departments
and then were replaced by new staff hires with lower qualifications paid at
lower rates.
English language teaching is impacted by the major changes which faculty
employment is experiencing within the academy. Based on employment and
compensation data from the College and University Personnel Association3
focused on the teaching of history in institutions of higher education, Lerner
(2008) maintains that the annual income of contingent full-time faculty and
part-time adjunct faculty are both below the poverty line. Those at the bottom

3 Lerner (2008) does not provide a reference, though her tables indicate 2005–2006 data.
10 chapter 1

end of the faculty scale are the large number of non-tenured, “journeyman”
instructors and adjuncts paid as short-term hourly employees without
benefits, while those at the higher end are the tenured faculty on permanent
status with benefits. Thus, the new faculty hiring trend towards employment of
high numbers of contingent and adjunct faculty is creating a two-tiered faculty
employment structure and also splitting the market within higher education
into a two-tiered status (J.A. Jones, 2008; Lerner, 2008; University and College
Union, 2013). This two-tiered faculty employment structure and market makes
it possible for universities to adopt “star system” (Lerner, 2008, p. 221) hiring
practices in which competing universities vie for high-profile academic lumi-
naries who command exceptional salaries (as university presidents, like CEOs
of companies, now do). Such competition affects compensation policy, as both
Levine (2001) and Lerner (2008) observe, widening the salary gap between the
lowest and highest paid instructors.
When such two-tiered hiring and compensation practices exist, the enor-
mous differences in positions create the potential for acrimony within a
department or school and within the institution as a whole. Lerner (2008) sug-
gests that discord within a department related to the low status of contingent
and adjunct faculty may then evolve into institutional discord related to the
disempowerment of contingent and adjunct faculty. Related to the idea of acri-
mony within a department or school as a result of a two-tiered hiring structure,
Savard (2004) cites a potential for fragmentation of a school’s culture as a result
of outside staff entering the workplace.

Education: Public Good or Corporate Enterprise?

The traditional view of education as a public good has been shifting at least
since the 1960s to one that sees education more in business terms. Fink (2008)
offers a historical perspective on the shift in higher education to a privatized,
corporate model, which he argues began with the emphasis on research uni-
versities in the early years of the twentieth century and was further promoted
by a dismantling of general education requirements in the 1960s and by declin-
ing public support for government financing of institutions of higher learning.
Andrews (2006) cites decreased public as well as private financial support for
higher education as forcing institutions to seek external funding. In his view,
the circumstances which have led academic institutions to align their policies
and practices with corporate organizational models have been damaging
to the mission of higher education, and he argues that there is a need for
re-education of university administrators.
The New University Context 11

The University and College Union (UCU, 2013) observes that policies exter-
nal to the university, which have resulted in tighter public funding, have forced
university administrators to seek private sector funding. As UCU points out, in
the United Kingdom, many of the available private funding sources are backed
by private equity funds or venture capital firms expecting a return on their
investment. The UCU, along with Andrews (2006) and others (e.g., Cudmore,
2005; Meyer, 2006), connect the corporate sponsorship of these private grants,
which are often earmarked for research that benefits those sponsors, to a with-
drawal of public support for government funding of universities, which are no
longer seen as benefitting the community. The UCU’s position is that the aims
of corporate, for-profit entities are fundamentally at odds with those of educa-
tion, and so their literature explicitly opposes privatization in the delivery of
education.
In another historical perspective, Meyer (2006) describes public
perceptions of higher education in the 1980s as based on a “trickle-down”
concept, such that all members of society – not only those individuals who
are able to attend and graduate from institutions of higher learning – benefit
from supporting the university, which contributes trained professionals and
a capable workforce to the community, in addition to tax revenues and
arts and cultural contributions. This perception has changed, she argues, to
one focused on individual rather than societal benefits stemming from
institutions of higher learning, as more emphasis is placed in media and
public forums on the wage-earning effects of continuing education and a
higher degree.
A U. S. National Education Association (NEA) Higher Education Research
Center (2004) report, Higher Education and Privatization, also points to the
contemporary societal belief that education is a private rather than public
benefit as related to a shift in the United States of public funding away from
institutions and towards individual student aid. The NEA report further points
to “increased support from political decision makers” (p. 1) as a main reason
for institutions to move toward privatization. Such moves by university admin-
istrators towards privatization with the support of politicians fuel additional
mistrust of those institutions by the public when these presumed political
alliances are revealed. Levine (2001) also maintains that public educational
dollars will be increasingly directed toward individual students rather than
institutions, which will continue to experience decreased public funding – and
thus increased pressure to seek private funding and to outsource and priva-
tize its operations – due to a decline in public trust in both educational and
governmental institutions’ management of public monies. Levin further notes
the movement in contemporary society toward a more information-based
12 chapter 1

economy, with its premium on intellectual capital, as a significant motivation

of privatization in higher education, where information and knowledge
become marketable commodities. The marketability of intellectual capital is
likewise cited by Gupta et al. (2006) as a motivation for institutions to make
significant connections with the private sector.
In his doctoral dissertation, Instruction as Service or Commodity: The
Outsourcing of Education, Savard (2004) addresses the issue of public interest
in education based on interviews with 18 administrators of elementary and
secondary schools in Canada that had contracted for-profit educational ser-
vices. Savard sees the “Education Industry,” as represented in contract instruc-
tional services offered by private for-profit providers, to be a threat to the
historical role of public education in society. He identifies charter schools –
state-regulated private institutions that offer alternatives to public schools – as
a battleground domain where outsourced instructional services are making
inroads. Of particular relevance to the present work, he specifically investi-
gated the contracting of prepackaged English language programs by Berlitz
International and Sylvan Learning Systems.
Focusing on Berlitz, Savard (2004) describes their English language program
as a “turnkey operation” that includes highly scripted materials, contract
instructors expected to abide by the lesson plans without adaptation or profes-
sional judgment, and student evaluation processes implemented by Berlitz’s
trained instructors. Berlitz markets itself, in Savard’s description, as a substi-
tute instructional service provider, suggesting that contracting with its English
language program can minimize or eliminate altogether the need for profes-
sionally trained English teaching specialists – with the added benefit to admin-
istrators of reduced time and resource needed to be directed to such activities
as designing curriculum, hiring and training instructors, and evaluating stu-
dent progress. All of these processes are consequently surrendered to outsid-
ers by school administrators and teachers, who have been de-professionalized
by default.
Yet Savard (2004) reports that the administrators’ perceptions of the con-
tracted instructional program were fairly positive in terms of its benefits to
both the students and the school overall. The administrators also indicated
that use of these services external to the institution, which removed them
from any direct involvement with English language provision and relieved
them from many administrative responsibilities connected to that provision,
in fact enhanced their power – their control and authority as administrators
– a point which Savard suggests requires further investigation. Since his
focus was on the impact of such contract programs from an administrative
The New University Context 13

perspective, Savard’s (2004) study did not assess the impact of outsourcing
practices on teachers nor on instruction.

Changing Academic Governance

University administrators are becoming more powerful and more distant

from the day to day operation of their institutions, functioning as CEO-like
figureheads, high-level decision-makers, and fundraisers who spend signifi-
cant time away from campus. University presidents project a corporate
image and tone in their public appearances as well as their private meetings,
operating under the indirect control of the university’s big private, corporate,
and political sponsors and under the direct control of the university’s govern-
ing board. These have become much like corporate boards of directors, moti-
vated much less by maintaining a social contract between academia and
society and much more by the promised profits of adopting free-market
business practices (Andrews, 2006). While academic administrators take
on the role of corporate leaders and managers, and the strategic direction
and policies of the university are controlled by boards of trustees, the tradi-
tional academic governance role of professors is minimized or eliminated
entirely, as tenured faculties are downsized or replaced with contingent, part-
time instructors. Professors are marketed and consumed as commodities
(J.A. Jones, 2008), and so is university research, which becomes a means to
generating profit for the institution rather than new knowledge for the society
(Andrews, 2006).
High-level, tenured and research-active faculty may benefit financially and
politically, both within and outside the institution, by such marketization of
their own value and that of their research. Within the institution, they become
part of the elite, star faculty and administrators who hold power in institu-
tional governance (Lerner, 2008), while the influence of the remaining full-
time faculty is consequently reduced and the large numbers of contingent and
part-time faculty have little if any political power or voice in university affairs
or governance. In this way, a governance of the many by the few – a sort of
oligarchy – is created in an institution which was formerly much more demo-
cratically controlled. However, Meyer (2006) cautions against any conclusion
that the only voices heard in higher education are those controlled by the
“golden rule” that “he who has the gold, makes the rules” (p. 40). She further
points out that it is unfair to condemn privatization for creating a loss of fac-
ulty influence over university governance while at the same time condemning
14 chapter 1

the state for its interference with university governance and independence by
its strict oversight of public monies.

Devaluation of Academic Credentials

Increased university elitism is a further result of policies which effectively cor-

poratize higher education, and this will ultimately lead to a devaluation of ter-
minal degrees (Meyer, 2006; Lerner, 2008), especially a degree from lower
tiered universities and community colleges not competitive for major public
or private funds. While the value of higher degrees in Ph.D.-granting institu-
tions that have star faculty in place will be assured – and indeed may increase
as star-system admission policies paralleling those for faculty are put in place
for attracting outstanding graduate students – new Ph.D.’s from universities
without such stellar status may have difficulty securing full-time faculty
employment due to a perceived second tier or lower status position of their
alma mater and weakness of its corporate “brand” (Lerner, 2008). As an increas-
ingly stratified system of universities reduces the value of many degrees, it
reinforces the maintenance of many with postgraduate degrees in part-time
and contingent faculty status. As a further effect of devaluation of degrees, and
perhaps also as an effect of the allocation of faculty and other resources, a
potential outcome of privatization within public institutions of higher learn-
ing, as Meyer (2006) warns, will be a decrease in the number of graduate-level
and professional degree programs being offered – especially in the lower tier,
more affordable universities – which may further exacerbate a disparity of
educational opportunity for low-income and minority students.

