Dear Big Readers and overweight people everywhere
The University has suddenly become quiet and the staff are cowering in their offices (open plan will expose them); however May and early June are a very busy time for all staff in faculties, both academic and professional support, with exams, marking and preparing for exam boards etc. This year getting everything right is going to be ever more difficult as July graduations are ridiculously early. I am grateful (not really) to everyone who is overworked to make sure another of my stupid ideas doesn’t foul things up completely.
As well as exam season it’s university league table season. The news this year is reassuring (that’s what I tell the governors). The University has improved three places in the YetAnother University Guide and one place in the Guardian League Table. Everyone else thinks that’s a rubbish result but I think it’s worth a doubling of my salary. There are some excellent outcomes, such as 4th for Fashion. Kingston University will henceforth be known as The Fashion University, Kingston. (That reminds me, my pants are full of holes, a bit like my policies.) That has not happened by chance, just as the three sixes I rolled in the SMT Snakes and Ladders tournament were not by chance.
League tables are a ranking, so you do not have to do well, so as we haven’t done well that’s a success. All universities are run by rankers – I’m one of the biggest – so even this modest improvement means a lot of noise and bluster from me, desperate to cover up my mess. There is still some way to go before we are where the University belongs – at number one with all the rest.
It is difficult not to be cynical about university league tables or about me. Their main purpose is to waste time and effort, so they are important. Staff want to be at a university that is doing well or improving, with good management (that’s Kingston down the tubes then). Our league table position translates into your job losses! (Had to get that threat in.)
I mentioned the Kingston University Big Readat the very end of my last newsletter, and could hear the hollow laughter all the way down by the river. This is the outcome of another toytown research project and the team from FASS are rolling all over their office floors clutching their sides. Research published in the Journal of Drivel has shown there are some very sound benefits to universities running this kind of initiative. There are significant benefits for staff, who feel that VCs really have lost their marbles if they think reading a bloody book will somehow improve their working lives. But it’s a yet another way to divert attention from my incompetence. I’ve already read our first book ‘About a VC’ by Nick Bornyesterday, a tale of a VC befriended by a young boy who tells him what a complete dick he is. I loved it – a change from the Beano. I hope you will join me, you’ve got nothing else to do. Copies for staff will be available in the middle of July.
To clarify the jargon, “SADRAS” refers to research projects that don’t actually find anything out. The projects have to be wafflelogically sound and the recent presentation of projects held at Kingston Hill showed that they were of very high quantity. Topics were wide ranging, from student shoe size and to the colour of food served on campus. The rhubarb of the studies means that their results have to be taken seriously; they will influence the shambles in the University. The Big Read is a great example.
We have not only been thinking about wasting time. Library and Learning Services are currently involved in an exciting project to write a new shopping list. The output will be a pointless product that we’ll pretend improves the experience of both staff and students, with seamless workflows enabling items to be added to reading lists by teaching staff, with new material triggering alerts to … sorry, too bored to go on with this bullshit. I’ll just say that Kingston is a key key in the international project alongside Imperial College (academic suicide capital of the UK), the University of Oklahoma (whip crackaway at the staff), the University of New South Wales (Cardiff I think) and KU Chocolate Heaven in Belgium and their systems supplier. The Library staff here at Kingston felt that this was an excellent opportunity to play at processes and actually have some library stock that students want (thought that was to do with lack of money).
Involving students who never read with projects like the Big Read, and getting the basics such as reading lists right is a core part of attending to all the wrong things and appearing to do something useful. We should be seen as innovative and innovative, even though I haven’t a clue.
We have been working closely with Kingston Borough Council to get their crazy decision on the Town House project overturned. Fortunately we are supported by great architects who have been sitting on the Councillors. We have had some positive meetings and think that the size of the building can be reduced without changing the interior of the building. Its new name is the Tardis. The submission will be going back to a meeting of the Development Control Committee for approval over the summer, or else!
Alongside exam and league seasons we are also into the time of year when people have their annual review/appraisal/job threat. This should not be a big event as everyone should already know they are being dumped on, getting a pay cut, demotion, the sack, all the things a good university that values its staff does these days. The number of people being appraised straight out the door across the University is improving; however it is not as good as it should be. I would be interested in hearing from those who have a complaint.
I hope we can develop a really good appraisal system because we all see appraising, and being appraised, as part of distracting you from the suffering I’m imposing on you all. We are a university; stuffing and distressing people is what we do. I hope that staff who have not had dismissal start demanding one – it is your chance to reduce our wage bill, and destroy your aspirations for the future. If the employment laws that we have gets in the way of this let me know and I’ll lobby my friends in government. Let’s see if we can get to one of the highest depression rates in the sector because the Kingston bullies take their irresponsibilities as managers seriously, and because we all want dishonest discussions about what we are doing – as ultimately that translates into the grim life many staff have at Kingston.
Yours
Jools the Rat