The VC is desperate to find a feather in Kingston’s mortar board as he mismanages our decline. Taking a previous VC as a guide, Spier has followed the last incumbent but one Peter Scott’s example by writing in The Guardian.
Unfortunately Spiersy has less to say. The thrust of his article is that universities should be punished for the BAME attainment gap that exists in higher education. Unlike last year, he is quiet about Kingston’s figures in this area, whereas last year the boast of Nona McDuffer OBM* suggested the gap had been all but eliminated.
But in an article almost devoid of content, the VC merely refers in a semi-literate sentence to a ‘key performance indicator’ and an ‘inclusive curriculum’. No mention of Kingston’s record, which one suspects is no different to anywhere else. Indeed there is evidence to that effect from KU’s own records. So hot air about a ‘whole-university drive’ impresses no one. A call for incentives from the Government is just a special plea for Kingston to get a higher score in the TEF because we have a target for the gap’s reduction (no indication of whether or not this has been achieved). That is desperate. With the University shrinking, all the grand ideas, mostly involving staff chastisement, have proved ineffective. Spiers and his hopeless management team have run out of puff. It’s going to need something special to turn things around, and that won’t come from him.
*Order of the Bad Manager
Closure, followed by a sign reading, “Open Under New Management” would turn the university around.