Having watched this video tonight, I had to have a little chuckle to myself.
Problems with admin at Anglia Ruskin University? Surely not.
As you may know, I graduated from Anglia Ruskin University about 10 years ago. It was called Anglia Polytechnic University then - the only Polytechnic in the the country at the time, and I used to joke that it was there on merit - at least now they've managed to change the name, if not some of the problems people experience.
The university itself has been immortalised on TV twice as far as I am aware. Once when Griff Rhys Jones played a lecturer in Wilt (the writer was a lectuerer at the Poly) and once in The Young Ones as "Scumbag Poly" in the University Challenge edition against "Footlights College, Oxbridge".
Don't get me wrong, I loved my university years. The lecturers were great, the courses were brilliant and the staff were always friendly and accommodating. There were no pretentions and the uni years were undoubtedly some of the best of my life.
But the one thing that let it down was admin. Well admin and organisation - two things.
The two week wait for a timetable was not unusual in my day. I can remember in 1995, my first year at university, that one student did not get his timetable till week 6. Now that may sound quite bad, but it is worth remembering that at that we had 12 week terms at that time!
I had presumed that these were passing problems, or that it was a problem experienced by an individual student - indeed I have nothing to suggest the problems were widespread. However what a good university should do is talk to the student and resolve the matter amicably.
The fact that this current student seems to have been threatened with legal action and banned from the campus seems a massive over-reaction. Anglia, please sort this situation out - you currently have a reputation as a good university that puts it's students needs (academic and personal) first - and this row will do nothing for any of the people concerned.
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(BTW did you know that Tory donor Michael Ashcroft not only went to Anglia back in the day, he has been Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University since November 2001, and has donated £5 million for the university's business school at Chelmsford, now called Ashcroft International Business School. I did, but most people I talk to didn't. I am sure that has absolutely nothing to do with the outrage being expressed on the Tory blogs today.)
