OPEN DAY
The email had been received with cynicism. Reading between the lines, as all well-established and would-be academics are compelled to do (as proof of their intellectual status), the warning that we should think carefully about rejecting any students at interview had been revised and endlessly rehearsed - muttered in the toilets, corridors and designated smoking areas. Like Chinese whispers: we have to take anyone and everybody now.
(A pragmatic, if brutal, reality underpinned the message from middle-management: no students, no course, no jobs. Bound to result in redundancies. Shape up or ship out or watch your back. I get lost in their metaphors.)
This was not, however, the line our Line-Manager chose to take. Refusing to read between the lines, he doggedly, obstinately and with terrier-like tenacity, took the email at face-value.
'We will, indeed, think carefully,' he said, 'before rejecting anybody'.
We thought a bit, and we rejected a lot.
Our jobs are now in jeopardy.
So, when it came to the Open Day, I aimed to be charming and persuasive. To endear myself to would-be recruits.
I was slightly stymied by the corporate powerpoint I'd been given to present to visitors. While the strap-line was the personal touch the presentation struck me as somewhat generic. But, I tried to be nice, all the same. OK, so I failed to identify what an Incubation Unit might be. I can only say, it's a ridiculous name. I certainly don't consider myself to blame.
Three students attended the morning session. By the time I was finished, they all had one confession. They'd prefer to study something else.
One of the few who attended my course review had, actually already, been offered an interview.
I was suprised when she failed to show on the day. I thought I'd excelled at the Open Day. But, perhaps my approach is not the right way?
I guess she has gone somewhere else.
(I only wish we hadn't given her a free lolli-pop.)
