GOLDEN YEARS OR ASHES TO ASHES

Seeing the THE claiming that their Awards are the ‘Oscars of the education sector’ reminded me that the the first documented use of the term, by columnist Sidney Skolsky in 1934, came because he said, “The snobbery of that particular Academy Award annoyed me.”  We are well into the Awards season and having already had The PIEoneer Awards with 124 Finalists across 19 categories the THE Awards may not be trying hard enough with only 123 finalists across 20 categories*.  Several other organizations are getting on the Awards bandwagon, but life is short so the focus here is on the late-November THE celebration which has switched from the 5-star Grosvenor to the 4-star Hilton London Metropole.

I TURNED MYSELF TO FACE ME**

It would be fun to have Ricky Gervais turn his gimlet eye on the people at the tables and adopt his very best Golden Globes approach, “this is the last time I’m hosting these awards so I don’t care anymore. I’m joking, I never did…..Let’s go out with a bang. Let’s have a laugh at your expense, shall we?”  The THE Awards are certainly the subject of a great deal of chest-beating beforehand at even being listed but maybe as Ed Sheeran’s recently commented about such nights, “The room is filled with resentment….it’s just lots of people wanting other people to fail.”  Unlike the Oscars, almost all the finalists decide to put themselves forward as the most worthy so perhaps, in a spirit of post-pandemic collaboration, it would be better to have a new rule that you can only nominate another person or institution. 

The THE would have been better to liken these awards to the Emmys*** where the main award winner this year was a vaguely comedic institution desperately trying to regain its place alongside the giants of the game.   In a strange twist of fate, of the several nominees for the 2021 THE University of the Year, none is higher ranked in this year’s THE World Rankings than it was last year or in 2015. Success in league table rankings seems less important to the judges than the institutions themselves.

For those who are grasping for the popular culture reference, the Amazon Prime series “Ted Lasso” was a serial winner at this weekend’s Emmys****.  It features a football manager who knows nothing about the game, a foul mouthed, past his prime “lord of darkness” feared by all and an owner who set out to deliberately ruin the club.  These might be considered good metaphors for the worst of institutional management, the vagaries of research leadership and the government’s attitude to higher education. 

I would personally welcome the Lasso, Kent and Welton Awards but if the theme has to stay with education and real people it would have been good for the THE to call them “Ronnies” after Lord Ron Dearing, whose name was attached to the THE Lifetime Achievement Award until 2018.  Anyone fortunate enough to win twice could start their speech by saying something about having Two Ronnies.*****  It would be a treat to see what could be made of the Awards being a load of ‘bill ‘ooks’.   

Unfortunately, Lord Ron’s name disappeared from the Award in 2019 and as far as I know it wasn’t because someone had won it three times and been allowed to keep it as per Brazil and the Jules Rimet Trophy******.  Perhaps his seminal report of 1997 was no longer seen as quite modern enough but 2019 was also the year private equity group Inflexion Pvt. Equity Partners LLP acquired the THE.  I don’t see much chance of the Sir Philip Augar Awards any time soon but with Gavin Williamson being touted for a knighthood anything must be possible.

THE STREAM OF WARM IMPERMANENCE

The loss of the Dearing Award is one sign that the THE Awards might be a mirror for the changing face of UK higher education.  For example, 2019 should probably be known as the Year of the Technocrats (or Revenge of the Registry) with a whole new slew of awards for Excellence in Registry Services, Outstanding Estates Strategy, Outstanding Financial Performance, Outstanding Library Team, Outstanding Strategic Planning Team and Outstanding Marketing/Communications Team. 

Registry, Financial Performance and Strategic Planning were dropped the following year but perhaps they were just too busy to buy enough tables at the dinner or already got their invitations from anxious to please private sector providers. 2019 was also the year of 23 Award categories which was up from the 18 in 2011.  Inflation of 28% in categories but at least another five tables of ten to be sold to “nominated” universities considering attending the glittering occasion.

Outstanding Support for Early Career Researchers was lost in 2015 which seems a shame because they seem to get a pretty raw deal and their seniors don’t feel recognized for the mentoring they do.  The Outstanding Research Supervisor of the Year was the successor category from 2016 but it doesn’t seem to capture the notion that the whole institution should be involved in this fundamental aspect of university business. 

