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'Never too young to teach' - official
17 September 2009
Speaking to a mass rally of the 2,469 postgraduates who will be teaching undergraduate courses at the University of Poppleton in the coming term, our Director of Curriculum Development, Janet Fluellen, issued a strong caution against ageism.
"It is perfectly understandable that some of you may feel inhibited by the fact that you will not only be teaching for the very first time, but also teaching people of practically your own age, and also teaching courses in which you have little real expertise, and also doing so without adequate preparation time and at a fraction of the salaries earned by real academics, and also doing so in front of students who were expecting to be taught by the people named in the prospectus, and also labouring away in departments that will otherwise largely ignore your existence.
"But you should regard all these factors as challenges to overcome. Teaching is an ancient and noble profession, and the fact that no grown-up academic worth their salt would touch it with a bargepole if they had their own way is frankly neither here nor there."
A university spokesperson subsequently confirmed that 42 first-year students had been ejected from the rally for posing as student teachers.
Sitting targets
"It's nothing more than a logical extension of existing practice." This was the claim made by our Deputy Head of Student Experience, Nancy Harbinger, as she unveiled plans to award students who attend seminars extra marks for deportment.
Speaking to our reporter, Keith Ponting (30), she explained that Poppleton already followed the "excellent example" of departments in the universities of Northampton, Glasgow, Kent and Heriot-Watt by awarding extra marks for seminar attendance.
"But in our opinion," she continued, "this does not go far enough. Our new scheme will provide an additional 5 per cent mark for students who sit up straight and face forward. This is fundamentally a pedagogic decision. Students who are able to maintain a wakeful state during seminars deserve proper recognition."
Goodbye to all that
Our Head of Staff Severance, Relocation and Restructuring has confirmed that Poppleton will follow in the steps of the University of Birmingham and terminate the email accounts of all academics as soon as they leave the institution's employ. The "clean-break" policy will also require terminated staff to hand in any remaining institutional notepaper, unused institutional Christmas cards, extant pigeonhole nameplates, lapel badges with the Poppleton logo, and personally held senior common room coffee mugs.
Apology
Our thrusting director of Corporate Affairs, Jamie Targett, has apologised for the university's failure to enter the Serendipity section of the Times Higher Education Awards. This was due to the completely unexpected arrival of the submission.
Thought for the Week
(contributed by Jennifer Doubleday, Head of Personal Development)
"Can we read other people's thoughts? Does telepathy work? Is there a seventh sense?" Come and hear Professor D.W. Bunting of the Department of Parapsychology, University of Uttoxeter, next Tuesday at 4.30pm prompt in the Ecumenical Chapel. (Not recommended for those with an allergy to nuts.)
lolsoc@dircon.co.uk.
Readers' comments
I must take exception at the satirical ridiculing of the venerable and ancient town of Uttoxeter in this article. Although we are a small town, we 'punch above our weight', with a host of good pubs and a racecourse. If there was a university of Uttoxeter (and I damn well hope there never is - I don't want the great unwashed in my backyard thankyou), we would most certainly top the RAE and admit only those with the highest possible grades at the Cambridge pre-U. I also object to the association of Uttoxter with the quackery of Parapsychology. I'll have you know that Uttoxeter is a town that knows its plums from its parsnips, and we do not tolerate fools gladly. If this Bunting character did show up at the fictitious 'Ecumenical Chapel' he would most likely be treated to a shower of rotten vegetables or the suchlike from his fellow academic staff, before being paraded back to Uttoxeter across country courtesy of one of our very own JCB diggers. Please do not mock us, we have had enough of that from Rod Liddle and Jeremy Clarkson. We are a proud people, and we will stand and fight the people of Poppleton anyday. Yours, ever, Hoggie
Discussion template (Contrib. Bella Lugosee) Q How do you feel? A Spellbound Q Speeping well or nay? Nay? A Fantasized bout Gregory Beck Q We call Ian McCarthy Complex (Sotto voce) ALOUD:-
I've awarded marks for 'active participation' in seminars. Frankly, deportment would have been a lot easier and less contentious. (Not that that would make it a good idea. Obviously.) As for the first item - oh my. Nothing to add, yer honour.
Hoggis, I do think you should lighten up, old chap. Uttoxeter is a fine town, but I think you oversell its virtues. Anyhow, enjoy your parsnips...
DIRECTIONS TO THE EVENT (SatNav Willing Inc.): Turn right at Caesar`s tent past St Cake`s Polyversity to reach Berlinwall Campus. Other mapping directions on web relating to our other Campi: Hungary Lopps Gradient Campus--- Gateways LTD Millertown Campus - Gems Village, Bucks - Camptown, Plasyfen Causeway, the Wash, Cambridgeshire - Hanging Tress, Cotwols Deeps - American outreach Research Unit, Ambergris Beach, Mustique, Cayman Islands, Caribbeabean Sea
Pardon my o level Geography, Dear Double, but isn't The Wash shared between Lincolnshire and Norfolk. I believe Cambridgeshire falls a few miles short of the coast. Unless they've changes the ol' county boundaries again, old sport??
Have u ever been in certain towns in Norfolk? Our new exciting Brochure to the Broads covers everywhere except King`s Yinn! We warn u that the cuisin of the place includes plenty of aged choclolate (our Fry`s-Crys shops), white goods (guaranteed never to work), WI recipes based on Jamie Oliver`s vacations in Itallia, football cards issued by Sven Goran Erickson and personally signed, and loads loads more! See also are regional University of 34Bypass interactive holografing site (sevednth barrow on the left, after Caesar`s pitched tents). All wellcome!
Just to be serious, Hoggie, I don`t suppose Evedlyn`s Waugh`s notorious `thunderbox` had something to do with WWS2 `for real`, when Alton Towers stripped and gutted of all its furniture and pictures by, the the Britiish Army? Bamforth`s manufactures would naturally know how to read Eveleyn Waugh allright. Dr SamueLJ, the Great Cham as he be famed, did after all come from....Uttoxeter and Litchfield.... walk out of Oxford Pembroke College and suddenly (with the great actor David Garrick) become the Stellar Person of the 18th Century..... freeing slaves, clebrating the Lion Of Judah, and writing up - yes, really, - Hansard Reports for the Press! It must be something in all that clean water in Staffordshire..... including its battle honours record in 2WWS!
PROGRAMME: HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLY Series IIII ----- `The Piltdown Men Lineagese` ---- `Erasmus Darwin versus T.H.Huxley --- `Elspyje Huxley`s Red Strangers` --- `Homo Sapiens: Olduvai Ravine` -- `The Snows of Kilimanjaro: [poer point presentations] -- Arfrey, `The Territorial Imperative` Debate --- Ruark, `Mambo` [seesion speakers] --- `Lorenz: King Solomon`s Mines` -- Edgar, `Greystoke Not Tarzanian` --- `"Empire and Sexuality";;; Critically Dixcuss` --- `Primitixism and Paeleolithiclogue in Jean. M Auel`s theorems` --- `Georfe Orwell`s Whale Ideologies [interval talks=}!