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BUSINESS MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR use the format [email protected]60 Times Higher Education8 February 2018“They shouldn’t believe every-
thing they read inTimes Higher
Education.”
That was the forthright
response of Louise Bimpson,
our Corporate Director of
Human Resources, to Poppleton
academics who were, in her
words, “mischievously” citing
the results of a newly published
THEsurvey of work-life balance
as evidence of the growing
divide between academics and
professional university staff.
Ms Bimpson agreed with our
reporter Keith Ponting (30) that
the survey did appear to show
that, on the whole, managerial
staff were happier than academ-
ics, worked fewer hours, weremore able to switch off, and were
less likely to claim that their work
affected their mental health.
“But”, said Ms Bimpson,
“the survey completely overlooks
the critical importance of person-
ality factors. One hardly needs a
major survey in order to establish
that managers and professional
staff are by their very nature
optimistic and forward-looking
whereas academics are routinely
marked out from the rest of the
population by virtue of their
endemic miserabilism. Linguists
are surely not alone in selecting
‘cheery professor’ and ‘jolly
senior lecturer’ as paradigmatic
oxymorons.”
But, suggested Ponting, didn’tMs Bimpson detect some
grounds for concern in the
survey’s further findings that,
compared with professional
staff, academics had less time for
their friends, enjoyed fewer holi-
days and were more likely to be
considering switching careers?
Ms Bimpson remained
unsympathetic. “I think you’ll
find that academics devote
considerably more time toundermining old enemies than
cultivating new friends, are
singularly incapable of discover-
ing a satisfactory holiday destin-
ation, and are rarely qualified
for any job other than the one
they currently hold.”
(At this point in the interview,
Ms Bimpson excused herself on
the grounds that unlike “some
academics she could name”, she
“still had a home to go to”.)What can be done to ensure that
undergraduate students attend
compulsory courses?
According to our Deputy
Head of Student Experience,
Nancy Harbinger, a number
of methods have been tried at
Poppleton. These have included
taking a headcount, calling a
register and the selective use of
an electric cattle prod.
But Ms Harbinger announced
last week that our university will
be adopting a method pioneeredby the Sichuan Vocational
College of Cultural Industry,
a university in south-east China,
that became concerned about
the number of undergraduates
skipping a compulsory course in
law and ethics.
All students who were
supposed to have attended theselectures were shown portraits
of different teachers and asked
to select the one who had taught
the course.
Ms Harbinger confirmed
that the method would be used
at Poppleton to assess the
attendance of first-year students
at the compulsory Introductionto Media Studies lectures
offered by our Department of
Media and Cultural Studies.
In line with the Chinese
model, these students would
be shown the set of portraits
above and asked to identify
the lecturer who had taught
the course.Name that don
AMore academic misery –
shock report
THE POPPLETONIAN
YOUR OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER
A Gold
UniversityBC
D EGot an
inside story?
Let Laurie know
[email protected]ALAMY