Around the Schools - BIOLS
What has been happening in BIOLS in recent months? The decanal exchange went remarkably smoothly. The outgoing Dean, Chris Darwin, freshly returned from a walking holiday threatened to have a totally irresponsible last day before handing over the impressive seals of office to his successor Tony Moore. In the event Chris went quietly, simply thanking his support staff whom he claimed ran the show anyway. He was, therefore, more than happy to hand over the non-job to the new boy. The new Dean, meanwhile, has had to suffer the indignities of decanal induction. A very messy process so we are led to believe.
Three other developments in the School are worthy of note. A BIOLS Research Committee has been set up under the chairmanship of Mike Land. An elusive figure this summer, he was last seen disappearing under a forest of paper thoughtfully provided by the Research Assessment Exercise Biological Sciences Panel of which he is a member. Unfortunately he continues to be the soul of discretion about rankings which is extremely annoying. When he finally emerges from under the pile, he will co-ordinate a School-wide research strategy which will see us into the next millennium and beyond.
It will not have escaped the notice of those entering BIOLS that the foyer has had a most impressive make-over. A veritable thicket of potted palms, aspidistras and porters at a smart new reception desk now greet the wondering visitor. Wondering, that is, what happened to the previously impenetrable melee of undergraduates failing dismally to get within arm's length of the pigeonholes, the indecipherable hieroglyphics masquerading as a noticeboard and the prominent positioning of the first aid stretcher? Visitors and students alike pause and ponder what has come to pass. Ever resourceful faculty are already casting covetous eyes at the unoccupied space created behind the newly positioned pigeonholes.
Another development concerns BIOLS postgrads. They have been subjected to a concerted assault on their senses by a Graduate Training Programme. Spread over three terms, thickly at first and then rather more thinly, the programme aims to refresh those parts which one barely acknowledges exist - how to be unpleasant but claim that you are being assertive, how to be creative about tutorial marks, how to scintillate while you are counting, how to transform your data into something massageable, how to increase other people's stress levels, how to regress towards meanness, all rounded off with a strong dose of ethics and legality. Reaction so far is mixed, but very encouraging, ranging from "Where is the lecture room?" to "Would both Darjeeling and Assam be available during the session on t-tests?"
Sad to say this is my first, and (I strongly suspect) my last, BIOLS piece for the Bulletin. I am leaving leafy Sussex to commute to the Big Smoke, taking up a post as Head of the Research Grants Office at UCL in the New Year --
BIOLS PR rep, Tony Fincham,
Sussex Centre for Neuroscience