Dr Magnus Jones at PAU!

Chapter One

The Paine Anglia University or ‘PAU’ is madly fond of its acronyms. They are so frequently used in the speech of Faculty and students alike that a visitor, on first entering campus, must be inducted into their meaning by being shown a glossary entitled ‘The acronyms of Paine Anglia University, Home of the Incredible’. Some of these are easy enough to understand. EDU, for example, stands for the Department of Education, others do not trip off the tongue so easily; the English Literature Department is known as ELDWC (English, Literature, Drama and Writing Creatively), and the Department of Linguistics as CSTIC  (Communication Studies, Translation and Intercultural Communication).           

‘Lecturer in Communication Studies!’ said Dr Magnus Jones at a staff meeting one day, ‘how did you come up with that one?’

‘The students were put off by the word ‘Linguistics’, said Professor Lehideux, ‘ and if you must know, it had an effect on recruitment.’

‘But Linguistics is what I teach’ said Dr Jones, ‘and ‘Communication Studies’ most definitely is not.’

‘Be that as it may,’ said Lehideux, ‘our Head of School and the Executive Team have come to the decision that a new name was required for the Department of Linguistics. From now on, it will be known as the Department of Communication Studies, Translation and Intercultural Communication or CSTIC’. 

They were seated at opposite ends of a large seminar table, at the top of which sat the triumvirate by which the department was effectively run, the Head of School, Dr Michael Sedley, whose indolence was only exceeded by a gluttonous appetite, Professor André Lehideux, the unprepossessing French lecturer, and Dr Adam Grieve who was known to be a genius in his field, though he never completed the articles he wrote, let alone got them into print. The seminar room was small and stuffy. An assortment of lecturers had ventured opposition, mainly to do with the pronunciation of CSTIC which, they said, was either too long if each letter was pronounced individually or would inevitably be pronounced ‘stick’ by students. Dr Coffey, the plucky Northern Irish tutor, said that CSTIC reminded him, for some reason he was unable to account for, of cystitis, which only resulted in Professor Lehideux ignoring his comment and turning his back on the offending speaker. Professor Daphne Ifantidou, sitting next to Dr Coffey, also thought the new acronym reminded her of a medical condition and was still laughing when she expressed her support for Dr Jones. Daphne had acquired an international reputation for her academic work on how to motivate students to learn foreign languages and could always be relied upon to rally round her favourite Dr Jones. They both had Cambridge PhDs and usually came to similar conclusions as far as the running of the department was concerned, much to the dismay of the ‘Executive Team’.

‘But with respect,’ she said, which usually indicated that she was about to show a total lack of it, ‘this is an erasure of our research interests in the department and Dr Jones is quite right that ‘Communication Studies’ has very little to do with what we as research staff currently offer’.       

Ms Sheena Taylor, a large, blonde Australian woman in very tight jeans and an intimate relationship with the greasy pole was naturally in favour of the change of name.

She may not have her PhD, but she taught a number of courses on communication across languages and the new name better reflected what was actually taught in the department. This was, of course, intended as a dig at the lecturers who had PhDs and did not do as much teaching as she did.

‘We are not talking about quantity of teaching here,’ interrupted Professor Ifantidou archly, ‘but about its quality, and how it needs to be inspired by our research interests.’

Ms Taylor knew when to capitulate, but not before remarking that after all, South Anglia University (SAU) had just been renamed as Paine Anglia University (PAU), in the same way, without consultation. In this, she was right. South Anglia University with its acronym ‘SAU’ had been the constant butt of jokes among students on account of its agricultural connotations and the University had been given a new name by the recently appointed Vice-Chancellor, Professor Charles Ramsbottom. Professor Ramsbottom had hoped that the new Paine Anglia University with its powerful acronym ‘PAU’ would…, well…, energise the University. Indeed, the old SAU had been perceived as affecting student recruitment.  

‘The old SAU had been perceived as affecting student recruitment’ said Dr Jones, imitating, ‘For the love of God, do we really think that PAU is better than SAU and that it makes the slightest bit of difference as to whether a prospective applicant will choose us over another university?’