Calls for Action

Given the negative effects for what is rapidly becoming a majority of faculty
working in relatively weak and poorly paid academic positions, one might
think that university-level educators would be rallying against privatization
and outsourcing. This is generally not the case, however. Although faculty are
aware of the trend towards corporatism in higher education, there has been
little united action seeking to stem the tide of far-reaching changes brought
about by this trend in the nature of universities (Andrews, 2006; Fink, 2008).
Yet it is widely believed (e.g., Andrews, 2006; Fink, 2008; B.A. Jones, 2008; J.A.
Jones, 2008; University and College Union, 2013) that faculty hold the solution
to their problems and those of their universities under corporate siege.
The New University Context 15

With the goal of motivating faculty to take such action, Andrews (2006) pro-
vides a checklist of telltale danger signs of impending institutional corporati-
zation and suggests taking immediate action if more than one or two of these
apply in the case of a particular institution. The hiring of low-paid, non-ten-
ured contingent faculty is the first sign which Andrews notes, and he suggests
that the situation is especially urgent when a retiring tenured or tenure-track
faculty member departs and is replaced with one or more non-tenured posi-
tions. Other “telltale signs” on Andrews’ (2006) list are: paying academic
administrators corporate-level salaries, making available merit-based scholar-
ships, reducing faculty and staff health and retirement benefits, and eliminat-
ing currently under-enrolled courses or academic programs that were
previously considered essential parts of the curriculum. Andrews also lists an
increased emphasis on and funding for collegiate athletics, connected to
recruitment and admissions efforts, as symptoms of a university’s corporate
disposition.
Andrews (2006), building on the work of Hamilton (2002), recommends
that university faculty combat corporate influence by working to reestablish
and reaffirm the public contract between society and academia through edu-
cating themselves and others within and outside their institutions as to the
mutual responsibilities of the public and the professoriate regarding the pur-
pose of higher education within a “civilized” society. He speaks of a “continu-
ing education campaign” to educate the public, as well as current students,
alumni, and the non-teaching staff of the university, that academics hold soci-
etal interests above those of profit-making in their universities. Such educa-
tion he sees as important to a goal of uniting faculty and others to take back
the university from the control of corporate interests. He suggests that profes-
sional associations such as the American Association of University Professors
(AAUP) could organize and unify faculty actions and strategies for resisting
and minimizing corporate influence in higher education. A strategy might be
suggested in which the AAUP organize lobbying of the accrediting bodies
which certify university courses and curricula – since the actions of these bod-
ies have substantial impacts on university policies and practices – to specifi-
cally assess privatized aspects of instruction, in addition to hiring and
employment practices throughout the university, to determine whether stan-
dards are being maintained.
The University and College Union (2013), which claims to be the largest
trade union and professional association for academics and researchers in
U.K. higher education, sees itself as at the center of the battle against
privatization of higher education. The UCU website features a series of anti-
privatization campaign packs designed to brief activists on strategies they can
16 chapter 1

use to counter privatization in higher education. The initial stage recom-

mended for countering what they see as this threat to universities is to ensure
that everyone understands the issues and is vocal when engaging with
administration.
Lerner (2008) charges faculty to actively work to stem privatization in their
institutions and specifically charges tenured professors to take the lead in re-
professionalizing higher education, noting that working within unions and
negotiating en masse have had some success in California and New Jersey in
increasing pay. According to Learner (2008), in the state of Georgia, adjunct
faculty organizations not only negotiated increases in pay, but also were able
to have a hundred part-time adjunct appointments converted to full-time
positions with benefits. She speaks of taking to the streets and fighting through
public discourse to win the public, as the ultimate consumers of higher educa-
tion, to the problems faced in the corporatized university. As Lerner observes,
university academics and an activated populace together can be a powerful
force for change, as can academics united with unions to bring about changes
to state law, such as requiring institutions of higher education to disclose their
labor practices to the public.

Conclusion

This chapter has provided an overview of outsourcing and privatization prac-

tices that have affected universities in the current era, with particular refer-
ence to the United States and the United Kingdom. These developments,
which have occurred at an accelerating pace in the most recent generation of
faculty and students, are in line with a shift of the orientation of universities
away from a traditional educational mission of providing benefits in the way of
knowledge and culture for the communities where they are housed and for
society at large and towards a corporate model and all that this implies. The
effects of corporatization on universities have been pointed out by many
scholars and organizations suggesting actions which can be taken by univer-
sity faculty to try to counter this change in the nature of education and the
consequent negative effects on faculty status, university administration and
governance, and other aspects of university culture. It is suggested that these
faculty-led efforts need to reach out beyond the halls of academe to engage the
general public, faculty unions and professional organizations, and other agen-
cies connected to higher education, to educate them to the faculty perspective
and the negative impacts of the strong corporate culture that has taken hold of
The New University Context 17

education. The next chapter focuses on one specific aspect of university cul-
ture: that which deals with the admission of international students and the
English language and cultural support provided to them, and how this sector
of the university has been impacted by the movement of universities toward
outsourcing and privatization.
 chapter 2

The New Context of English Language Programs

within the Outsourcing Movement

Introduction

This chapter extends the summarized review of the literature which supported
my original research project, specifically reporting in areas related to both his-
torical and contemporary marginalization and commodification of university-
based English language teaching programs and the English language teaching
professions. It further provides an introduction to the phenomenon of the tar-
geting of universities with existing English language programs for corporate,
joint-venture partnerships for the development of matriculation pathway pro-
grams and international student recruitment. Finally, the chapter concludes
with brief descriptions of the four corporate sector education services provid-
ers currently at the forefront of such partnerships.

Recruitment of International Students

The internationalization of higher education – especially as regards those

institutions classified by the Carnegie Foundation as “Doctoral/Research
Universities–Extensive” – has often been considered to be a primary outcome
of the globalization of world economies (e.g., Cudmore, 2005; Mohrman, Ma, &
Baker, 2008; Stromquist, 2007). Increasingly, academic institutions have
adopted a “global market” approach to recruitment of students in which edu-
cation becomes a service-oriented commodity marketed through international
recruitment to potential “consumers” of that service “product” residing in other
countries (Harvey & Busher, 1996). In order to achieve “market share” within a
global marketplace, institutions must creatively use their in-house resources for
marketing or else turn to external, outsourced agents for marketing to attract
and recruit international students (Reeves, 2011; Ross, Heaney, & Cooper, 2007).
Frumkin and Galaskievicz (2004) and Stromquist (2007) suggest that
global marketing in universities is an outcome of institutional isomorphism
(DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), which results from the imitation by institutions
of the practices of associated institutions. In Stromquist’s (2007) view, aca-
demic institutions which have corporate alliances tend to adopt each other’s

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The New Context of English Language Programs 19

organizational structure and practices as they compete for market share,

research dollars, and power within political arenas. Thus, to the extent that
certain universities have taken the lead in marketing and recruiting students
internationally by use of contract recruiters external to the university, so other
institutions which associate themselves with those universities have tended to
“follow the leader” in an attempt to remain competitive.

Intensive English Programs

Intensive English Programs have been set up on college and university cam-
puses to help prepare international students who lack the requisite linguistic
skills, and often also the cultural knowledge and academic skills, for university
study (Hamrick, 2011; Pennington & Hoekje, 2010; Smith-Palinkas, Tortorella,
& Flaitz, 2002). In the definition of the University and College Intensive English
Program (UCIEP), a consortium of U.S.-based IEPs, an Intensive English
Program as one which is “administered by an accredited university or college
and receives adequate support from its institution, which at a minimum would
include provision for suitable staff, and office and classroom facilities. Although
no single administrative pattern is required, the intensive program should be
sufficiently independent to permit the smooth functioning of all its activities”
(UCIEP, 2007). For this book, as well as the research projects described herein,
the researcher has adopted the UCIEP definition, criteria, and professional
standards for defining an IEP in a U.S. context. Under the UCIEP guidelines, an
accredited IEP will have the following features (among others):

• A program director with a full-time faculty or administrative appointment

within the host university;
• A core of faculty members working under 9-month (academic-year) or
12-month contracts who hold a Master’s degree or higher in Applied
Linguistics, ESL/EFL teaching, or a related field;
• Opportunities for professional development and financial support for con-
ference attendance by faculty;
• Procedures for evaluation of administrators and faculty which are in line
with those of the host institution;
• Valid and reliable testing and placement procedures which meet accepted
professional standards.

A fuller articulation of the UCIEP criteria is available via the following web
link: http://www.uciep.org/page/view/id/6.
20 chapter 2

There is considerable variety in the location of college- and university-

operated IEP programs within the structures of higher education, ranging
from Continuing Education divisions to various academic departments and
schools (Pennington & Hoekje, 2010, Ch. 3). Beyond English language instruc-
tion, these programs often provide testing, orientation, and other kinds of
support (e.g., housing and visa services or referrals) to international students,
in addition to serving as a site where interns and graduate students from
academic departments can gain valuable teaching, observational, and research
experience (Pennington & Hoekje, 2010; Smith-Palinkas et al., 2002). Finan­
cially, these programs are expected to be largely self-supporting, though they
may still be reliant on their host universities for facilities (Eskey, 1997; Hamrick,
2011). Not uncommonly, they must pay rent for their facilities to the university
or rent/purchase their own facilities off campus, and, increasingly, they
are expected to return a profit to the institutional unit within which they are
housed (Pennington & Hoekje, 2010).
While the location of IEPs within the institutional structure varies, if they
are considered a unit of an academic institution, their academic and non-
academic staff will be considered employees of the institution. If in full-time
1-year contract status, IEP staff will generally be entitled, like other full-time
employees on a 12-month or 9-month academic year contract, to health
benefits and possibly also to annual raises, however determined (whether by
performance, length of service, or other criteria). While the majority of IEP
non-academic (e.g., clerical) staff may be in regular full-time, contract status,
receiving a salary and having parity in benefits and employment conditions
with other non-academic staff in other departments, this is generally not the
case for the instructional staff in IEPs. The majority are most often contingent
faculty, without professional rank or tenure-track appointments, and without
the type of full-time status and length of employment contract that would
provide a salary plus health and other benefits. Rather, they often work on a
per-course basis with compensation directly tied to the number of courses
taught each term (Eskey, 1997; Rowe, 2011). Commonly, they are working
in part-time status, though often teaching more courses than most regular
faculty in full-time status, while additionally often being required to perform
the same teaching and curriculum development duties as those in full-time
employment status (Smith-Palinkas et al., 2002). Given the expectations
or requirement of the IEP to be self-supporting or profit-generating, there
is an incentive to keep compensation low, even if payroll for adjunct faculty
and for paid interns or student-teachers may, in some cases, come out of
academic program budgets (Dimmitt & Dantas-Whitney, 2002; Eskey, 1997;
Rowe, 2011).
The New Context of English Language Programs 21

Although the majority of IEPs are directly affiliated with some unit of the
academic institution in which they are housed, some private IEPs, such as
Embassy CES, a subsidiary of Study Group, and the Berlitz subsidiary, ELS
Language Centers, are located on U.S. college or university campuses. These
schools are owned, operated, and employed by the private educational service
provider, not by the college or university, which generally leases them class-
rooms and office space in return for their giving preference to, or exclusively
servicing, its own students (CEA, 2011; Reeves, 2011). Many of these privately
run on-campus IEP programs are of long standing, having been affiliated with
U.S. institutions of higher education for over 30 years. Besides these on-
campus private IEPs, private, for-profit language learning centers can be found
in many U.S. cities, located within corporate office buildings or stand-alone
sites, sometimes close to campus facilities. These include many of the well-
known providers of language instruction such as Berlitz, Inlingua, Kaplan, and
EF International Language Centres offering intensive instruction in English
language at off-campus sites (CEA, 2011).

Accreditation of IEPs
An organization which provides accreditation for English language programs
and which has been endorsed by the international association of Teachers of
English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL, 2013) is the Commission
on English Language Program Accreditation. Recognized by the U.S. Secretary
of Education as a national accrediting agency, the CEA offers three types
of accreditation: Programmatic, Institutional, and General. Programmatic
accreditation is for those English language programs which reside within
higher education institutions and are located in academic schools, colleges, or
other units of colleges or universities which are themselves accredited by
agencies recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education, in addition to IEPs
within government agencies. Institutional accreditation applies to those
language programs or schools which operate independently from any college
or university, such as those which are “governed by individual proprietors,
governing boards, or corporate managers” and which “may…conduct classes
on a university or college campus by contractual agreements” (CEA, 2013).
CEA’s General accreditation is for English language programs outside the
United States “in a variety of settings, which meet CEA’s eligibility require-
ments” (CEA, 2013).
The American Council on Continuing Education and Training (ACCET) is
an accrediting agency also recognized by the U.S. Department of Education
which provides accreditation to educational programs, including English lan-
guage programs, in the United States (ACCET, 2013).
22 chapter 2

While not an accrediting body, the American Association of Intensive

English Programs (AAIEP) is a membership organization that promotes
the advancement of standards, advocacy, and professional development
outreach to member intensive English programs in the United States. It does
not limit membership to programs affiliated with institutions of higher
education, and it does not divide programs into different categories depend­
ing on whether or not they are housed within a university structure
(AAIEP, 2013).
UCIEP is a consortium of U.S.-based IEPs that are governed by universities
or colleges in the United States whose membership is limited to those pro-
grams which hold or are eligible to hold the CEA Programmatic accreditation
(UCIEP, 2013). Thus, programs such as Berlitz, ELS Language Centers, and
Inlingua, since they are governed by private entities rather than accredited
colleges or universities, would be ineligible for membership in the UCIEP –
even though they hold CEA Institutional status.

Marginalized Status of English Language Teaching Faculty

English language programs and their faculty have historically been marginal-
ized (Carkin, 1997; Case, 1998; Eskey, 1997; Fulcher, 2009; Jenks, 1997; Jenks
& Kennell, 2011; Pennington & Hoekje, 2010; Stanley, 1994; Stoller & Christison,
1994) and denigrated as remedial (Jenks, 1997; Pennington & Hoekje, 2010;
Stoller & Christison, 1994). In terms of the marginalization of the status of their
programs and their faculty and in their classification by others in universities
as providing remedial services (Pennington & Hoekje, 2010), they can be
compared with first-year writing or “freshman composition” programs or
other language teaching units with which, in the view of Pennington and
Hoekje (2010), “they form a disciplinary cluster of fields with similar attributes
and problems” (p. 11). Pennington and Hoekje’s (2010) review of language
program scholarship (especially in their Chapters 5 and 6), shows that
there has been scant attention paid in research to the position of IEPs and
English language teaching faculty, and this author’s own review also found
little contemporary empirical research on status issues of English language
programs and faculty. The lack of research on the status and marginalization
of IEPs and their faculty provided additional motivation for engaging in
the study.
There has long been a concern in the professional associations connected
with international education in the United States, including those specifically
concerned with the teaching of English as a second or foreign language,
about ensuring proper qualifications for teachers, program administrators,
and support staff working with students coming from other countries to
The New Context of English Language Programs 23

study in U.S. universities. In the 1980s, the leadership of the section on

Administrators and Teachers in ESL of the National Association for Foreign
Student Affairs – Association of International Educators (NAFSA-AIE) organi-
zation, in consultation with 100 ESL program administrators active in
NAFSA-AIE, developed a set of guidelines on the qualifications for the ESL
professional which were published in the NAFSA Newsletter (Pennington,
1990). These included both general guidelines and specific ones for the identi-
fied positions of Program Director, Faculty Supervisor or Curriculum
Coordinator, and Teacher in any language teaching field. The general
guidelines included specialized knowledge and education, usually with a grad-
uate degree, in language teaching principles and practices, second language
acquisition, language and culture, and the nature of language and of the target
language in social, regional, and functional varieties. Other general require-
ments included study in a foreign language, overseas experience, cross-
cultural knowledge and experience, and other personal characteristics. These
were in addition to more specialized knowledge and skills related to the
different positions. The TESOL association published its own list of qualifica-
tions for the field in 2007. Their Position Statement (TESOL, 2007) on the
appropriate professional degree for English as a second, foreign, or additional
language educator designates a Master’s degree in the teaching of English as a
Second Language or a related area, such as Applied Linguistics, and notes that
this is a terminal degree for the language teaching field. Other academic disci-
plines within higher education contexts – for example, Creative Writing and
Fine Arts – share the distinction of having an earned Master’s degree (MFA)
recognized as a terminal qualification. In the case of disciplines such as
Theater, Dance, Fine Arts, and Creative Writing, faculty are generally afforded
tenure-line status within their institutions (Grant, 2007), yet the same is rarely
the case for those holding a Master’s degree in TESOL, applied linguistics,
or similar qualification. Pennington (1992), writing in the 1990s, represents
a dissenting view to the position that a Master’s degree is the terminal qualifi-
cation for the TESOL or English language teaching field, arguing strongly
that the field needs Ph.D. qualifications to ensure its academic status and
knowledge base.
In spite of intense interest in qualifications within the field of teaching
English as a second/foreign language, and in spite of arguments that a Master’s
in TESOL or similar degree is a terminal qualification, the perception endures
that second language teachers have minimal or substandard qualifications.
In the view of Case (1998), this enduring perception on the part of others in the
academy is a contributing factor to the marginalized status of English language
teaching programs and faculty. Stanley (1994) and Case (1998), writing in the
24 chapter 2

1990s, maintained that more research was needed on the marginal status of
English language teaching professionals. Still, a recent review of contemporary
literature suggests that there has not been substantial progress in terms of
research in the area of terminal qualifications for English language teaching
professionals.
While more recent research on the issue of English language teaching
faculty as a marginalized population on college and university campuses is
lacking, the matter has been explored to some extent through commentary
(e.g., Jenks & Kennell, 2011; Pennington, 1991a, 1991b, 1992; Pennington &
Hoekje, 2010; Stanley, 1994; Stoller, 2012) and limited research (Case, 1998;
Pennington, 1991a, 1991b). Pennington and Hoekje (2010, pp. 10–11) observe
that university language programs, like composition teaching programs,
are often considered service units rather than academic disciplines, and so are
not afforded the same status as other academic units. Stoller (2012) accounted
for perceptions of the IEP as a marginalized academic unit within the
university by highlighting a number of ways in which it differs from the other
academic units: in its non-credit courses and non-degree-granting status, fea-
tures of the IEP that are connected to its instruction being viewed as develop-
mental or remedial; in the status of its faculty as rarely holding full-time
positions with academic rank through either a continuing contract or tenure
within the host university; and in the perceived status of English language
teaching as not a bona fide or credible academic discipline. Stanley (1994)
explored possible reasons for the low status of both English language teaching
faculty and programs in higher education in recounting concerns raised
through a Higher Education Interest Section of TESOL, many of which echoed
those of Stoller and Christison (1994) and later Pennington and Hoekje
(2010) and Stoller (2012). Stanley (1994) pointed to a future scenario which
has now become reality in a number of language programs around the world
in suggesting that academic institutions might replace in-house IEPs with
external, for-profit language centers, expressing a concern that this might
result in lower pay for faculty and staff, less access to university administrators,
and lower social status, recognition, and support from mainstream academic
faculty.
Case (1998) investigated issues of perceived marginalization of faculty and
administrators in an IEP by its host university in the Pacific Northwest. Case’s
research focused on the tensions and difficulties that faculty in a university IEP
experienced when they were involved in developing a required faculty evalua-
tion system. The evaluation system, which replaced that previously used in the
IEP, had to be in line with the host university’s expectations for and manner
of assessing mainstream faculty. This raised many issues related to the IEP
The New Context of English Language Programs 25

faculty’s work and employment status vis-à-vis faculty in other academic

departments. The faculty in the IEP where Case functioned as a participant-
observer all had Master’s degrees and 3 or more years of teaching experience.
Although their focus was primarily on teaching – and in this they differed from
faculty in other departments who were more focused on research – many reg-
ularly attended and presented at academic conferences and viewed them-
selves as scholars and language teaching professionals. Some of the IEP faculty
pointed to their teaching demands as making it difficult for them to focus on
publishing in academic journals, and some preferred to be identified as
instructors with a largely teaching role rather than as professors expected to
research and publish. The newer members of the faculty were especially eager
to develop their teaching skills. Criteria such as requirements to present at
academic conferences and publish journal articles, which reflect the responsi-
bilities of tenure-line faculty in academic departments, were ultimately
adopted for the IEP employee evaluation system. Although initially accepted
by the IEP faculty, the adoption of these criteria initiated a process of compari-
son to the tenure-line faculty in which the IEP faculty became dissatisfied with
their marginal relationship to the university and lack of full membership in
that group. They observed that they were not eligible for tenure-track posi-
tions nor for annual raises in salary which were part of normal faculty compen-
sation policies, and they were not able to serve on university-wide committees.
As IEP faculty compared themselves to the norms and values of tenure-line
faculty and became positively oriented to that group, this had dysfunctional
consequences for them in the way of dissatisfaction with the university and
with their own jobs, reinforcing their sense of marginalization and leaving
some of them with a sense of being “between two worlds and full members of
neither” (p. 16).
Case recommends that IEP faculty and administrators need to raise their
visibility to the host university and to clearly demonstrate their academic
contributions to the university. He further recommends that they identify
opportunities for dialog with host-university administrators that allow IEP
members to educate their colleagues on the history and context of IEP work
that have led to the current status of its faculty and its marginal position within
university communities.

