Then, just like that, Bill Wiggins was gone!
And, for the first time ever in her weeks at The Shack, it was Jenny who knew what had happened and was the oracle of departmental gossip; able (and mostly willing) to enlighten everyone else.
She’d been to see Bill a few days before, their weekly CUPIOPE progress meeting in his office, and he’d been in an even worse mood than usual. An unlikely combination of fire extinguishers and no less a person than the vice-chancellor herself appeared to have triggered him. Firstly the VC …
‘Holly’ Malevich had taken over as vice-chancellor six years previously. The media fallout from the exploits of the departing VC had made the board of governors and senior executive very wary of appointing a new one, with a similar personality, who might take up his not inconsequential mantle with similar gusto. They were minded to look for an incoming leader ‘from a different mould’. They did this well; so well, in fact, that they gave the job to someone with practically no knowledge or experience of higher education whatsoever: in fact, they’d only just managed to concoct enough of a case to give her the ‘professor’ title, which she’d insisted upon, on joining. On the plus side, she was a woman, which it was thought would help massively with diversity accreditation, and she came from a European college, which might benefit overseas student recruitment. Neither of these aspirations fruited but she did largely deliver on first and foremost of the executive board’s hopes: inconspicuousness. Although, as head of the institution, she courted publicity shamelessly at every opportunity, on a private level, she lacked sufficient imagination to get herself into the same trouble as her predecessor (apart from a number of leaked violations of Covid regulations). She lacked imagination to do very much at all in fact, partly the result of a general contentment with the elevated position in which she now found herself and partly through not really ever acquiring much idea of what a university actually did. So whilst coffee shops were made over and a bright glass shell now encased the old external brickwork, staff and students were largely ignored, and the university – from some promising beginnings in days gone by – plummeted towards the bottom of the university rankings. Research dwindled and the academic quality of student intakes dropped year-on-year as academic forms, committees, processes and all manner of bureaucratic distractions grew.
‘Holly’ was not her real name, of course: it was something – known by very few – given to her by some particularly odd Eastern European parents and unpronounceable by anyone born west of Berlin. Even more unfortunately, she was nicknamed ‘Otto’ by a disrespectful minority of academic and admin staff for an unlucky resemblance to the bus-driver in The Simpsons. Visuals aside, however, the similarities ended abruptly: there was no ‘free-spirit’, no rebelliousness. The complete opposite, in fact: she had no solution to anything except ordering other executive team members to quote rules and regulations at staff or students en masse, or demanding from anyone further down the management tree written reports into whatever had gone wrong this time. And that was where the fire extinguishers came in …
NSU had just had some sort of external health and safety visit, looking at whether key equipment was where it should be and if staff knew what it was for and how to use it. Fire safety figured prominently in this, of course. Experienced inspectors were not unused to finding the occasional fire door left open or a fire extinguisher out of place and would normally just make a note for corrective action. The engineering department, however, seemed to have gone the extra mile for this inspection. Not only were practically all the fire doors open, it was, more often than not, the nearest available fire extinguisher that was doing the holding open. When the inspectors had managed to find staff to question on the issue, they’d been met with, at best, complacency and, at worst, flippancy and inappropriate humour. (Individual staff hadn’t been mentioned but the directorate had its list of usual suspects.) The inspectors had had a collective fit, raised a formal concern and failed the department’s inspection. On the VC’s irate instructions, the DVC had spent the previous day issuing directives, old and new, to every member of staff and the VC herself had responded in the only way she knew: by insisting the head of engineering drop everything and write a report. Hence Bill’s even worse than normal mood that morning.
He was responding to the VC’s initial email as Jenny arrived; she could read the terse ‘Yes, I’ll get on to that, ASAP. It’s OK’ over his shoulder. He turned away from the screen to face her, still wearing the Bluetooth headset he often used, and motioned her to sit. His foul mood was obvious so Jenny, despite not really caring that much, felt obliged to offer a non-committal, ‘Everything OK?’ by way of an ice-breaker, not realising that an entire glacier was going to land on her.
