Sphinx

I have been head-hunted! Not, alas, for a lucratively-endowed chair in Thucydides Studies at the new University of Austin, despite all my best efforts to promote this icon of neocon power politics and the innate cultural superiority of paunchy middle-aged white men. No, it’s for an academic leadership position – which would involve dealing with a lovely group of colleagues (just in case whoever put my name forward reads this and makes the deductive leap), but would also involve trying to manage modern historians and archaeologists as well. You know that simile about herding cats? Okay, you know what simile cats use for the same phenomenon..?

I used to get these sort of approaches quite regularly, when I was a Faculty Education Director, for positions like PVC for UG Studies – and it was obvious that the headhunters had simply trawled university web pages for people with relevant job titles. This feels different, as I don’t think there’s anything at all on my current webpage that would suggest aptitude for, let alone desire for, such a role. I mean, I imagine I could make a reasonable go of it, being possessed of a range of bureaucratic skills and a ruthless approach to chairing meetings, but I’m not sure it would be a good idea for anyone involved. Don’t make me Management; you wouldn’t like me when I’m Management… And I would miss the teaching too much, and be much too conscientious and thus stressed and miserable, and this is even before one thinks about what humanities departments are likely to be facing over the next few years.

I am also, partly through bitter experience, entirely unconvinced of the merits of parachuting in someone from outside to take on such a role. VCs and PVCs, fine, but at Faculty and School level so much depends on knowing the people and knowing how things work, and that is a huge learning curve for someone who’s new to the whole place (it’s tricky enough making the step up from a department). It’s inevitable that in many cases the parachutee stops trying to make the effort, since they’ve been pitched straight into trying to manage something they don’t know or understand, and thus ends up over-relying on a limited number of people they met early on, on a series of snap character judgements and assumptions, and on insisting that reality be modified to conform to their experience. Better, if anyone wants my ha’pennyworth, to bring someone in as a normal academic, give them a few years to settle in and get to know people, and then press-gang them into leadership.

The nagging thought that I’m trying to fend off with all this banter is of course: what does it say about me, that someone thinks I would ever want to do this? Academic leaders are not head-hunted for their research potential, but at best for their research past; you’ve done enough to build a reputation and be taken seriously when you try to tell other people what to do, but obviously it’s all now a bit moribund or pointless, as why else would you be prepared to abandon it in order to sit in lots of committee meetings instead? I know that head-hunting of research leaders goes on, as I keep getting asked to write letters and reviews to feed into the recruitment process – and, yes, that’s an ego boost; “Dear Professor Morley, please would you provide a comprehensive assessment of how Colleague X is obviously better than you as we’re thinking of offering them a prestigious research position…” But I just get the academic leadership approaches.

On reflection, it is of course perfectly possible that other people are being approached to write comprehensive evaluations of Morley, for the purposes of consideration for a prestigious research position, and are universally responding along the lines of “unfocused, lightweight and past it, but can be counted on to write positive things about colleagues, if you’re short of reviewers, and might be worth considering as a Head of School.”

But enough of such bitter thoughts! Where there’s life, there’s hope. There is still plenty of time to get myself cancelled…