Corporatization of Existing IEPs

The present inquiry investigates the experiences of faculty who are working
in U.S. institutions where corporate sector partnerships have been set up to
26 chapter 2

handle both the recruitment of international students and the administration

of the IEP and to provide a pathway into academic programs with support­
ive English language study. These EAP matriculation “pathway programs”
provide international students, many of whom will not have met insti­
tutional language proficiency requirements for full matriculation, access to
credit-bearing, disciplinary content courses, together with EAP language
support, in the universities with which they establish partnership arrange-
ments (Fulcher, 2007, 2009; Mullooly, 2009; Redden, 2010; Yerian, 2009). There
are numerous for-profit education service providers, and not all of them
engage in corporate sector partnerships responsible for both IEP administra-
tion and international student recruitment and offering credit-bearing EAP
matriculation pathway programs. Those education service providers which
do offer universities such arrangements usually enter into multi-year profit-
sharing arrangements based on student tuition fees. Key examples are INTO
University Partnership, Inc. (Epstein, 2010), Kaplan Global Pathways (Lewin,
2008), and Navitas Education Centres (Redden, 2010). In one case, that of
INTO USF (University of South Florida), a 30-year agreement was signed
(Redden, 2010).
Reporting on these partnership pathway programs in the United States has
primarily occurred through mainstream media such as The Chronicle of Higher
Education (Moser, 2008), Inside Higher Ed (Redden, 2010), The New York Times
(Levin, 2010; Lewin, 2008), and The Oregonian (Graves, 2008), among others
(Fulcher, 2007; Neznanski, 2008). Although some information is available on
the impacts of these kinds of partnership arrangements on students (Dooey,
2010), there is as yet no published research investigating the impact of these
programs on faculty. According to journalistic reports, matters of curriculum
and instructional decision-making remain under the control of existing pro-
fessionals teaching in both the IEP and pathway programs (Epstein, 2010;
Redden, 2010), though this has not been empirically studied, nor has the teach-
ing of pathway courses by disciplinary faculty who may not be adequately
prepared to meet the cultural and linguistic needs of international students
whose English language is not at the level needed for university study (Fulcher,
2009; Lewin, 2008).
Because the joint venture typically results in a new corporate entity existing
outside both the host university and the for-profit educational service provider
(Redden, 2010), there have been some unforeseen negative consequences of
the joint partnership arrangements for IEPs and their host universities. One of
these was that the CEA began removing its programmatic accreditation from
IEPs which were viewed as no longer under the governance of colleges or
The New Context of English Language Programs 27

universities (Epstein, 2010; Klecic, 2010).1 Some institutions’ success at staving

off proposed corporate sector partnership arrangements at their universities
has been attributed to such a threat to accreditation status. Some universities
which had been approached by for-profit education service providers have
opted instead to develop their own bridge or pathway programs within exist-
ing IEPs to assist international students in transitioning into university life and
regular academic classes (Redden, 2010).
Partly as a result of issues arising from institutions that have either been
targeted to implement joint-venture restructurings of their IEPs or that have
already undergone such restructuring, AAIEP (the American Association for
Intensive English Programs), TESOL, and UCIEP (2010) issued a joint position
statement on governance for English language instruction at institutions of
higher education in which they advised caution when considering partnership
proposals as well as greater transparency by academic administrators and
fuller participation on the part of IEP faculty and administrative staff in gover-
nance of the host university.

Major Players in International Student Matriculation Pathway

Programs

Among the many private, for-profit education-service providers, four which

offer corporate sector partnership agreements with colleges or universities to
develop and implement credit-bearing EAP matriculation pathway programs
are identified as having gained footholds in the United States. Because this
book includes the reporting of research participants’ experiences from two
empirical studies which involve these corporate entities, the descriptions
which follow are general and do not include explicit details of their university
partnerships or joint-venture structures. This limitation is in line with my aim
of protecting participants’ identities. A link to each company’s corporate web-
site has been provided, and readers who wish to learn more about these ser-
vice providers’ offerings are encouraged to explore their web pages and contact
corporate representatives independently.

1 Universities were required to provide evidence to the CEA that their language programs
remained under full governance of the host universities in order to restore accreditation
status, describing any substantive changes which had occurred as a result of the corporate
sector partnership.
28 chapter 2

INTO University Partnerships

Headquartered in London, INTO University Partnerships, Ltd. (INTO; http://
www.into-corporate.com/en-GB/home.aspx), is a privately held, for-profit
company which offers long-term joint venture partnerships with universities
targeted to increasing international student enrollment and success. Presently,
INTO has 10 university partnerships in the United Kingdom: City University
London, Glasgow Caledonian University, Manchester Metropolitan University,
Newcastle University, Queen’s University Belfast, St. George’s University of
London, The University of East Anglia, The University of Manchester, UEA
London, and the University of Exeter. INTO announced its first U.S. partner-
ship, which was with Oregon State University, in July 2008, and the first INTO-
allied students arrived there in Fall 2009 (INTO Press Information, 2008). As of
the beginning of 2013, three other U.S. universities besides the University of
Oregon have partnered with INTO: the University of South Florida, Colorado
State University, and Marshal University. Other attempts to develop INTO uni-
versity partnerships in the United States have been unsuccessful (Mullooly,
2009; Redden, 2010).

Kaplan Global Pathways

Kaplan Incorporated (http://www.kaplan.com/) is a well-established educa-
tional service provider that is a subsidiary of The Washington Post, a publicly
traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The Kaplan, Inc. cor-
porate structure has four major divisions, the best known of which is Kaplan
Test Prep, offering test preparation materials and courses for more than 90
standardized tests, including those which test English proficiency. The other
divisions are Kaplan Higher Education, offering degree-granting educational
programs; Kaplan Ventures, its venture capital investment division, which
develops specialized education programs; and – of most direct interest to the
present discussion – Kaplan International, housing their university prepara-
tion and pathway programs, including Kaplan Global Pathways (Kaplan, 2013).
As of the beginning of 2013, Kaplan has partnered with two U.S. universities:
Northeastern University in Boston, reported by Lewin (2008) to be the first
partnership of this kind in the United States, and, more recently, the University
of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Navitas University Pathways

Similar to Kaplan, Navitas University Preparation and Pathways Programs
(http://www.navitas.com/university_transfer_program.html), headquartered
in Australia, has an international presence, and its parent company, Navitas
Ltd., is a publicly traded company – in this case, trading on the Australian
The New Context of English Language Programs 29

Security Exchange. Also similar to Kaplan, Navitas operates under four pri-
mary divisions, though with both similar and different emphases from those of
Kaplan: an English division focused on English language learning services for
non-native English speakers as well as teacher training; a Professional division
focused on corporate professional development; a Student Recruitment divi-
sion focused on recruitment of students from India and China for “educational
institutions in major Western countries”; and a University Programs division,
which includes their university pathways program (Navitas, 2013). In the
United States, Navitas partnerships are in operation at the University of
Western Kentucky, the University of New Hampshire, and three campuses of
the University of Massachusetts.

Study Group University Pathway Programs

Study Group (http://www.studygroup.com/language-education/embassy
-university-pathways) – a former Australian company founded by current
INTO University Partnerships CEO, Andrew Colin (Study Group, 2011), which
is now wholly owned by a private equity group based in the United States –
is in the business of preparing and coordinating matriculation access for inter-
national students wishing to attend undergraduate and graduate programs in
the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom and needing to learn
English. Through its various subsidiaries, which include Embassy CES, a pri-
vate, for-profit educational service provider in the United States, Study Group
and its partner subsidiaries have developed a number of different models
for partnerships with universities, from admission agreements following pre-
paratory EAP instruction to more formalized, credit-bearing matriculation
pathway programs in institutions such as James Madison University, Dean
College, and Fisher College (Redden, 2010; Study Group, 2011).

Conclusion

This chapter summarized literature specifically related to recruitment, English

language teaching professionals and programs, and the phenomena of corpo-
rate partnerships with colleges and universities resulting in matriculation
pathway programs. Internationalization of universities is argued as the impe-
tus for a more heightened focus on international student recruitment, as well
as the development of matriculation pathway programs for non-native
English-speaking international students who may not yet meet universities’
admissions requirements. An unsurprising feature of such endeavors is the
fact that most of those recruited for such programs will be full-fee paying
30 chapter 2

international students. IEPs on campus have traditionally provided the

mediation pre-matriculated ELS students receive, but their historically
marginalized status on campus affords them little power in developing
articulations between their programs and the university’s academic degree
programs. Likewise, within the new paradigm of corporate sector partner-
ships, how and where language programs exist organizationally will have an
impact on the accreditation of such programs and will influence the opportu-
nities for advancement for English language teaching professionals within the
academe at-large, perhaps marginalizing them further. Chapter 3 illuminates
findings from an exploratory study which I conducted which aimed to under-
stand the experiences of English language teaching professionals whose insti-
tutions were currently being targeted for corporate sector partnership with a
for-profit education service provider (Winkle, 2010a, 2010b).
 chapter 3

An Exploratory Study

Introduction

Toward the end of my doctoral coursework, I carried out an exploratory quali-

tative investigation on the perceptions of English language teaching profes-
sionals working in programs which at the time were currently being targeted
for corporate sector partnerships that would result in EAP matriculation path-
way programs. The qualitative study (Winkle, 2010a, 2010b), was expected to
reveal issues or questions that might be appropriate for my Ph.D. research. The
two overarching questions for the exploratory study were the following:

1. How do English language teaching professionals whose teaching institu-

tions have been targeted for corporate sector partnerships describe this
experience?
2. What are English language teaching professionals’ perceived threats
or opportunities vis-à-vis the potential corporate sector partnership?

The findings from the exploratory study, as recast and reinterpreted here,
serve as background for the main study reported in Part 2 of this book and as
an introduction to the context of the research. As such, they join with the nar-
rative researcher reflections of the Preface to further orient readers to my posi-
tion as researcher (Merriam, 2009) and experience-informed presuppositions
prior to beginning fieldwork for my thesis.

Context

The English Language Institute (ELI) at “Mountain Valley University” (MVU),1

located in “Ridgeview, Montana” in the United States, has been operating for
nearly 30 years and is accredited by the CEA. Its aim is to help international
students prepare for entry into MVU by developing the academic English
­language skills needed for academic study. In addition, the program serves a
site where those studying in a Master’s course in TESOL can gain practical

1 A
ll participant names, university and corporate partner names and locations are
pseudonyms.

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Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 He had not slept for more than ten minutes when his uncle roused
him.

"She's faltering—both engines," announced Uncle Brian laconically.

