Anyone who has been involved in university adminstration and management, as I have for the past four years (freedom at the end of July!), will know the frustration of reading communications from university leaders (Vice-Chancellors, Presidents, Provosts etc.). There are several flavours: bland corporatespeak, official pronouncements aimed at politicians, implausible (also bland) reassurances aimed at students, parents and alumni, general expressions of commitment to “the highest standards” in research, education etc. When a British VC writes for a national newspaper, expect an illocutionary act aimed at the political class (in times of resource scarcity) rather than a genuine and open engagement with the problems facing higher education. Happily, there is at least one university leader who can write about higher education in a way that’s aimed at thinking adults who might have opinions of their own (which he, in turn, might actually be interested in). Step forward Ferdinand von Prondzynski, President of Dublin City University, Ireland, who has a blog: “A University Diary”:http://universitydiary.wordpress.com/ .
{ 10 comments }
Chris Williams 06.22.10 at 8:46 am
Up until a year or so ago I’d have agreed completely with that intro, but I can’t help feeling at least half-impressed with the videos that my own current boss, Mr Bean, VC of the Open University, puts out. He manages to mix up the good news and the bad news in reasonable proportion, he doesn’t yell ‘everything is rosy’ and he gives a convincing impression of someone who has met and talked to a wide variety of his staff.
They are intranet only, as far as I know, but perhaps they are circulating as samizdat in the upper reaches of UUK.
Andrew 06.22.10 at 11:42 am
I rather like Steven Schwartz’s blog from Macquarie University (the most recent post, a response to a newspaper story, is not typical).
http://www.vc.mq.edu.au/blog/
James Wimberley 06.22.10 at 12:21 pm
What’s an illucutionary act? An illocutionary act performed by an illusionist?
Chris Bertram 06.22.10 at 12:53 pm
Thank you James – I shall correct the typo.
rea 06.22.10 at 4:22 pm
“I can’t help feeling at least half-impressed with the videos that my own current boss, Mr Bean, VC of the Open University, puts out.”
Rowan Atkinson plays your Vice Chancellor?
Chris Williams 06.22.10 at 10:46 pm
No, he really is called Mr Bean. Seems a reasonably nice chap, as it happens. Mind you, if I was on his kind of money I’d be grinning too. Though perhaps not making quite so good a job of it.
tomslee 06.23.10 at 12:23 am
Well I’m sure that’s all very inspirational.
But really, what we want is blogs by some poor administrative assistant who has to deal with the outpourings of some less admirable vice chancellor and who is prepared to spread egregious and chuckleworthy examples of “bland corporatespeak, official pronouncements aimed at politicians, implausible (also bland) reassurances aimed at students, parents and alumni, general expressions of commitment to “the highest standards†in research, education etc” far and wide.
Any takers?
Antonio Conselheiro 06.23.10 at 1:22 am
Somewhere there’s an Irish University president out of a job. They have trouble competing with the Eastern Europeans willing to administrate for a sausage and a bag of potatoes.
Chris Williams 06.23.10 at 9:22 am
tomslee, you need to see if Maureen, of the University of Poppleton, is interested. She can be contacted c/o Laurie Taylor in the Times Higher.
tomslee 06.24.10 at 2:26 am
Thank you CW. I had never come across that.
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