An Academic Event

Today the lab has been cleaned. It is SO clean in fact that we are no longer able to work there. We were driven to this point because tomorrow the Chancellor of the university and various other important personages are coming on a tour of our building. This is very interesting and it raises the question of how students and people lower in the university hierarchy should behave around those who are academically above us? Before we can decide this the nature of the visit should be determined, we need a comparable real world situation. In the scheme of things, is the Chancellors visit equivalent to Queen Elizabeth II hitting the streets to greet her people? Or is it like President Obama heading to a political rally to give a speech peppered with witty remarks? Or is the arrival of the head of your academic institution a more sombre occasion where celebration is not appropriate? Is it, in fact, more like a health inspector arriving on your premises to suss out what is happening?

Another aspect of this event is what should we, as a department provide? Should we procure cheering crowds and security? Or maybe just light snacks? Do we have a moral duty, as members of the academic community, to present things as they are? To tell them that we don’t like feeling insecure in our positions, that our papers came back 7 times before being accepted, that our labs are in fact often messy. But no, as in all things in life, the charade continues, and all labs will be straightened up, students will be swathed in lab coats and visually pleasing, but useless, experiments will be set up to entertain and amaze our guests.

All speculation aside there is a lot of excitement about this visit. And why is this? Why is a visit like this so exciting? Is it because… 

1. We don’t get to meet many important people.
2. We had become so consumed with the politics and intrigues of our own department that we had actually forgotten we were affiliated with a group of departments called a university. Hence, the arrival of these bigwigs forms a welcome, albeit surprising, reminder that we are part of a bigger picture.
3. Being acknowledged by the governing body of the university is like someone sitting you down and saying, “Yes! You are important! Your research matters! See, would we be here if it wasn’t?!!” And the answer is no, if your research wasn’t important (or at least if it wasn’t producing results) they certainly wouldn’t be here, and neither would you! As your funding would be non-existent. Sigh!
4. We have spent so long locked away in the lab that the thought of seeing anyone who doesn’t work in our building is thrilling. (All departments should be aware that this situation can be a little too thrilling for some of the more seasoned professors and if the school wishes to avoid embarrassing scenes, sending people on fully-funded ‘fieldtrips’ on important days is extremely useful for maintaining the departments dignity and reputation).
5. There’s a free afternoon tea for one and all. A note of caution here, certain prestigious institutions, who shall remain nameless, have found an inverse relationship between the number of snacks and the likelihood of a postgraduate stampede. By spending a little more money, your department could save thousands in repair costs because as the saying goes ‘Hell hath no fury like a hungry PhD student’.

But whatever the reason behind the excitement in the department, it is certainly here. Redolent of scenes from many historical BBC dramas, where the villagers hang flower garlands around the town and leap joyfully through the rolling green fields, the department is being cleaned and decorated within an inch of its life. Staff members who spend the whole year in the same pair of khaki shorts and a tattered shirt of uncertain origin will suddenly appear in suit and tie (also of questionable origin but still – a suit and tie people!!). PhD students who haven’t been seen in the hallways or tearoom for months will suddenly end their stint in the lab as they forage for any free food this special occasion might provide. Undergraduates emerge from the dusty corners where they have been forced to do menial laboratory tasks to bask in the glow of the academic communities brightest minds.

Personally I feel sort of like the staff greeting their returning master or mistress in those old British mansions. If this was really the case all the undergraduates, PhD students and lecturers would have to line up out the front of the building in order of rank and importance and bow or curtsey as the Chancellor strolls by smiling benignly upon us all.  Someone would rush forward to get his bags, someone else would take his coat and then we would all troop excitedly into the building some distance behind him, never taking our eyes off this important personage.

I wonder what things will be like in the department tomorrow when they actually arrive? I sure hope the snacks are good.