Peter rose stiffly to his feet. He had not the trained ear for
mechanism that his uncle possessed, and as far as he could hear,
the motors were still keeping up their rhythmic purr.

"Look at the gauge of the main fuel tank," suggested Uncle Brian.

His nephew picked up an electric torch and made his way to the
'midship compartment. He went sceptically enough, but on
consulting the indicator, the state of the gauge fairly startled him. It
stood at zero.

That meant that only one of the auxiliary tanks contained any
kerosene, and owing to its position was useless unless the flying-
boat was diving steeply or in an inverted position while "looping".

The tanks were three-quarters full when the flying-boat had passed
out of Rioguayan control; and since[46] only a few hours had
elapsed, it was a matter of impossibility for the four motors even
running all out to "mop up" anything like the quantity that had gone
somewhere.

A hasty examination revealed the cause of the leakage. A drain-

cock was half open, allowing a steady stream of kerosene to flow
into space. At first thoughts, Peter attributed the leakage to the
Rioguayan mechanic, until he remembered that the fellow had been
locked up when left alone on board.

But there was little time for speculation.

Hastening back to the control compartment, Peter found that the

for'ard motors were now firing spasmodically. In a few moments
they would cease functioning for lack of fuel, and then there was
nothing to keep the flying-boat from descending with fair rapidity.
Her weight and relatively small plane-area were against her for
prolonged gliding.

He touched his uncle on the shoulder and motioned him away from
the controls.

"Luck's out this time," he said grimly. "It's a thundering big drop in
the dark."[47]

CHAPTER XVI
"Crashed"

Peter had barely resumed charge, when the motors coughed and
stopped. A deadly silence succeeded the purr of the engines, since
the rush of air past the metal planes was inaudible within the sound-
proof compartment.

It was the pilot's chief concern to keep the flying-boat up as long

as possible. It was entirely beyond reason to suppose that the
gliding would be prolonged till dawn, but the longer the aircraft kept
up the better, since there would be more time to make preparations
for the forced landing.

Planing as nearly in a horizontal direction as possible for two

minutes, was followed by a short steep rise until the flying-boat
seemed in danger of "stalling". This manoeuvre Peter repeated,
knowing that for every hundred feet of vertical drop he could knock
off twenty or more by the sudden leap against gravity.
 For quite twenty minutes he held on, his hand dexterously
manipulating the controls, while his eyes never left the altimeter and
speed-indicator.

Meanwhile, Brian Strong was busy. Realizing that[48] perhaps the

flying-boat might be able to land on fairly even ground, he set about
to prepare the electric head-lamp which could be trained in a vertical
arc of fifteen degrees—enough to illuminate a sufficient length of
ground before the machine came in contact with terra firma.

The searchlight was of the accumulator type. According to

instructions issued to the Rioguayan airmen the batteries were to be
kept fully charged; but when Brian tested the circuits he found that
the accumulators had completely run down.

There remained the secondary head-lamp—a three-hundred

candle-power acetylene-generated light.

Hoping against hope that this apparatus was in working order,

Brian unfastened the lid of the generator. The acetylene chamber
was full of perfectly dry carbide, but the water compartment was
empty.

"How long can you give me?" asked Uncle Brian.

"Five minutes—ten, with luck," was the reply.

Hurrying to the water-tank, Brian turned the tap. There was no

flow.

"Has every tank in this confounded contraption run dry?"

demanded Brian. Then the solution of the mystery dawned upon
him. The water in the tank was frozen into a solid block.

Had the motors been water-cooled a way out of the difficulty would
have been simple; but being air-cooled no help was forthcoming
from them.
 Seizing a spanner, Uncle Brian vigorously attacked the six nuts
securing the circular plate on the top of[49] the water-tank. The cover
removed, he hacked at the ice until he was able to gather a double
handful of chips of frozen water. These he placed in a can and held
them over the still warm cylinders of one of the motors until the
vessel contained about a pint of fluid.

"Look sharp!" shouted Peter. "We can't be much more than a

thousand feet up."

Working feverishly, Brian poured the water into the generator,

turned on the needle-valve to its fullest extent, and applied a match
to the triple fish-tail burners. With a mild explosion the gas ignited,
and the powerful beam flashed out into the night.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Peter, aghast, for the bright white light
was playing on a solid substance less than four hundred yards away
—the steeply rising face of a formidable mountain peak. Only a few
seconds separated the flying-boat from an end-on crash.

Putting the vertical rudders hard over, Peter literally jerked the
machine round, tilting her to an angle of nearly sixty degrees as he
did so.

Unprepared, Uncle Brian lost his balance and fell violently against
the lee-side of the compartment. Before he could regain his feet, the
flying-boat pancaked and crashed.

Peter had a brief vision of the nose crumpling up and the under-
carriage being forced through the steel floor of the fuselage. Then
the long slender body rose until the tail was almost vertical. The
pilot, hurled against the instrument-board, lost all interest in the
immediately subsequent proceedings.[50]

Brian Strong came off fairly lightly.

 Owing to the circumstance that he was lying inertly upon the floor
—for after his first attempt to rise he had philosophically abandoned
further effort—he had escaped being flung headlong against the
bulkhead. As it was, he found himself lying on the ground with
wreckage on either side of him—while within two yards of his feet
were the remains of the acetylene head-light, with a flare of vivid
white light leaping twenty feet into the air.

"Never did think much of those acetylene lamps," he remarked to

himself, and tried to puzzle out by what means he found himself
where he was.

It was indeed fortunate that the fuel supply of the flying-boat—

there were about twenty gallons in the lowermost tank—was non-
inflammable when released from pressure; had it been ordinary
petrol the wreckage would have been a mass of molten metal and
the two airmen would have been burnt to ashes.

Still muttering incoherently, Uncle Brian sat up and rubbed his head
vigorously.

"Where am I?" he demanded.

He dug his hands into the ground. It was fine sand. He sniffed at it,
half expecting to find it salt like the sand of the seashore.

Still puzzled, he watched the strongly-burning acetylene until the

glare was too much for his eyes. He turned his head, but was unable
to discern a single object.

Then he crawled, like a stricken animal, away from[51] the light,

until a mass of twisted steel plating impeded his progress.

"There's been a most unholy smash," he declared solemnly.

Gradually coherent reasoning returned to him. Strangely enough he

completely forgot that Peter had been with him in the crash. His
chief thoughts were for the safety of the essential parts of the
secret-ray apparatus. Those placed in a locker in the flying-boat
were probably smashed, but there remained the most important
object of all—the delicate valve which he had hidden in an empty
cartridge case.

Almost feverishly he tore open his leather greatcoat and felt for the
cartridge-belt that had been his constant companion from the time
he left El Toro. With trembling fingers he extracted the small glass
phial and held it up to the light. Then he gave a gulp of relief and
satisfaction. The delicate filament and the minute and complex
mechanism were intact.

"Hello, Uncle! Taking a blood test?"

Brian Strong turned at the sound of the well-known voice. Walking

unsteadily towards him was Peter Corbold.

His nephew was still wearing his flying-coat and helmet, which he
had put on merely for the sake of warmth. The coat was rent in half
a dozen places, while the left side of his face was red with blood
welling from a cut on the forehead.

Peter's period of insensibility had been of short duration, Thrown

clear of the wreckage after his[52] impact with the instrument-board,
he had got off with a nasty bruise on the forehead. The padded
helmet had saved his skull from being fractured, but the blow had
been sufficient to cause the blood to flow freely. His head was
whirling, he felt horribly sick and as weak as a kitten, yet he could
not repress a facetious remark upon seeing his relative so absorbed
in his precious invention.

"We're here," continued Peter. "But where, goodness only knows.

What's your damage, Uncle Brian? Wasn't it a jolly old crash? It
reminds me of a song we used to yell in the gun-room of the old
Baffin: 'She bumped as she'd never bumped before.'"
 "And never will again," added Uncle Brian with emphasis. "What's
to be done now?"

"Sleep till the morning," replied the practical Peter. "My head's
buzzing like a top. There's a chunk of the old 'bus that will make
quite a decent bunk. I vote we turn in."

Eight hours later Peter awoke to find the sun shining brightly. His
headache had vanished and—good sign—he felt ravenously and
healthily hungry.

Uncle Brian was still sleeping soundly. Peter let him sleep. It would
give him an opportunity to take stock of the locality.

Throwing off his blankets and greatcoat, for the heat of the sun
was oppressive, Peter emerged from his retreat and stood blinking in
amazement in the dazzling light—sheer amazement at their
marvellous escape.

The wrecked flying-boat was practically in the centre[53] of a

circular patch of sand and gravel about three-quarters of a mile in
diameter. On all sides rose rugged mountains with precipitous faces
in places rising sheer to a height of at least two thousand feet.

The plain was almost dead level and absolutely destitute of

verdure. No sign of life was visible. The flying-boat had struck a
snag in the form of a mass of rock about four feet in height and less
than a couple of yards in circumference. Otherwise, the sandy waste
was free from irregularities. It would have been an ideal landing-
ground, for the sand was fairly hard; and it was certainly a case of
sheer hard luck that the machine should have wrecked herself on
the only dangerous bit of ground in the extensive circle.

On the other hand, it was a rare slice of good fortune that had
accompanied the flying-boat on her downward glide. She must have
skimmed the summit of the encircling mountains with but a few feet
to spare. In the darkness Peter had been in entire ignorance of the
danger. Equally fortunate was the fact that the timely lighting of the
acetylene head-lamp had enabled the pilot to escape crashing nose-
on against the opposite wall of the huge basin of natural stone.

"We're here," decided Peter grimly. "We're here; but goodness only
knows how we are going to get out. It's been a fine old smash-up.
However, there's some consolation: the Rioguayan air fleet has lost
one unit."

So severe had been the impact that both of the for'ard motors had
broken away and lay quite fifteen[54] yards from the crumpled bows.
The after portion of the fuselage had broken off short, forming with
the buckled 'midship part an irregular, inverted "V". Four of the
subsidiary fuel tanks had completely parted company with the hull,
while the steel water-tank had burst from its securing bonds and
now rested bottom upwards upon the sand. The tank was practically
intact, but, since Uncle Brian had not had time to replace the cover
after chipping the ice, the precious contents had drained into the
parched ground. The outstanding feature was the sight of the two
rear propellers, both intact, standing up like flaming crosses as the
sunlight glinted upon the polished metal blades.

"And we're a long way from the sea," exclaimed Peter aloud.

"Did I hear anyone say 'tea'?" inquired Uncle Brian, from the
depths of his temporary sleeping compartment. "If so, many
thanks."

