By: ‘Pious Pete’<\/p>\n
1 November 2025<\/b><\/p>\n
FINALLY been appointed as Principal. Sure, it\u2019s only for two years, but I\u2019m the boss. Thirty-eight years here, who would have thought it? I was a great researcher – \u00a320m in research grants \u2013 so promoting me to management was a no brainer. As VP for Regional Engagement, I was in charge of Digital Transformation which didn\u2019t really happen, and also the Reimagining the Campus plan, which didn\u2019t really happen, and also engagement with local communities, which\u2026 okay, but remember I was a great researcher! And I\u2019m in charge now. Remember that. And if anyone calls you an interim \u2013 well, we\u2019re going to have some words.<\/span><\/p>\n November to do: remind everyone I\u2019m the boss.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n November to don\u2019t: let anyone tell you I\u2019m not the boss.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/i>17 December 2025<\/b><\/p>\n Lots of messy stuff going on with the university sector, time to assert some leadership here. I\u2019ll be a kind leader, not a nice one! It\u2019s obviously time for a massive restructure of our academic disciplines \u2013 at times of uncertainty, academics love questions about their value. Let\u2019s couple that by stacking management with interim appointments, short-termers that have little concern about the future here, people who will simply say yes when I ask them to do stuff. That\u2019ll stop people questioning whether I have legitimacy \u2013 they can target those questions to everyone else!<\/span><\/p>\n December to do: find me a loyal number 2 that I can give all the dirty work to.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n December to don\u2019t: look too much like the Grinch in holiday photos.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 6 January 2026<\/b><\/p>\n New year, new Aber-MEAN, let\u2019s get this ship moving! I should get in touch with the interim senior governor, make sure he\u2019s on board with the programme. Let\u2019s try to make him the poster boy for the change \u2013 he can carry the can, and get all the emails about it. Moving Nick from VP Research can\u2019t be help, but he\u2019s definitely the right guy to be number two \u2013 the Muttley to my Dick Dastardly. I can bring him to all the school meetings, and he can sit in the corner and look tough while I blame our financial problems on everything from Brexit and immigration to the Scottish Government. Big boys done it and run away! Nothing to do with us! People won\u2019t remember I\u2019ve been part of the management here for ages, and we could have done something long before now, right? Don\u2019t answer questions \u2013 dart off for photo opportunities instead.<\/span><\/p>\n January to do: keep rejecting interviews with The Gaudie.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n January to don\u2019t: accept any interview requests from The Gaudie.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n 4 February 2026<\/b><\/p>\n Time to kick on. Let\u2019s send the faculty proposal to Senate and pretend it hasn\u2019t already been decided that this is what we\u2019re doing. Put as little evidence or data in it as possible.\u00a0 When they complain, we can say it\u2019s not their job \u2013 and then I can get Gary to tell everyone how much Senate are the bad guys that keep blocking change. It\u2019s been fun to see the Heads of School start to get organised, but they\u2019re way too late. We\u2019ll promote the most loyal ones to head up the faculties, and the rest can go back to doing some research. Will that impact their morale?\u00a0 Have the other Nick send out some kind of token \u2018wellbeing concern\u2019 message. He\u2019s still interim too \u2013 classic stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n February to do: make lots of noise about going to the campus in Mumbai.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n February to don\u2019t: tell anyone you flew business class.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n 12 March 2026<\/b><\/p>\n Town Hall meeting with staff. Any time anyone asks anything remotely critical, have the university secretary claim they are being disrespectful. Let Nick waffle on about SSRs and how we\u2019ve been arranging this with other universities. Get Nick to filter out the difficult online questions. Oh, and only let men in the room ask questions until the very last one \u2013 and even then, have a woman fight to get the mic. Blame the press for inaccurate stories, but refuse to provide any details that will demonstrate their falseness. Unpause half of the promotions, and then say the union are being unreasonable. And under no circumstances rule out compulsory redundancies.<\/span><\/p>\n 19 March 2026<\/b><\/p>\n Then onto Senate. Let the university secretary tie herself in knots over the interpretation of who does what and when in the restructure process. Claim legal advice supports this, and face down critics in Senate. Get Gary to say how disappointed he is that they are so focused on process and not outcomes. Get the university secretary to redirect all angry emails to court members rather than senior management.<\/span><\/p>\n March to do: farm out all the public-facing, challenging stuff to colleagues.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n March to don\u2019t: any media whatsoever.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/i>1 April 2026<\/b><\/p>\n This is it. The big court meeting at the end of the month. I think the union plans some more strikes, but it\u2019ll be too late. We\u2019ve got this in the bag. Gary is cleverly directing questions to his public statement and not engaging in discussions. Nick continues to waffle away until the break of dawn, eating up all the time until no one can challenge anything. Fraser is showing he\u2019s a man of the people by competing in the boat race. Joanne is\u2026 somewhere?\u00a0 I don\u2019t really know, but honestly, things seem to work fine when she\u2019s not here anyway. ACS is basically a done deal \u2013 all we\u2019ve got to do is cruise to the end of April, and it\u2019s over.<\/span><\/p>\n April to do: leave all the ACS stuff to everyone else.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n April to don\u2019t: engage in any discussions on ACS.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By: ‘Pious Pete’ 1 November 2025 FINALLY been appointed as Principal. Sure, it\u2019s only for two years, but I\u2019m the boss. Thirty-eight years here, who would have thought it? I was a great researcher – \u00a320m in research grants \u2013 so promoting me to management was a no brainer. As VP for Regional Engagement, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":7177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","iawp_total_views":406,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[228],"class_list":{"0":"post-7176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-satire"},"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Gaudie Staff","author_link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/author\/gaudie-staff\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/PHOTO-2026-04-03-22-09-28-300x224.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Satire<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Satire<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"1","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 4 months ago","modified":"Updated 4 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 4 April 2026","modified":"Updated on 6 April 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 4 April 2026 11:44","modified":"Updated on 6 April 2026 09:25"},"featured_img_caption":"Source: The Gaudie","series_order":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7176"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7189,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7176\/revisions\/7189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7176"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=7176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}