This was met with dead silence. Professor Lehideux gave a sideway glance at Dr Sedley and there was a tacit understanding that they would have to show this meddlesome upstart who was boss. About Professor Ifantidou nothing much could be done. Only students’ complaints about her reputedly flamboyant teaching methods would get rid of her. Dr Grieve was adamant that one single hour of her teaching must defy all the principles of the University’s diversity training programme, but he could not prove anything, and would have to wait until a student lodged a complaint against her. They all agreed that this was the best way to go about it with Dr Sedley concluding that Professor Ifantidou would in the end be worn down by attrition. He nodded repeatedly, obviously satisfied with his mode of expression. This was remarkable exertion on his part, and soon after he was seen to fall back into his usual state of somnolence. The other members of the triumvirate did not mind this in the slightest, and the departmental gossip, without Dr Sedley’s contributions, continued apace.    

At the end of the fruitless staff meeting, Dr Magnus Jones had walked back to his office through campus, looking in wonder at the beauty of the foliage made even more beautiful by the comparative ugliness of the concrete around him. The buildings of PAU, 1960s in design, were listed and would be preserved forever. They had fallen into disrepair, soon after being built, at great cost to the University. Dr Jones’ sense of aesthetics had been sharpened in Cambridge as that which is uplifting and religious. There was nothing religious at PAU and, he reflected, nothing uplifting, either. As he walked, he invested the concrete with the glowing honey coloured stone of his former college. Nostalgia. Dr Jones was not particularly given to such feelings. He had managed to avoid nostalgia in his recent research on film adaptations of Jane Austen. He had also managed to avoid the pitfalls of some the latest trends in research. Jane Austen’s work made more palatable to the contemporary readership by means of musings on the provenance of sugar seemed particularly misguided. He had read too many books the titles of which started with ‘Jane Austen and… whatever else the author was interested in. So no nostalgia, no ideology. Just language. But Cambridge often slipped through his consciousness. In the early days of his appointment at PAU, he had sent an email to Professor Lehideux in which he had inadvertently referred to the ‘Spring semester’ as the ‘Easter Term’. Lehideux had written back politely reminding him that this was a secular institution and that religious terminology like ‘Easter’ had best be avoided in the public sphere.

‘This is not France,’ replied Dr Jones, ‘and in this country at least the Church is part of the state.’

‘Sometimes, I don’t understand how somebody with your level of education can be religious,’ said Lehideux, popping his angular head through Dr Jones’ office door.

‘Sometimes, I don’t understand how someone who teaches cross-cultural communication and professes to engage with the customs and mores of other countries is so closed to religious cultures’ retorted Dr Jones.

‘I do not know how you dare to speak to me like this’ said Lehideux, his French accent getting the better of him. 

‘I am only saying that it is inexcusable that someone who claims to be intercultural fails at the first hurdle of dialogue between secular and religious cultures’.

The discussion had ended with shouts of ‘outrageous’ on the part of Lehideux and with Dr Jones keeping icily coherent.

An enraged Lehideux reported the micro-aggression to Dr Sedley. Something had to be done to rein in Dr Jones. He would never have been appointed if his religious fanaticism had been known. Considering he was still a probationer, there should be as much opposition as possible to him being made a permanent lecturer.   

Dr Sedley, slowly rousing himself out of the torpor caused by eating a considerable sausage roll accompanied by a most succulent Cornish pasty, the crumbs of which were still in evidence on his shirt, expressed his full agreement with the Professor. His indolence, however, did not extend to anything more determinate than the repeated exclamation: ‘Oh, I do agree!’

‘And we must scrutinise him for any administrative misdemeanour’ cried Lehideux exasperated.

‘Oh, I do agree!’, said Dr Sedley one more time. Dr Sedley was so odd a mixture of abstract benevolence and practical wickedness that the experience of ten years as a lecturer had been insufficient to teach him anything worthwhile about integrity, academic or otherwise. He was content to let himself be ruled by the ambitions of others as they accorded with his own. The business of his life was to climb up the career ladder of the University; its solace was eating and drinking.