Simulation

I was Head of Graphic Design in last Friday’s simulation.

Head of Graphic Design - Sam Kindersley

You have been in post for three years. You have worked in the Graphic Design Department of the University for most of your career and have witnessed significant changes. In particular, you did not support the substantial increase in student numbers which occurred just after your promotion. You feel strongly that there are not sufficient jobs in the Design sector to accommodate your graduates. You have always had difficulty accepting the history and theory of the subject since you believe Graphic Design is essentially a vocational subject. You feel that the Dean of the Faculty has deserted the course team and now shows more loyalty to the University’s Senior Management Team. You feel that the old values are being eroded through external expectations. You cannot bring yourself to be party to this and therefore you are keen to devolve any process that involves change to younger members of the team.

I read all the papers before the role was emailed to me and I was secretly hoping to get something a little bit more akin to my ideas (like dissertation tutor or something with a strong theoretical base) because I foresaw that some of the roles could be quite demanding and unsympathetic to me and I could do a better job if the main character traits were true to mine. When I saw the description of the role, I knew it was going to present the following challenges:

It was a managerial role. In my work, I am more a doer than somebody who delegates work and I find difficult not to do things by myself

I believe in the need for History and Theory. Together with the development of craft skills I think theory is the basis of Academia

I think it is very important to meet external expectations, particularly since there needs to be national frameworks and since the majority of these external expectations involve funding

I suppose all of the above could also constitute the reasons why I got landed with this role. I had only a couple of hours to prepare the character and I thought it really was really going to be a challenge (particularly because at that time, I didn’t know there was a Dean, so I thought I had to chair the meeting etc…

The fact that we had 20 minutes to discuss with the other Head roles before the meeting helped enormously. At Wimbledon, our team normally discusses all the issues and decides a team strategy. This is more or less what we did. I styled myself on somebody I know (whom I won’t mention for obvious reasons) and whose strategy is to come out of meetings with a lot done but no actions for himself. In the team, we decided to blame the Dean and the Lecturers for the situation. We understood to be in a privileged situation because the rest of the roles) had more to lose.

Student Rep: any implementation was going to take time. Meanwhile, the students would have to suffer lack of spaces, poor contact support and fragmented dissertation structure

Lecturer and Senior Lecturer: Were the people in the front line and would probably have to listen to the student’s complaints and implement any changes

Dean: had to deal with the SMT

During the actual meeting, I realised one very important thing: it all depends on characters more than roles or responsibilities. Our Dean role was a very amiable person, very happy to work and meet students’ requirements. I am sure he had the same problems as I did to undertake a role that wasn’t within his character. He definitely looked like a doer and also had problems delegating. I took advantage of this and sent everything given to me his way (and he agreed!).

It was easier to deal with the lecturers because their role was managed by me. I only had to say a few sentences learned from the person I was styling myself in (related to budget, resources, government requirements) to make them undertake the development of the assessment criteria etc… Management speech worked and I didn’t like it.

This was also the attitude I was taking with the student rep, the role that was attacking me more effectively. Her argument was that I didn’t do anything whereas other people had busy schedules, a heavy teaching workload and took responsibility for part of the action list. I argued that I was coordinating everything so that it took place and as Head of Graphic Design, I was overseeing the development of assessment criteria and appeals and complaints procedures.

I managed to come out of the meeting without any real actions. But I also realised a few things:

I like doing things and sorting out problems

I am more on the student side than the SMT side

I don’t like management speech; moreover, I think there is a real problem in education when these diplomatic answers (which I hear in every meeting I go to) are given. It usually means ‘we’ll do it if the think it is convenient for us’

The lecturers and senior lecturers do the real job. They are the reasons why the student’s learn (and want to learn)

The student is often the most damaged party in the equation

A lot of issues underlying the tensions in these types of meetings are swept under the carpet and a ‘politically correct attitude is often adopted (this worries me because I will become a research degree student next year –hopefully- but know very well what the score)