All entries for November 2007

The Future of Extremely Clever Things….

Ah! Can’t you just smell it? The Autumn leaves lie in golden heaps: a new academic year is underway, a new(ish) VC takes the helm and a fresh set of targets cascade down for us all to aim for.
The University’s Strategic intent of being a globally-recognised top 50 institution by three weeks next Tuesday has certainly prompted me (as head of Europe’s premier Institution for Extremely Clever Thinking) to consider how we may best contribute to the corporate goal.
Firstly, after much deliberation with my highly subservient team of minions, I have written a Strategic Objective-Geared Goal, Year 2015 Statement (SOGGY 2015) for the Department of ECT (obviously this supercedes any previous Mission Statements as they no longer conform to current corporate buzzword standards).
Henceforth; “By 2015, 85% of all internationally-acknowledged Good Ideas will originate from Warwick Dept. of ECT”.
Clearly this will be a challange. I will be calling upon all of my staff to make extra efforts in being clever, over-and-above their current background of Intelligence Quotient mediocrity.
It also has to be acknowledged that such an ambitious target will not be achieved solely by thrashing the incumbent staff to greater efforts.
Not at all. This will require inspired leadership.
To this end, I have unleashed Dr. Tristram Quibble, (freshly recruited from Oxford’s School of Vexatious Conundra) to look into establishing an appropriate definition of The Standard International Good Idea. If he has the calibre of brain that I believe I have paid for, we should find that his work will assist us considerably by making the submissions of rival institutions invalid by definition. A good start by anybody’s standards.
However, other improvements will also need to be made.
We in the Dept. of ECT have already maximised our administrative potential (see below) – it is difficult to see how we could improve in this area as it is already practically impossible to get anything at all done.
This leads us to consider our media profile and how it may be raised. To this end, I have entered Dr. Melrose Pinchwibbly for ITV’s next season of “I’m a Celebrity Academic, Give Me More TV Exposure” after the continued success of Germaine Greer in this field (or jungle, or whatever).
It cannot be avoided however, that if we are going to attract the standard of mind that can help us to reach the giddy heights of international recognition envisaged then there is only one course of action.
We need a New Logo.
Watch this space for exciting developments!
Prof. Edwin Marmaduke Bambleweeny (FRSECT and Capt. Golly Club, retd.)
Director, Warwick Dept. of Extremely Clever Things

Ian Tuersley : 13 Nov 2007 15:01 |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem