Diary of a Free University Dean

Editor’s Note: criticisms of Irish third level education have been coming from all directions recently: the liberal media, opportunist politicians, out-of-touch business groups, self-serving corporate CEOs etc.  We in the Free University would be the first to admit that perhaps as a sector we have failed to make the case for the defence by highlighting our many strengths and achievements.  In an effort to redress this imbalance The Pylon brings you the unexpurgated diary of a Dean at the Free University so that everyone can see just how hard we all work.  

September 1^st: another dog-and-pony-show on the first day back. God – could it have been any more demotivating. Still, cuts and all, we got our free coffee and bun – at least some things are still sacred. Chatted with the other Deans. Christ, I wish we didn’t hate each other so much.

September 7^th: students arrived today to total chaos. We’re still trying to find out who told them that the first class was at eight in the morning. When we do, they’ll be fired. Or promoted. Around here, who knows which.

September 9^th: I got my first three impossible jobs for the week. First, I have to timetable 3 classes, divided into 7 groups with 4 lecturers over an 18-week rolling schedule split 4-4-2-6-4. Then I have to find some way to over-rule an exam board on the results of two dozen catatonic students. How much arm-twisting is possible without the limb actually snapping off? And that’s not a theoretical question. 
Finally, the worst is I have to try and find the facilities manager – his nickname is the Scarlet Pimpernel. Although that’s a moniker that could fit any number of people in this place. And I can think of lots of other even more appropriate names for the facilities manager.

Things are getting tough – time to hide in the storage press under the back stairs. Sometimes the only relief I get is curled up in there for an hour or two. 

September 10^th: spent all day staring at spreadsheets making sure that all lecturers are timetabled for 6 hours and all students get at least 40% in their exams. I’ve heard a rumour that the University Deans are being referred to in a derogatory way as 6/40’s by members of the academic staff. That’s so unfair – if they only knew how much we suffer. And compared to those lazy gits in the IoT sector who only have to work for 6 months of the year and make more money than we do….it makes my blood boil.

September 13^th: horror of horrors – I went to the storage press for a bit of respite and found the Dean of Arts was already hiding there! We had a sharp exchange of words – he claims that the press is owned by the Faculty of Arts. But it’s under the stairs in my faculty. Is it time to set-up some type of press allocation system for Deans to hide in? Probably a total waste of time – just look at the classroom allocation system. No, it’ll have to remain the law of the jungle.  

September 14^th: I can’t believe it – I’ve just found out something and its making me wretch. My boss, the Executive Dean, has been “working from home” for the last week. Nothing unusual there - it’s where he spends most of his time during the academic year. But I have just now discovered that his boat, which he has on Curragh Lake near his house, is called “Home”! I noticed the name on a photo on his desk. There he was, fishing and taking it easy with a shit-eating grin on his face. And when I think of all that smirking he does when he tells me that he is “working from Home” or “catching” up on paperwork or “flying” through the documents or “casting” around for ideas. What a sod! But what can I do?

September 15^th:  I’ve really screwed up this time. I must be more frazzled than usual. It all started straight after an excruciating Schools and Colleges University Management meeting last week. Not that it was any different from the usual SCUM meeting: the phony-concensus-building, the awkward silences and dearth of ideas, the ritual humiliations, the flagellations. Business as usual for management in the FU. 

But for whatever reason, after the traditional post-meeting stiff whiskey in my office, I sat down at the computer and got the spreadsheets mixed up. I ended up timetabling all of the lecturers for 40 hours a week and altered the grades of hundreds of students to 6%! It’s a mistake anyone could make, for God’s sake. After all, half the bloody lecturers were students here last year! 

All hell broke loose today – I had to barricade myself into my office with what can only be described as a savage mob of students banging on the door. I tried to calm them down through the keyhole, but when I heard the lecturers arrive and pick up a bench to use as a battering ram, I decided it was time to use the emergency exit: the ventilation shaft.  

I climbed along the filthy shaft thinking things couldn’t get any worse, when I had not one, but two strokes of good luck. First, as I passed over the Dean of Arts’ office I saw him receiving the amorous attentions of a first year student. Hah – that’s the last time that bastard’ll use my press as a getaway. As I continued on and rounded a particularly tight bend in the shaft, a panel split and I fell through the ceiling onto the desk in the office below.

As luck would have it, it was the Dean of Human Services’ office. He sat back in his swivel chair, calmly looking over his glasses at me lying sprawled across his desk covered in filth. He’s been at the FU for over a decade, so he wasn’t in the least bit fazed by the situation. He calmly opened a drawer in his desk, took out a form, held it up for me and said “I suppose now you’re looking for stress-leave?”