Colleagues who know about these things will also be nodding wisely at the fact that there is no place specifically for Careers Advice and Guidance Departments in the Awards.  It’s a neglected backwater for most universities and Tribal research suggests institutions spend ten times as much on international recruitment as helping students get job.  So the Awards recognize where the main non-academic funding goes which is big shiny new buildings (Estates), slick, shiny new enrollment campaigns (MarComms) and the very expensive headache that is an academic library.

Sponsors, as you would expect, also tend to put their money where the best return might be.  It is surely no coincidence that Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community has had only one year sponsored out of the last ten whereas the NCEE seems to own the Outstanding Entrepreneurial University category.  Elsevier seems to have switched horses having backed the Art, Humanities and Social Sciences Research Project of the Year 2017 and 2018 but plumping for the STEM equivalent since 2019.

There is something depressingly obvious about the categories and the impression they give of a sector stuck in a time warp.  The Widening Participation or Outreach Initiative of the Year has not been won by a Russell Group university since Sheffield in 2014 and the Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community category this year can only claim a partial nominee in the University of Nottingham’s partnership with Nottingham Trent.  The Group talks a lot about its intentions and efforts that it seems surprising that members are not quite breaking through.

The Outstanding Contribution to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Award was launched last year with six nominees coming from universities ranked below 42^nd in the UK by the THE’s own world rankings.  It’s good to see St Andrews flying the flag for the both the Russell Group and globally ranked UK top ten institutions this year but it’s another area where the “best universities” don’t seem to be establishing their credentials.

HOW THE OTHERS MUST SEE THE FAKER

Like the THE’s Impact ratings, the Awards ceremony tends to reward institutions and people who take time to promote themselves and who may see it as the key to obtaining more resources or students. Some entrants may also see them as a gateway to a new job, a new honour or a way of cementing a reputation as a guru of the sector.  The ceremonies themselves make money, big service providers can entertain their prospective and current clients, and the event manager sucks the goodwill into its bank of favours for future profitable enterprises.

Nothing wrong with any of that in a commercial sense and many industries do it.  But if higher education wants to stop being considered the same as accounting, retailing and restaurants it may want to consider how it responds to the lure of a commercial company offering small baubles of fame.  There’s plenty of scope for Universities UK or another industry-led body to run a sector wide Awards ceremony and I suspect that the THE would find it difficult not to become a sponsor and report on the winners.  Just a thought.  

Notes

* Apologies if there is any miscount here but like Ricky Gervais – I really don’t care😊  The THE says “seventy-eight institutions and teams” but I think it’s nice to count the individual finalists as well.

**Sharp eyed readers of a certain generation and sensibility will have recognized the sub-titles as lines from David Bowie’s wonderful song Changes which features on Hunky Dory – one of the few flawless albums.  The title is of course two Bowie song titles.

*** The Emmys are awarded by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.  The name Emmy derives from Immy, a nickname for image orthicon, a camera tube used in television.  More interestingly the acronym of the awarding organization’s name is SATAN backward.

**** I recognize that The Crown is considered the winner of the main awards but a series about palace intrigue, privilege, insensitivity to public opinion and personal spite feels too close to the mark for comfort. The fabrication of history and sensationalising of complex issues involving real people also does not recommend it to me.

***** For readers outside the UK “The Two Ronnies was a comedy sketch show featuring Ronnie Corbett and Ronnie Barker that ran in the UK from 1971 to 1987.  One of the most beloved sketches (and the link here) featured a hardware store where a customer sought items and was misunderstood by the shop owner.

******  The Jules Rimet Trophy was the original prize for winning the FIFA World Cup. Originally called “Victory”, but generally known simply as the World Cup or Coupe du Monde, it was renamed in 1946 to honour the FIFA President Jules Rimet. Famously, the trophy was stolen during the World Cup in the UK in 1966 but was found seven days later by a black and white mongrel dog named Pickles. The Brazilian team won the tournament for the third time in 1970, allowing them to keep the real trophy in perpetuity, as had been stipulated by Jules Rimet in 1930.  The trophy was stolen in 1983 and never recovered.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay