In the Senate of the University

I had never paid an awful lot of attention to what the Senate of the university does. Official documentation says it’s the academic authority of the university. Important, clearly! We would get regular updates in staff meetings. But one meeting, our Head of School said that my colleague Laura, who was taking a year out, had been one School representative in that body, and she needed to be replaced. I know the other two people our School sends there are male professors at least 10 years older than me, so I figured a little bit of diversity was in order. So I volunteered myself. And that meant that one Wednesday I sat down in one of the glamorous halls of our main building on the main campus, not entirely sure what to expect.

I had some clues, of course; I was sent the documents associated with this meeting beforehand. That was 162 pages! But you don't need to read all of these; everything comes in two languages, so in fact you only need to pay attention to 81 pages. But I didn't know what the level of discussion about all these documents would be.

I found myself between a lady from law and another lady from geography. I knew the latter a little bit, and it was nice to meet the former. In the entire room I recognised about half the people. 

It started. It was, obviously, chaired by the VC. Pretty much the first item on the agenda was a minute of silence for all the people associated with the University who had died since the previous Senate meeting. This, of course, included our student Alex. 

After that the meeting was mainly a case of the VC going through the documents associated with the meeting. Everybody else was just staring at their laptop screens. I was one of the few who were sitting there with a paper notebook.

In the course of the meeting, the floor did start to offer some questions and comments. I sometimes struggled to hear what was going on! The room we were in has sub-ideal acoustics, and some people’s voices are quite compatible with it, such as the VC’s (fortunately), but those of some other people just get lost in the space.

There was mention of the university’s financial situation, of the outcomes of the National Student Survey, and our success (or otherwise) of recruiting students from the local area, and all sorts of things like that. Nothing was unusually relevant to Ocean Sciences, so none of us three delegates opened our mouths at any point.

The meeting was scheduled to be two hours, and two hours it was. It seems unusual the full two hours were needed! But the meeting was closed and people started to leave.

I wanted another cup of tea before I would bike home. I don't like biking around thirsty. And I also wanted to say hi to a lady I had recognised from Welsh class. I think this was the first time I saw her in person! And there were also uneaten brownies. University brownies are excellent, and I don't think they should ever be thrown away. And I always bring my packed lunch, so in the afternoon I have empty Tupperwares. I struck!

I also ended up catching up a bit with the head of IT, with a bloke from CELT, and, finally, our Head of School. We actually had some School matters to discuss.

So ended my first Senate meeting. I think it is useful to be in the room where it happens. And I suppose it is largely a good thing if what is said in there isn't directly relevant to the School. No news is good news!