All fall down

You wait ages for a much derided SMT member to leave, then two go at once. DadooRon Ron Tuninga and Simon Moran-Worthless are “stepping down”. This news has been presaged in comments on this blog and @KingstonDissent by those in the know. Now finally the disastrous Dean of Business is off, and no one can doubt that this stepping down is more of a push down the stairs, just as with earlier hopeless cases like Eales-Reynolds. The FASS Dean, protégé of crooked McQuillan, has proved equally unpopular with his staff. Whether the sabbatical he is taking is permanent remains to be seen, but it’s a convenient sidestep as the University has yet another reorganisation in its faculty structure.

Changes are now a habit at Kingston University. Turnover in the SMT is high. One good thing one can say about the VC, he does get rid of some hopeless deans, except of course he appointed some in the first place and allowed others to do plenty of damage before acting. The mismanagement just cannot get their heads around the notion that shoving your staff around, dumbing down the courses in the interests of popularity, extending probation thus increasing insecurity, imposing performance monitoring does no more than upset everyone and maintain the decline that began with the madness of Weinberg. And one cannot help think that these rearrangements are preparing KU for the closure of further traditional academic subjects. From university to a small specialist college in a few careless steps.

But at least one step is in the right direction. In the words of the song

‘… as you’re leaving, don’t forget to shut the door.’