Death by administration

By Toby Miller. I'VE had difficulty adjusting to life in British academe after two decades in New York and Los Angeles. I'm unused to a seminar with 80 masters students for three hours.
I'm unused to 90 per cent of these graduate students working in a second, third or fourth language, with many never having written a university essay in any language.
I'm unused to the requirement to take a roll, whereby I engage in surveillance to ensure attendance.
I'm unused to a vast array of meetings.
Agendas and dates are set by central administration, attendance is mandatory and an immense earnestness accompanies the use of verbs as nouns and a series of impenetrable acronyms. Entire sentences have no recognisable words apart from definite and indefinite articles and conjunctions. More...