‘No, it’s bloody not,’ he growled. ‘The bloody idiots upstairs have landed more crap on me; just because the bloody idiots in this department don’t know what a bloody fire extinguisher’s for.’ It either didn’t register with him that he was talking to one of ‘the bloody idiots in this department’ or he didn’t care. The glacier, inching slowly at first, accelerated quickly. Bill’s rant intensified: ice crashed down in all directions and, as it did so, Jenny noticed that text continued to build on the screen behind him. He’d not switched his microphone off.
After the initial novelty had worn off, most people at The Shack had given up on voice recognition software. Despite personalised ‘training’ routines, it didn’t work well with overseas accents or even much north of Watford but Bill, with his regulation home counties drone, got on well with it and used it a lot – and it was just about to be his downfall.
If he’d restricted himself to moaning about the ‘jobsworth inspectors’ and the ‘lazy half-wits’ in his department, he might have got away with it, but his ire soon expanded to other members of staff he didn’t like (nearly everyone, as it happened) and eventually upwards to senior management ‘thinking he had nothing better to do’, that ‘cretin of a DVC’ who ‘doesn’t know a bloody thing except where to get a fancy haircut and buy fancy suits.’ Any semblance of rationality vanished rapidly. ‘He only tries to look like that because he wants to shag the VC.’ ‘Christ knows why though. Have you seen her? Looks like a gargoyle; Otto they call her apparently.’ ‘I don’t know; maybe they are shagging. That might explain why she keeps such a useless tosser on.’ ‘They’re both a couple of useless wankers.’ His diatribe went on and on, getting progressively more manic and offensive as it did so. His dictation software faithfully added each word to his email.
Eventually his wrath reached its peak and slowly subsided. He mumbled an insincere apology. ‘Let me just sort this,’ he sighed, ‘and I’ll be with you.’ He turned distractedly back to his workstation and, without a moment’s hesitation, clicked ‘Send’ on the most spectacular resignation letter in The Shack’s not exactly colourless history.
*
The official line was that Bill Wiggins was ‘leaving by mutual consent’. It was suspected there was some pay-off for him to retire quietly. No-one would miss him (well, maybe some past amours around various Cack Shack departments) but the question of his replacement was an altogether more interesting one.
It was almost certain that there would be no budget to recruit a new head externally so a promotion from within the department seemed on the cards. However, few wanted the hassle: it was generally seen as a short-cut to a stroke or heart attack. Starting from the most senior, Kevin, Vince, etc., you had to look a long way down the list before you found someone (Ramish probably) whose ambition outweighed their natural sense of self-preservation; and people that far down weren’t remotely experienced enough to be given the job. The department hardly waited with bated breath – there was always too much else to worry about – but it was a common coffee topic.
However, concerning Ramish, Jenny was hardly surprised to receive a visit from him with his concerns about CUPIOPE in tow. In fact, after the DVC’s visit weeks before, it seemed long overdue. When he did eventually appear and deliver though, he didn’t hold back.
‘It’s corrupt,’ he started bluntly, yet almost apologetically, then went on to justify the assertion point-by-point in his customarily meticulous fashion. Firstly, the programme was academically weak; not in terms of material, after all the department staff would be creating that, but in terms of delivery and assessment. Initial recruitment would be entrusted to the remote colleges or their ‘agents’, a process that was already proven to be flawed. All the material was to be placed online by NSU folk but ‘delivery’: lectures and labs, would take place in the remote countries, as would all assessment. Even second-marking and internal moderation was to be ‘streamlined for operational reasons’ – and no-one yet knew what that meant. In short, there would be little or no practical quality assurance at distance and the degrees were being ‘devalued’. It looked like the very worst of ‘bums-on-seats’ money-making rackets; speaking of which …
Secondly, Alan Sheldon-Keynes, the DVC, had known business connections, established before he entered academic management a few years ago, with the guys running the educational company, ‘EasyEd’, who were ‘facilitating the operation’, although, in truth, it wasn’t particularly clear what they were being paid to facilitate. EasyEd would take a large chunk of each student’s hefty enrolment fee (of which Ramish suggested A S-K would be getting his own cut) in return for very little. They took no part in finding students, preparing or delivering the material, assessment or awarding degrees. Their only contribution was to insist that, instead of the established online learning platform NSU had used internally for years, CUPIOPE would use something EasyEd had developed themselves, which was the third major concern …
Why? Why shun a perfectly decent (not flawless but workable) online platform that staff were familiar with for something, largely untested in earnest, that no-one knew how to operate and was going to make additional work for everyone to learn? There was surely something dodgy behind it? (As PL, and likely to be responsible for explaining it to everyone else, Jenny had already experimented with the new system, and she had to agree it was bloody awful.)