"You didn't," replied his nephew. "There's nothing doin' in that line,
I'm afraid. No water to be had."

"That's a rotten look-out," said Uncle Brian, as he emerged from his

retreat. With his bruised features, torn clothing, and staggering gait,
he looked more like a dissipated tramp than an engineering expert.

He glanced at the debris, then at the mountain barrier.

 "The old horse jibbed at that fence, Peter," he added. "It'll mean
padding the hoof for us, I fancy. Any grub going?"[55]

Scrambling over a litter of steel sheets, Peter dived into the debris
that remained of the 'midship part of the flying-boat. After hunting
about for some time, he discovered the oddly assorted contents of
the provision-room. He managed to rescue a couple of tins of
pressed beef, a loaf made of maize, and a bottle of soda water—the
sole survivor of nearly four dozen.

"Enough here for the present," he announced, as he crawled out.

"We shan't starve if we can carry enough away with us."

The frugal meal was eaten in silence. Uncle Brian produced a spirit
flask, half filled with brandy. Pouring about a couple of
tablespoonfuls of soda water into the metal cup, he handed it to his
companion.

"Your liquid ration, Peter," he said solemnly. "We'll have to make it

last out till we find water."[56]

CHAPTER XVII
The Passage Perilous

No time was lost in making preparations for the long trek. Each
man had to carry as much as he possibly could without impeding his
movements. Uncle Brian took the remaining parts of the secret-ray
apparatus, which he discovered lying in the sand undamaged and
still in the haversack. The rest of his load consisted of a rifle and
ammunition, a blanket and waterproof sheet, and about ten pounds
of foodstuffs. Peter loaded himself up with his sleeping-bag, twenty
pounds of provisions, the liquid compass from the flying-boat, a coil
of light line, his automatic, matches, and—in anticipation of finding
water—an empty water-bottle with slings attached.

"We shan't have to do very much climbing to get out of this,"

declared Uncle Brian. "And I shall be very disappointed if we don't
find water within an hour or two. At one time this place was a
mountain lake. The water has drained away—where? Not through
the sand, because it's a certainty that the bed of the lake was hard
rock similar to the surrounding mountains. It flowed away through a
canyon. If we find the canyon we find our way of escape."[57]

Peter agreed, but up to the present there was not the slightest
visible sign of a gorge. The enclosing wall of rock seemed
continuous, without a rift lower than five hundred feet above the
plain.

Progress was slow. The sand, although tolerably firm, was hard
going. The heat of the sun, coupled with the weight of their
burdens, distressed both men severely.

Presently they came to a shallow depression resembling a North

American gulch or a South African drift, only bone-dry. At one time it
had been a watercourse. The bed was littered with small stones.

Uncle Brian stooped, picked up one of the rough pebbles, and

examined it.

"Would you like to be rich beyond the dreams of avarice, Peter?" he

asked. "If so, load up. These are rough diamonds."

His nephew looked incredulous. He half suspected that the sun,

following the concussion of the crash, had affected his uncle's brain.

"Fact," continued Brian Strong. "The quantity of diamonds here

would make the De Beer's reserve look silly in comparison. We'll take
a few—just a few—to support our statement, should we be lucky
enough to come through. Personally, I'd rather have a pint of pure
water at the present time.... Enough, Peter! Don't sacrifice mobility
to cupidity. Later on, perhaps."

In his present state of mind, Peter, once he was[58] convinced of

the sincerity of his uncle's announcement, was not greatly impressed
by the magnitude of the discovery. The mere fact that untold wealth
lay at his feet was as nothing compared with his anxiety to get clear
of the mountain-enclosed arena. He hardly doubted his ability to find
a way out; but it was the long and tedious tramp that rather
appalled him. The change from speedy flying to a trudge afoot at
two and a half miles an hour, when time was of the utmost
importance, was a disconcerting prospect.

"There's an outlet," declared Uncle Brian, pointing to a bluff that

even at a short distance merged into the sombre greyness of the
mountainous wall. "We'll find a gorge close to it."

"Let's hope so," added Peter.

"There must be some egress," continued Uncle Brian. "At some

time—centuries ago—when this place was a lake—the overflow
escaped in a northerly direction. Why? Because to the south'ard are
the Sierras, which form a watershed between Rioguay and
Venezuelan territory. For some reason—an earthquake, most likely—
the feeders dried up or were diverted. Consequently, the lake ran
dry. Yes, here we are."

The cleft was so narrow that there was barely room for the two
men to walk abreast. The walls, up to a height of thirty feet, were
quite smooth, bearing evidence of the friction of sand and water for
countless ages. Above that height they were rugged and[59] irregular,
so that in many places the sky was completely shut out from view.

For nearly a hundred yards they progressed with tolerable ease.

Then the gorge contracted to such an extent that Peter's broad
shoulders were rubbing against either wall. Once or twice he had to
turn sideways and drag his pack after him.

"Hope it isn't going to be a blind alley!" he exclaimed.

"Never fear," declared Uncle Brian encouragingly. "The floor is on

the down-grade all the time. That's a sure indication that——"

"We're done this trip!" interrupted his nephew. "There's been a fall
of rock."

In the subdued light the defile appeared to terminate abruptly in a

barrier of enormous stones, some of which must have weighed at
least a thousand tons, rising to quite seventy feet.

"Fallen recently," commented Peter. "By Jove! If there's another

smash-up, we'll either be flattened out, or trapped. Let's go back!"

Uncle Brian deliberately unburdened himself of his load.

"Let me get past you," he said. "Before we talk of going back, I'll
make a brief examination. H'm, yes! Recent fall, eh? You're wrong,
Peter. That mass of rock probably subsided a thousand years ago.
The dryness of the atmosphere accounts for the fresh-looking
stone."

"Possibly," rejoined Peter, "but that isn't of much[60] consequence to

us, is it? It doesn't make our job any easier. I might be able to
scramble up and lower the rope for you."

"No climbing for me, thank you," replied his uncle. "I'm going to
crawl under."

He pointed to a small cavity, barely two feet in height and

triangular in section, between two masses of stone inclined one to
the other.
 "You can't possibly," began Peter.

"Can't I?" retorted his uncle. "Wait till we shift some of the sand. It
may be ten feet deep, but it has accumulated since this rock fell.
The stone is quite smooth.... Just come here a minute and kneel
down. I fancied I saw daylight; do you?"

Peter looked through the narrow tunnel. Sure enough, at about

fifty feet away, he could discern the farther end of the horizontal
shaft.

"No need to dig," he declared. "Stand by. I'll crawl through and pay
out the rope."

It was a nerve-racking experience. Notwithstanding Uncle Brian's

assurance as to the well-established nature of the barrier, Peter was
haunted by the dread that the wall of the tunnel might subside; and
when about half-way through, he had grave doubts whether he
could wriggle past a particularly narrow section. At any rate, there
he was. He could not turn to crawl back. He simply had to go on, or
get stuck.

With his heart figuratively in his mouth, the perspiration pouring

down his face, his hands and knees raw with the friction of the sand,
Peter continued his[61] way, turning on his side in order to negotiate
a couple of narrow places where the rocks protruded.

"Worse than the double bottoms of a battleship, any old time," he

soliloquized. "Now, if I butt into a particularly venomous snake at the
far end—that will be the limit!"

At length Peter emerged from the tunnel, rose to his feet, and drew
in a copious draught of fresh air.

"Through!" he shouted.
 "Right-o!" sang out his uncle. "Steady on while I finish with the
gear.... Now then, haul away!"

Peter began to haul in the line. It was heavy work, for at the other
end was attached the baggage belonging to both men, Brian
Strong's haversack with its precious contents being secured for
safety within the folds of the blankets and sleeping-bag.

"Good thing the rope's new," thought Peter, carefully coiling away
the line as he hauled it in. "If it did part half-way through there'd be
a fine old lash-up!"

Presently an increased tension of the rope announced that the load

was passing the narrowest part of the tunnel, which was about
fifteen feet from the end. Then there was a sudden jam. Something
had fouled, and the whole of the gear was wedged tightly, forming a
formidable barrier between Peter and his relative.

In vain the former heaved and hauled. He could hear Uncle Brian
plaintively inquiring when he would be able to crawl through.

"There's no help for it," decided Peter. "I'll have to go in again and
clear the lash-up."[62]

He did not relish the task, but it had to be done. The journey
through had been bad enough, but now, although the distance was
much shorter, he was additionally hampered by the fact that he was
working in utter darkness and that the baggage, filling the height
and breadth of the tunnel, considerably interfered with the air
supply.

Peter realized the possibility of having to cast off the rope and
remove each bundle separately—a task entailing at least half a
dozen trips into the shaft.

Fortunately this was spared him; for on feeling cautiously, he

discovered the cause of the "block". The rifle had come unhitched
and, swinging round until the muzzle caught the projecting rock, had
jammed the whole contraption. It was a fairly simple matter to
release the rifle and drag it into the open. Then the rest of the gear
was hauled out with comparative ease.

"All clear," shouted Peter again.

Brian Strong made the passage quickly and easily. As a mining

engineer, he was used to crawling through narrow passages. Had it
been a case of making their way aloft to the fire-control platform of
a battleship in a heavy sea-way, Peter would have won easily; but as
a tunnel crawler, he admitted unhesitatingly that he did not shine.

For the next mile, it was fairly easy going. The floor of the ravine
was wider, but the height of the walls correspondingly higher. Here
and there were pieces of rock that had become dislodged and had
fallen, half[63] buried in the sand. Once a stone as big as a man's
head came hurtling down within twenty paces of them.

The end of the chasm was now in sight, but they were not yet out
of danger or difficulty. At about four hundred yards from the end
their progress was arrested by a single slab of rock about ten feet in
height that completely obstructed the passage.

This time there was no tunnel. The only way was to climb over.

"I'll give you a leg up, Uncle," suggested Peter. "Then I'll send up
the gear and swarm up by the rope."

He took up his stand close to the rock and was about to bend
down to enable Uncle Brian to clamber on his back, when his boot
came in contact with something hard, buried a few inches under the
sand. As he trod on it, it gave with a rasping sound.

"Hello!" he exclaimed. "What's this?"

 With the toe of his boot, he pushed aside the covering layer of
sand, revealing a rusty breast-plate. Grasping the metal, he pulled it
up. It came quite easily, disclosing a number of human bones lying
on the backpiece of a suit of mail. A short distance away was a steel
morion, together with fragments of a skull.

The discovery roused Peter's interest far more than had the sight of
the diamond-studded sand.

