The rapidly rising pressure on Kingston staff to produce research publications is accompanied by a very dark cloud in Business & Law, as reported on this blog. The Dean from the polders, DadooRonRon Tuninga, has invented a points scheme for measuring staff performance, or more likely for suppyling excuses to bully and fire staff. The measure is demanding and one that many staff will struggle to meet, including as it happens the deranged dean himself. A quick study of the citation databases reveals that Flatlands Ron has never managed himself a journal paper in his life, and only 9 conference papers/books in total, the last of which was 2009. A pretty poor collection for a dean, especially one who wants to judge his staff on criteria he is nowhere close to meeting. Incidentally, DadooRon’s publications have attracted a grand total of 1 citation. So much for impact.
What, then, about the other deans? Well, some do better than the B&L incumbent, but the Dean of SEC has only 6 papers listed, although 5 of these are at least in journals, the last in 2012. So no points for the last three years. Some do worse: the Dean of FADA, a professor and PVC like Tuninga, has none — that’s right, none. Kingston professors are not generally noted for their significant contributions to their subject, but nothing at all is an achievement in itself.
The Dean of FHSCE manages 10, last one 2008. Only the Dean of FASS would pass the points review with recent papers from a total of 11.
So out of 5 deans, only 1 would pass the B&L points system. We’ll overlook the DVC’s, some of whom would pass, others fail. Of course, the search software may miss some items, and no doubt the deans will claim they have assorted minor stuff published, but clearly the majority of the senior academic staff at Kingston fail the B&L test on the only objective listings available. In which case this blog suggests the idiotic scheme is abandoned forthwith. The unspoken motivation may well be to weed out staff; the University would be better served if its underperforming senior management were weeded out first. Thanks Ron, but no more Ron.