The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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10:41am on Friday, 27th June, 2025:
Anecdote
As en Emeritus Professor, I was invited to attend the University Court yesterday. This is an assembly of the local great and good (High Sheriff of Essex, commander of the Colchester Garrison, Bishop of Colchester — that kind of person) along with the university executive team (including those of the Student Union) and padded out with people like me.
The event was opened by the Chancellor, then there was a report given by the acting Vice-Chancellor, Maria Fasli, whose term ends in July. I didn't learn much from either of the presentations, because I'd heard most of the content before. Still, it was worth attending and I'll go to the next one.
Maria is moving the the University of Sussex, which is another research-intensive 1960s UK university. Back in 1973, Professor James Lighthill was commissioned to write a report into the worthwhileness of funding AI, and concluded it was a dead end so no research funding should be made available for it. All UK universities that were getting into the subject immediately dropped it, except three: Edinburgh, Essex and Sussex. Maria's aread of specialisation is AI (particular big data analysis), so Sussex is a good fit. It wouldn't surprise me if she was being groomed to be their next vice-chancellor, given that she has the experience and is still only in her early 50s.
Given that she's been at Essex for the past 29 years, she got quite emotional, especially at the sustained level of applause that accompanied the end of her speech.
The University Registrar is also leaving, and at the end the Chancellor thanked them both and there was a standing ovation. I don't bow to peer pressure, and only stand for standing ovations if I actually agree with them. If it had just been for Maria I would have stood, but not for a joint one with someone else I wouldn't have stood for. I don't want to be patronising, even if almost everyone else was.
After the event, there was a networking gathering. There were five or more trestle tables there with drink on them. Half a table had non-alcoholic drink on it (berry and mint fizz) and the rest had wine, beer and gawd knows what else. There were also three bottles of sparkling water on offer. Large numbers of people descended on the non-alcoholic section, probably because they'd driven to get to the event and didn't want to be consuming alcohol for the drive back.
I thought there were going to be nibbles, too, and had been expecting to fill up on them. None appeared, though, so after half an hour I left. That may have been the cue for them to bring something out ("the guy who didn't stand in the standing ovation has left — bring out the roast swan and the suckling pig"), but I suspect not.
I had a McDonald's on the way home. Thanks to the touchscreen ordering system, I couldn't say I wanted no dill pickles and had to pick them out by hand.
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Copyright © 2025 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).