"We're not the first people to find the gorge," he remarked. "How
old is this, do you think, Uncle?"

"Seventeenth century or late sixteenth," replied Brian Strong. "The

lace-holes in the breast-plate[64] prove that. A Spaniard, I should
imagine. He was crushed by the rock. I don't suppose he was alone.
We may have walked over the bodies of his comrades buried
underneath the sand."

"It would be interesting to know——" began Peter, then he broke

off suddenly, adding, "Come on, let's get clear of this rotten hole as
fast as we can."

Half an hour later, they emerged from the canyon. Ahead stretched
a seemingly endless expanse of trackless forest; behind them, the
mountains.

"There's bound to be water down there," said Brian. "And if there's

water, there's a stream. The stream becomes a river, and the river
flows into the sea—in our case, the Caribbean. We'll have to skirt the
fringe of the forest until we strike a stream."

This reasoning proved to be sound. It was not long before they

came across a small rivulet gushing from the hillside.

This they followed, noting with satisfaction that it grew steadily in

volume. For four days they kept to one of its banks, sometimes
cutting a way through dense undergrowth, at others wading in the
clear shallow stream. Wild animals they neither heard nor saw.
Several times they had narrow escapes from poisonous reptiles. At
night they were tormented by mosquitoes; by day they were almost
knocked out by the moist, enervating heat. Their clothing was in
rags, their boots cut almost to ribbons.

Yet they held doggedly on their way, living on short rations and
sustained by the hope that every step[65] brought them nearer to the
sea, though there were no signs of approaching the outskirts of the
forest.

On the fifth day, both men felt utterly done up. Too exhausted even
to speak, they plodded on, until their progress was arrested by the
stream flowing into a wide river, literally alive with caymans.

"Voices!" exclaimed Peter.

Both men listened intently.

Brian Strong shook his head.

"Imagination!" he replied briefly.

"'Fraid you're right," rejoined his companion disconsolately, but

seized with an inspiration, he drew his automatic and fired two shots
into the air.

A few minutes later, a dug-out canoe, manned by a dozen Indians,

appeared round the bend of the river.[66]

CHAPTER XVIII
 Orders for Cavendish

"Commander wishes to see you, sir!" Sub-lieutenant Havelock de

Vere Cavendish—affectionately known to his brother-officers as
"Weeds" and known to have answered readily to the sobriquet
"Plug"—acknowledged the marine orderly's announcement.

Cavendish was in a shore-billet—the Royal Naval Barracks at

Portsmouth—having just completed a gunnery course at Whale
Island. He was speculating upon what manner of craft his next ship
would be. He rather fancied a destroyer, but would have been in no
way surprised or disappointed if he were appointed to a light cruiser.
He was not particularly keen on a battleship. That meant a two-
years commission either in home waters or in the Mediterranean—
and already, in his comparatively brief career, he had seen enough of
Malta and Gib. to express a wish never to see either place again.

Life on a battleship in peace-time, he reflected, was apt to savour

of boredom; on a destroyer there were discomforts, but on the
whole there were compensa- [67] tions. It gave a fellow a chance to
do something that would be impossible on a capital ship. A sub on a
destroyer was a responsible person; on a battleship, he was one of a
crowd.

For another reason, he was not altogether certain that he had done
well in the gunnery course; but he did know that he had obtained a
"first" in the torpedo course.

Cavendish unshipped his legs from the messroom fender, threw the
morning's paper on the settee, and, after exchanging a jest with
some of the other occupants, made his way to the commander's
office.

The marine orderly had given no indication of the reason for the
interview. It was more than likely that he did not know. That left
Cavendish speculating as to the possible reason for the "Bloke's"
wish to see him. As far as he knew, there was nothing "up against"
him.

Discreetly he knocked at the door of the commander's private

room.

Commander Broadstairs was a typical officer of the present-day

navy—clean-shaven, alert both physically and mentally, and with a
certain brusqueness of manner that at times might be mistaken for
churlishness. On the quarter-deck, he would reduce a truculent
defaulter to a state of panic by a mere look. On duty he was a living
example of discipline and order, both spelt with a capital letter. He
knew by heart the whole of the "Sailors' Bible"—the Admiralty[68]
Instructions. It was said that the men feared him more than they did
the Commodore.

But when off duty, Commander Broadstairs' mantle of routine was

shed. He was just an ordinary, jovial fellow—a gentleman in the
truest sense of the word. His popularity was not of his own seeking;
it was acquired simply by his personality.

"Come in!" he shouted breezily. "Ah, there you are, Mr. Cavendish.
Take a seat."

He waved his hand in the direction of an arm-chair by the side of

his large knee-hole desk.

The Sub sat down promptly enough. The fact that he, a very junior
officer, had not been kept standing at attention, indicated the nature
of the forthcoming interview. Probably it concerned the garrison
sports, or the united services boxing tournament.

But Cavendish was well out of his reckoning.

"The Commodore has asked me to select a certain number of

officers for a particular service," began the Commander. "It occurred
to me that for various reasons you would be a suitable candidate. It
is, of course, optional whether you accept or otherwise, since it is a
matter requiring great discretion and involving a certain amount of
risk, not to say danger."

The "Bloke" paused and fixed his eyes upon the young officer.

"Near East, for a dead cert," thought Cavendish, then aloud he

said, "I'm quite ready, sir."

"You'd better wait until you've learnt more of the nature of the
operations," resumed the Commander,[69] with a wry smile. "Let me
see; you served a commission in the South American station, I
believe?"

"Yes, sir; midshipman on the Cyclex in 1921-2."

"You know the approaches to Bahia? And San Luiz? And Macapa?
Good. Now, describe the anchorage off Port of Spain."

"Weeds" did so, evidently to the Commander's satisfaction.

"Do you know anything of the Rio Guaya?" continued his inquirer.

"No, sir," replied Cavendish promptly. "We never put in there during
the whole of the commission. But——"

He paused, thinking that what he was about to say was irrelevant.

"But what?"

"I know a fellow living out in Rioguay, sir. An old shipmate of mine.
He went on the beach from the Baffin."

"Name?"

"Peter Corbold, sir."

"H'm; name's familiar. Do you ever hear from him?"

 "I had one letter, sir. I answered it—but I haven't heard since."

"What's he doing out there?"

"Mining engineering, I think, sir. He mentioned an uncle in the

same profession who had been in Rioguay for some time."

The Commander started on another tack.[70]

"The Admiralty have issued orders for the Cynesephon to be

brought forward for commissioning," he announced.

Cavendish sat bolt upright in the chair. Now he was beginning to

grasp the drift of things. Hitherto, he had been groping blindly,
trying to piece together the baffling questions which the Commander
had put to him, in a vain endeavour to discover the nature of the
hazardous duty hinted at.

He knew the Cynesephon. She was one of the "P" boats that in
1918 had been converted into a "Q" ship and altered to resemble a
South American freighter. She was supposed to be the last word in
mystery ships, but an opportunity to use her never arrived, owing to
the Armistice.

For certain reasons she had not been scrapped. She was now lying
in one of the basins at Portsmouth Dockyard, snugly moored
between two battleships of the Thunderer class, which were
permanently out of commission.

And now the Cynesephon was to be rescued from the scrap heap
and reconditioned—why?

Putting two and two together—the commissioning of the

Cynesephon and the Commander's inquiries about Cavendish's
service on the South American station—the Sub made a shrewd
guess.
 For several days there had been reports of British ships bound to
and from Brazilian and Argentine ports being overdue. Several of
them had been posted at Lloyd's as missing. At first, the general
public hardly[71] noticed the information, and until the Press gave
prominence to the matter, few people outside the shipping circles
had any idea of the persistent increase of the list of vessels overdue.

Then sprang up the usual crop of rumours—a pirate in the South

Atlantic providing the favourite topic. Vessels of all nationalities had
cleared South American ports and had made their various
destinations. None of the masters had reported falling in with a
suspicious craft; but it was an ominous fact that, without exception,
the overdue vessels had sailed under the Red Ensign.

A question was raised in the House concerning the mysterious

disappearance of so many ships, to which the First Lord made a
reply that the Admiralty were considering the matter, but did not feel
justified in sending H.M. ships, which were urgently required
elsewhere, to investigate.

That reply was a "blind". Already orders had been issued for the
secret commissioning of the Cynesephon and the dispatch of the
light cruiser Basilikon and the 35-knot destroyers Messines and
Armentières to the West Indies.

"It is in connection with the missing merchantmen, sir?" asked

Cavendish.

"You are right on the target, Mr. Cavendish," said the Commander.
"It is. The Cynesephon is to be fully manned by naval ratings, but
the crew have to be disguised as merchant seamen. I need not
emphasize the fact that this information is absolutely[72] confidential.
She will be detailed to cruise between Rio and Port of Spain in the
hope that she will be mistaken for a cargo-boat. That is acting upon
the supposition that there is a piratical vessel out. Personally, I think
that some obscure South American republic has run amok. A light
cruiser and a couple of destroyers will be within a hundred miles of
the decoy ship, but you will understand that they will only be called
to the Cynesephon's assistance if she is in immediate danger of
foundering. There is a great chance of her being sunk with all hands
before the supporting vessels can arrive on the spot. Now, I think
I've hinted enough for you to realize the nature of the operations.
Are you a volunteer?"

"I am, sir," was the ready response.

"I thought so," rejoined the Commander. "Here are the names of
your new skipper and the officers who have already volunteered.
You know most of them, I believe. Well, that's that. Use the greatest
discretion. Remember, a chance word may wreck the whole
business. And I don't think I'd write to Corbold again if I were you—
at least, until you return."

The Commander held out his hand. Fifteen seconds later Sub-
lieutenant Cavendish stood in the corridor, hardly able to realize his
good fortune.[73]

CHAPTER XIX
The Decoy Ship

That same afternoon, Sub-lieutenant Cavendish went on leave.

That was the official version given out to his messmates. They saw
him depart in a taxi, rigged out in mufti and with a prodigious
amount of "kit" that suggested a "tidy drop o' leaf". Cavendish's
home was in the Midlands, within a few miles of Grantham—but that
was not his objective. Two hours later, he put up at a modest hotel
in Southampton, patronized almost exclusively by Master Mariners of
the Mercantile Marine.

The next day he joined the S.S. Complex at Southampton Docks as

Third Officer.

The Complex was a tramp of 570 tons displacement, belonging to

the port of Grimsby, if the information painted on her stern were
correct. She was 230 feet in length. She had the usual raised fo'c'sle
and poop, with deckhouses and bridge amidships just for'ard of her
solitary funnel. Her fore- and mainmasts were of the "pole" type,
with the customary appendages in the shape of derricks.