In short, no-one knew how the contract had been awarded, what the business arrangement was, why things were being done the (peculiar) way they were, where the students would come from (but there would be hundreds, lately even being suggested as maybe over a thousand) or how quality would be maintained (it obviously wouldn’t). Ramish steamed through all this rapidly, but logically, in about fifteen minutes, before pausing for what appeared to be his first breath.
And Jenny couldn’t argue – with any of it really, and she didn’t try. The question was more what to do about it. Obviously, everyone in the department, and beyond, was aware of the shady nature of CUPIOPE and its background, and Triple-A’s previous visit hadn’t put a stop to their grumblings, but no-one had taken it further. Now, as the programme’s PL, would she?
She thanked Ramish, sincerely but without promise of action, and sought Pat, Fatima and Vince’s advice quickly. Pat and Fatima were firmly in favour of ‘keeping her head down’ and doing nothing because ‘there was no proof of anything serious and it wouldn’t achieve anything’. Vince, on the other hand, was more balanced.
‘What do you think you would achieve by kicking up a fuss?’ he asked. ‘Ramish has already done that. Me too, to a lesser extent. Nothing’s happened. What would you do that was different?’
‘So you’re saying leave it?’
‘Not quite, no. I’m asking what you’d do that was different?’
*
Well, nothing was different right then because there wasn’t time for anything to be different. More weeks rolled by, and the time filled itself. She made progress with CUPIOPE and she kept her head above water with the rest of her work … just. The basic structure of the new programme received approval from The Shack’s powers-that-be (‘Surprise, surprise,’ said everyone) and it was on to the next stage: the finer detail of its content, and working towards a formal approval (‘validation’) event.
Jenny was expecting another hurdle to clamber over at this point (none were ever cleared gracefully, it appeared): finding an external academic or two of sufficient seniority and experience to join the validation panel to give formal (and final) approval to the full programme. This was becoming increasingly difficult, Pat and Fatima explained, because the rules for eligibility were being tightened all the time and the pool of usable externals was drying up. Externals probably wouldn’t have liked the expression ‘dredged’ to describe their selection process but that was the level of desperation and compromise sometimes. (Those involved in similar duties at their own institutions would understand well enough of course!)
But, just as she was making tentative searches and approaches to find suitable candidates, the DVC ‘helpfully’ stepped in, announcing that he’d already found (and secured agreement from) two externals himself. Looking over their CVs, no-one could argue with their positions and background, but it added to the sense of subterfuge within the department: a new level of sharpness was added to the bad taste in everyone’s mouth. Once again, and not for the last time, Jenny considered raising the whole question of the programme’s quality and validity but didn’t have the hours, energy or desire.
*
As time passed though, she slowly settled into a strange kind of routine. It was a routine that kept changing but she was getting used to that. Something new and daft was thrown at her almost every day: there was nothing stable about it but, more and more, she was able to cope with it, sometimes conventionally, sometimes using the newly coined ‘Vince-Jenny’ (‘VJ’) approach of short-cuts and manoeuvre. (‘Dishonesty’ seemed too strong a word for what seemed like a practical necessity.) And always, when each day’s nonsense was dealt with, she was able to centre on some fixed aspects of her life: CUPIOPE and her teaching within work, and a slowly developing social life outside of it.
