Collective annoyance ... a sideways view of the @OpenUniversity #location review
This post is supposed to be partly witty, if not, complain if you wish - the author may use it in future articles.
Academics on the whole are uncooperative buggers ... independently minded, easily distracted and always asking questions like - "why" and "what the f**k". It is an acquired discipline, it does not come easily and readily to all - we do daily mind gym sessions to hone our mutual embuggerance.
It takes great skill to get multiple academics to agree - its easier to herd kittens with a little red dot, than get our ilk voicing a unified opinion.
We are approaching two weeks post location review announcement and still, some of my colleagues are spitting feathers. Some are typically calm souls who would keep their counsel - yet to see them so utterly peeved does strike me that there may be something amiss.
It is as if something cherished as been taken, slapped, stamped on then hurled back at us. Defying any form of intellectual process, consideration or even common sense. There are other ways to approach this problem - decimation of our national presence does not seem to be the most logical.
Some of us are still fathoming the rationale, the organisation has a headache, the cure - chop off the feet, keep them and dispose of the shuddering carcass. Too extreme? - I do not think so. If you have managed to stir the collective annoyance and agreement of a multitude of academics. Then well done - many senior execs have been less successful.
Our regional centres are not accountancy outputs - or virtual entities. They are a real interface with a real world, where real people called students interact. No all of them, not all of the time, but enough to ensure we are visible. Worse, there are many external and internal systems which rely on this function of our organisation - severing these could be irreversible.
There have been sessions explaining the process, meetings are planned (and in my diary). Next they will be telling us, that they plan to stop our hob knob rations - then there will be a riot. The interesting part about this collective annoyance is that academics have long memories and an ability to dig in their heels.
Academics on the whole are uncooperative buggers ... independently minded, easily distracted and always asking questions like - "why" and "what the f**k". It is an acquired discipline, it does not come easily and readily to all - we do daily mind gym sessions to hone our mutual embuggerance.
It takes great skill to get multiple academics to agree - its easier to herd kittens with a little red dot, than get our ilk voicing a unified opinion.
We are approaching two weeks post location review announcement and still, some of my colleagues are spitting feathers. Some are typically calm souls who would keep their counsel - yet to see them so utterly peeved does strike me that there may be something amiss.
It is as if something cherished as been taken, slapped, stamped on then hurled back at us. Defying any form of intellectual process, consideration or even common sense. There are other ways to approach this problem - decimation of our national presence does not seem to be the most logical.
Some of us are still fathoming the rationale, the organisation has a headache, the cure - chop off the feet, keep them and dispose of the shuddering carcass. Too extreme? - I do not think so. If you have managed to stir the collective annoyance and agreement of a multitude of academics. Then well done - many senior execs have been less successful.
Our regional centres are not accountancy outputs - or virtual entities. They are a real interface with a real world, where real people called students interact. No all of them, not all of the time, but enough to ensure we are visible. Worse, there are many external and internal systems which rely on this function of our organisation - severing these could be irreversible.
There have been sessions explaining the process, meetings are planned (and in my diary). Next they will be telling us, that they plan to stop our hob knob rations - then there will be a riot. The interesting part about this collective annoyance is that academics have long memories and an ability to dig in their heels.
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