She was under orders for Buenos Ayres with a cargo consisting
principally of cork.[74]

The tramp resembled her kind in the matter of paint. Her sides
were supposed to be black, but there were several irregular patches
of red-lead, and broad streaks of iron rust. Her crew, rigged out in
nondescript garments, were still stowing cargo. She had raised
steam and the Blue Peter fluttered from the foremast head.

But, although her topsides were disreputable, the same could not
be said of her hull below the waterline. The bottom had recently
been coated with dull-grey anti-fouling composition, her owners
being evidently of the opinion that it was false economy to pay for
extra fuel simply to drive a barnacle-encrusted hull through the
water.

Checking an almost irresistible impulse to salute the quarter-deck

as he came over the gangway, Cavendish went aft to report to the
"Old Man", who was standing at the head of the poop-ladder, rigged
out in blue cloth trousers, waistcoat with tarnished brass buttons,
and a cap bearing a salt-stained badge of a well-known shipping
firm, perched awry on his close-cropped head. He was in his shirt
sleeves. A very seasoned black briar pipe was between his strong,
even teeth.
 "Hello, Weeds!" exclaimed the Old Man; "so you fetched here all
right? You'll find Seton and Carr down below. They'll tell you where
your cabin is. 'Fraid you won't find it very ship-shape, old thing."

A sailor came slouching aft.

"Beg pardon, sir!" he announced with a pukka[75] naval salute.

"There's a Board of Trade chap come to see you."

Captain Meredith gave a gesture of annoyance. It was decidedly

unhealthy to have too many officious shore-people on board.

"All right," he replied. "And look here, Johnson, can't you

remember not to give salutes? Or must I send you back to the
Depot?"

The man grinned and went off.

"That's one of my hardest jobs," commented the Old Man. "Trying

to make an A.B. forget what has been drilled into him from the first
day he joined at Shotley. And look here, Weeds, you're not a credit
to the ship. Your rig-out is just a trifle too smart and too new. Try
toning it down with a little tar."

Captain Meredith hurried off to interview the Board of Trade

Inspector, leaving Cavendish to his own resources on the deck of the
S.S. Complex.

Only the previous day the Complex had come out of Portsmouth
Harbour as the Cynesepion. She had been hurriedly docked, her
bottom cleaned and coated in less than six hours. Her armament,
consisting of one 4.7, four 12-pounders, and a couple of 3-pounder
high-angle guns, had in the dead of night been placed in their
elaborately concealed mountings. Her holds and double-bottoms
were packed tightly with cork; ammunition, stores, and oil fuel were
placed on board, and with a naval crew, she was taken out of
Portsmouth to the Motherbank, off Ryde.
 Here the uniformed crew were taken off by a Govern- [76] ment tug
—leaving only twenty "hands" under a couple of officers to take the
ship round to Southampton.

Almost their first act was to paint out the name Cynesephon and
substitute that of Complex.

Cavendish went below. In the alley-way he encountered Robin

Seton, whom, until that moment, Cavendish had imagined to be
undergoing a course at "Whaley"—a "two and a half striper", now
posing as the first officer of the tramp.

"Cheerio, George!" was Seton's greetings. "Now our little band of

merry wreckers is complete. Seen Carr and Warrender? They're
sculling around somewhere. My word!"

He stepped back and critically looked Cavendish up and down.

"My word!" he continued. "I've never seen such a smart-looking

Third Mate before."

"So the Old Man remarked—or words to that effect," rejoined

Cavendish, with a laugh. "No matter. Live and learn. Where did you
pick up your rig-out?"

Seton held open his coat for inspection.

"Got kitted out in the Ditches for something like half a dozen
Bradburys," he replied proudly. "Sent the gunner's mate along to
make a deal. And he did. He knows the ropes."

Cavendish wished that he had known of the gunner's mate's

capabilities in the wardrobe department. He had laid out over
twenty-five pounds in an outfit that[77] had already been twice
remarked upon as being out of place. He quite agreed that the
hardest part of the job was not to be smart, and to forget that he
was an officer of the Royal Navy.
 The Sub was shown his cabin. He reappeared twenty minutes later
looking more his part.

The Complex was under way. She had just parted company with a
fussy little tug that had coaxed, cajoled, pulled, and pushed her out
of the Empress Dock. Southampton lay astern, the Weston Shelf
buoy was broad on the port-beam, while ahead lay the wide stretch
of Southampton Water, until it merged into the Solent beyond the
airship sheds at Calshot Castle.

There was plenty of traffic, from gigantic ocean liners to steam-

lighters and "spreeties"—low-lying barges with a generous spread of
tanned canvas. Tramp steamers, topsail schooners, steam, motor,
and sailing yachts, tugs, "hoppers", and fishing-smacks passed in
endless procession, little knowing the venomous nature of the little
Complex as she ploughed her way through the calm water at a
modest nine knots.

It was Alec Carr, the navigator, who showed Cavendish round the
ship. Carr, a burly, six feet two inch giant, hailing from North
Berwick, was the man for that job. He, like the Captain, knew the
ship from end to end, since both had served in a similar craft during
the later stages of the Great War.

The transformation had been an astounding one. From a long, low-

lying "P" boat, she had been[78] altered into a very presentable
tramp, looking at least of 1500 tons, although her actual
displacement was little more than one-third of that tonnage. Yet she
retained the speed and high manoeuvring qualities of her original
role. She could work up to 23 knots when required, could turn
almost in her own length and with the minimum of "tactical
advance". She could go astern at 18 knots, while her nominal fuel
capacity of 93 tons could be augmented sufficiently to give her a
cruising distance of 4000 miles without replenishing her oil tanks.
 For armament, she was adequately provided with weapons
calculated to deal with anything short of a cruiser. The 4.7-inch gun
was housed in the fore-hold, the gun and its mounting being raised
when required by hydraulic pressure. On either side of the deck-
house under the bridge was a 12-pounder, each concealed by a
section of the dummy bulwarks, while by lowering two of the wings
of the deck-house an arc of fire of 160° could be obtained. Two
more were as skilfully concealed aft, while the 6-pounders were
mounted in boats stowed on top of the deck-house abaft the
mainmast. The boats were dummies, constructed to fall apart by
means of hinges and quick-release gear.

In addition she carried four 14-inch torpedo tubes of the

"submerged" type, and a couple of mortars for discharging depth
charges at a range of two hundred yards.

The "P-boat's" original conning-tower was still[79] in existence,

although, owing to the new superstructure, its sphere of usefulness
was considerably curtailed. Another had been built for'ard.

Cavendish walked right round the latter and never spotted it.
Outwardly, nothing was to be seen but a big reel of wire hawser. The
reel was a dummy, being actually the hood of the armoured
conning-tower.

"See the idea?" inquired Carr. "If, by a bit of luck, we do fall in with
a pirate, he'll start shelling the bridge. We found that with Fritz. Let
him shell. There'll be no one there, and from this little box of tricks
our skipper can keep an eye on him until he decides it's time to put
him in his place—to wit, Davy Jones his locker."

"What's your opinion about the loss of these merchant vessels?"

asked Cavendish.

Carr shook his head.

"Ask me another," he replied. "That's what we're sent to find out."

 The Complex was now well down the Solent. Yarmouth(1) was on
the port bow, Lymington to starboard, and the high light of Hurst
right ahead, rising like a needle out of the sun-flecked water.

A light cruiser, with her distinguishing signals displayed and a

commodore's broad pennant flying from the masthead, came pelting
along, passing the decoy ship a cable's length to port. The Complex
dipped her ragged, smoke-begrimed Red Ensign. Carr and Cavendish
exchanged glances.[80]

"I was expecting the 'Still' to sound," declared the former. "Wonder
what Old Man Meredith thought of it all?"

As a matter of fact, Captain Meredith, D.S.O. (with bar), had almost

given himself away, and his vessel as well, by ordering the strangely-
garbed crew to attention. To deliberately ignore a commodore's
broad pennant was the most trying experience he had had that day,
which was saying a lot.

"Think we'll have any luck?" asked Cavendish, reverting to the

burning topic of the hour—the hoped-for meeting with an as yet
mythical pirate.

"Goodness knows," replied Carr. "I trust so. 'Tany rate, whether
we're up against a submarine or a commerce destroyer, we'll give
'em a thundering good run for their money."

For the next few days, all hands were busily engaged in rehearsing
for the forthcoming show. Every member of the crew took up his cue
with zest, confident that should occasion arise they would play their
part to the utmost satisfaction of the navy generally, and themselves
in particular, and to the complete discomfiture of the enemy—
whoever or whatever he might be.

The drills took two distinct forms. The first was that of countering
an attack by a surface ship. In this case, with the exception of a few
hands leaning idly over the bulwarks and a couple of officers on the
bridge, the crew were at action stations and carefully hidden from
external observation. Right aft, crouching in a steel[81] shelter made
to resemble a skylight, was a seaman holding the uncleated halliards
of the ensign staff. It was his duty, on hearing the "action" gong, to
strike the Red Ensign and substitute the White. Simultaneously, all
gun-screens were to be lowered and every gun that could be trained
on the target was to open fire, while below the waterline the L.T.O.'s
stood by the torpedo tubes ready to launch the deadly missiles on
an invisible objective; the direction of the "run" being governed by
controls from the conning-tower.

Should the piratical craft turn out to be a submarine, the procedure

was of an entirely different nature. The enemy might approach
submerged and torpedo her prey. In that event, the "panic-party"
would make a wild rush for the boats. One of the boats would be
purposely lowered by one of the falls only, so that it would tumble
bows on into the water. The "abandon ship" stunt would then be
carried out, the men in the boats rowing desperately from the
sinking ship.

"'Ere you—bow an' number three," bellowed the coxswain. "Stop

grinnin'. You ain't a bloomin' picnic party. Look as if you was scared
stiff. No! Don't for goodness' sake pull together. You ain't pullin' for
the Squadron Cup. You're supposed to be goin' for dear life. Pull
any'ow, as if Old Nick were in the perishin' boat."

The rest of the decoy ship's crew were at action stations,

supposedly on a foundering vessel, although it was to be expected
that even if torpedoed the Complex would keep afloat by reason of
the "cargo" of cork.[82] There, prone in their places of concealment,
unable to see what was going on, they had to wait until the
submarine appeared awash and on a suitable bearing for the guns to
be brought into action.

If the submarine declined to investigate and the Complex was

really sinking, there was nothing for the crew of the latter to do but