It wasn’t that much of a social life, if truth were told: it centred around her growing involvement with the local Labour party but it was more than she’d really ever known. She attended meetings, went to fundraisers, drank with fellow activists in the pubs, helped out with delivering leaflets (the nights were drawing in so this was mostly in the dark, which suited her) and got to know a surprising number of people quickly. These ranged from new members such as Alex, right ‘up’ to senior officers and councillors, including folks that sat on NSU’s board of governors (a local poet and a businesswoman from the same industrial estate, amongst others). Councillors, in particular she decided almost immediately, were a strange lot: almost selected in direct inverse proportion to their intellectual ability. She stood in as observer to the group meeting of local Labour councillors once and had to suppress her laughter throughout. ‘It was like a bad comedy series,’ she explained to Alex later. ‘Everyone was ‘a sort’. There was the one who thought he was funny (but wasn’t remotely so), the useless one (noticeably more useless than the rest, which was a worthy distinction), the one who became scarlet and apoplectic at the drop of a hat (and there were a lot of hats dropped), the one who forgot everything, the one who never listened, the one who always asked silly questions, etc. etc. At the particular meeting she observed, they’d all got into a furious argument, shouting at each other, and threatening worse, before it emerged that half the group had thought they were discussing one agenda item but the other half another!
Yes, she’d made up with Alex quickly. It wasn’t difficult: she said sorry for her ‘short fuse’, he for his ‘general uselessness’. Each waved away the other’s apology as unnecessary and untrue and that was that. As new (or newly active in her case) members, they naturally had a lot in common, academia was rarely mentioned, and they worked well together.
There was good and bad news with Alex. His counselling had begun, with a view to ‘working on his assertiveness’ and there were early signs he was becoming more positive in outlook. However, a downside of this was his insistence that he wasn’t going back to his studies at any point. Jenny tried to persuade him but he wasn’t having any of it. ‘Councillors and counsellors causing me grief at the moment!’ she thought.
*
And, of course, it was no saner at The Shack. She was used to that but two things, in particular, were beginning to bug her: both by way of different forms of unwelcome attention – or at least a suspicion of it. The source of the first was Alan Sheldon-Keynes, the second, of all people, Vince Plumb!
Shiny Boy was easy enough to understand and cope with; and it wasn’t entirely unexpected. She was PL for his pet project, and he wanted both to keep her sweet and on track, and keep an eye on her. She didn’t find his public-school charm particularly difficult to brush aside and there was no suggestion of anything improper but she drew a clear line. No, she didn’t want to have dinner with his wife and him ‘to get to know everyone better’, nor join his table for lunch. But, on his reflected influence, she sensed her standing within the university continue to rise.
Vince, on the other hand, was making her feel more uncomfortable because she couldn’t figure out what was behind it. OK, she’d always found it hard to separate his old-fashioned manners from a sense of aged leching, but this didn’t seem to be that. It was almost as if he was watching her. Of course, he was, to some extent: he could hardly help her otherwise. But this seemed to be something more: it was like he was he was trying to observe every last detail about her, profiling her almost!
A confluence of the two happened towards the end of term. A number of the engineering department were having overpriced coffees in the ‘Mock Costa’ (George Jolly wasn’t there that day to keep her supplied) and Vince was expounding the merits of the ‘Andy Catt project’ to a sceptical audience. Alan S-K passed by, saw Jenny, and invited himself to join them, waited for someone to offer to get him a drink and, when no-one did, bought one himself and sat down at their table. After a few pleasantries, he and Vince appeared to restart a previous conversation …
‘I’m still not convinced by your philistine attitude to fine art the other day, Vince,’ he grinned with his usual false charm. (Jenny reminded herself that he was an artist by background.) ‘I think you’re having me on: I’m sure you’ve expressed more receptive views when we’ve talked before and I even think I’ve seen you at the art gallery.’
‘Only to see how crap this modern stuff is,’ Vince grunted. ‘Nonsense, absolute nonsense. What’s the point of it if it doesn’t look like what it’s supposed to be? How can you call it “art” if a ten-year-old could paint it?’
