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Kevin O'Sullivan
@kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Author of The NGO Moment (cambridge.org/9781108708548). Associate Professor in History at University of Galway. Co-editor Documents on Irish Foreign Policy project. Currently researching climate change and capitalism in c20th & early c21st Ireland.
575 followers739 following459 posts
KOkevinkosullivan.bsky.social

All this talk of departmental meetings reminds me of the best tv depiction of one, from the BBC's version of The History Man (1981; no pastries or coffee visible): youtu.be/8yhwV1Yr4xY?...

The History Man Ep 3 of 4 - starring Antony Sher - Malcolm Bradbury novel - BBC2, 1981
The History Man Ep 3 of 4 - starring Antony Sher - Malcolm Bradbury novel - BBC2, 1981

YouTube video by Bill Matthews - TV Comedy & Drama Curator / Writer

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CLlottelydia.bsky.social

Very good: I also love this transcript of a meeting I have actually sat through, in David Lodge's Nice Work.

"The next question,' said Philip Swallow, "is what we do about the Syllabus Review Committee's report.' *Throw it in the wastepaper basket,' Rupert Sutcliffe suggested. "It's easy for Rupert to sneer,' said Bob Busby, who was Chairman of the Syllabus Review Committee, 'but it's no easy matter, revising the syllabus. Everybody in the Department wants to protect their own special interests. Like all syllabuses, ours is a compromise.' 'A thoroughly unworkable compromise, if I may say so,' said Rupert Sutcliffe. 'I calculate that it would entail setting a hundred and seventy-three different Finals papers every year.' 'We haven't gone into the question of assessment yet,' said Bob Busby. 'We wanted to get the basic structure of courses agreed first." 'But assessment is vital,' said Robyn. "It determines the students' whole approach to their studies. Isn't this an opportunity to get rid of final examinations altogether, and go over to some form of continuous assessment?' 'Faculty Board would never accept that,' said Bob Busby. 'Quite right too,' said Rupert Sutcliffe. 'Continuous assessment should be confined to infant schools.' 'I must remind you,' said Philip Swallow wearily, 'as I shall have to remind the full Department Committee in due course, that the object of this exercise is to economize on resources in the face of the cuts. Three colleagues will be leaving, for various reasons, at the end of this year. It's more than likely that there will be further losses next year. If we go on offering the present syllabus with fewer and fewer staff, individual teaching loads will rise to intolerable levels. The Syllabus Review Committee was set up to confront this problem, not to devise a new syllabus that all of us, in ideal circumstances, would like to teach.'
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Kevin O'Sullivan
@kevinkosullivan.bsky.social
Author of The NGO Moment (cambridge.org/9781108708548). Associate Professor in History at University of Galway. Co-editor Documents on Irish Foreign Policy project. Currently researching climate change and capitalism in c20th & early c21st Ireland.
575 followers739 following459 posts
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