‘Ah, but really could a ten-year-…, Alan attempted but Vince was in full flow and hadn’t reached peak offensiveness yet.
‘And don’t get me started on fine art as an academic subject,’ he continued. ‘I mean, honestly. Who are you lot fooling with your bullshit? It’s just an excuse for people who can’t read, write or add up to feel important and give each other degrees!’
Jenny knew damn well that Vince didn’t really think like this, and she was pretty sure Alan knew it too, but this last comment seemed a bit much even for the part being played and, for a moment, he looked genuinely shocked – close to offended. However, he recovered quickly and decided to put Jenny on the spot instead.
‘I’m sure you don’t share such an out-of-date view, Jenny,’ he smarmed. ‘You’re much too enlighten for that. What do you think? Can you explain to Vince that he’s being obtuse?’
Jenny considered for a moment. Funnily enough, it was something she’d been musing on recently and had even joked about it in the pub with Alex. She had almost something of a rehearsed comedy routine on the subject!
‘Well,’ she said after a deliberate pause to give the impression of consideration. ‘I think it depends on what you mean. I’ve no problem with anyone producing whatever they like and calling it “art”. I might like it, I might not: it’s personal, it’s subjective. If someone wants to fire elephant dung at a shower curtain with a water cannon and call it “art”, that’s fine by me. I’m not going to argue. In fact, if I like it, I might even buy it and take it home: if I don’t, I won’t. I guess that’s the way it works.’ Alan smiled but Jenny hadn’t reached ‘the good bit’ …
‘But what I do have a problem with,’ she continued, Alan’s smirk fading slightly, ‘is that paragraph of text next to it, explaining what it means, what it represents, what the artist’s motivation was,’ she emphasised with a deliberate sneer. “How the juxtaposition of colours and texture reflects man’s inner struggle to come to terms with his own sexuality and needing a supper snack just before bed, even though he knows he shouldn’t”, that sort of nonsense!’ She’d seen some of Alan’s work in what The Shack laughingly called its ‘gallery’ (an unused corner of the library); there was always ‘the paragraph’ next to each one so she knew this would bite.
‘What’s the problem with it?’ Alan asked, his good humour perhaps fraying a little.
‘Well, because you, the artist, I mean,’ she corrected herself theatrically, ‘had that one job! You were trying to convey something with your art, but you’ve obviously failed. If you need the paragraph of explanation, then you’ve come up short, surely? Wasn’t that the purpose of the art? I mean, if you’re painting an abstract image of a tree then you’ve already reneged on the obligation that it has to look like a tree so whatever it is you’re trying to do should be self-evident, shouldn’t it? I mean, you can’t have it both ways: either there’s a purpose to it or there’s not. But it’s not fair on the people that can paint trees if you have to explain why yours doesn’t look like one. You don’t see a Stubbs painting with that paragraph next to it, do you? “This is a horse! I painted it because I like horses!”.’
The rest of the table smiled nervously: they weren’t used to hearing the DVC spoken to like this. Vince, however, nearly choked on his coffee with laughter. Alan tried to smile at the humour but finished his drink and excused himself quickly. After watching him disappear up the stairs to the directorate suite, Jenny turned back to Vince, expecting approval but instead found him typing rapidly on his smartphone, chuckling to himself, “… painted it because I like horses!”.
He was old-fashioned in his manners and use of new technology and using a phone in company was something she didn’t think she’d ever seen him do. She couldn’t help it: it really seemed to her as if he was noting down what she’d said!
‘On the subject of dodgy art, remind me to tell you about Shiny Boy’s ‘STEAM’ project one day,’ he said, clearly as a deflection, ‘It’s a cracker!’
‘I will,’ Jenny replied somewhat archly.
*
More weeks passed. And then, as Christmas approached, an even bigger Vince Plumb surprise: he’d agreed to take the head of department’s job! And not a soul could work out why!
(End of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 will be available on 1st August!)
[Chapter 4] < > [Chapter 6]
Prometheus for Sale 