Dr Walter Mountebank was stupendously bored. It was a Monday afternoon and outside the sun had unexpectedly broken through the grey shrouds draped across the sky. But Dr Mountebank was not outside. He was sitting on a ceremonial stage, robed in fire-engine red and a crushed velvet hat, with nothing more for entertainment than a glossy list of this year’s graduates. A stream of mortarboards perched precariously atop rosy cheeks bobbed across the stage towards the Vice Chancellor’s outstretched hand. They came in various shapes and sizes, flushed in many shades of embarrassment, their black robes and pointed stoles set at mismatched angles, buttoned conservatively to the middle or throttling them from behind. And they had no idea who this silver-haired man might be, this Vice Chancellor in his gold piping and finery. And neither had he much notion of them as they scuttled past him to pause, for the briefest of moments, and reach, tentatively, across the chasm of experience for the sweaty palm he proffered in their direction. They all followed the same rhythmic pattern, queuing in the wings, stepping up as their names were called, trotting across the boards, before returning back to retake their place amid the gowned masses. The monotony was occasionally broken when the master of ceremonies was presented with one of those unfortunate combinations, such as ‘Wayne King’ or ‘Nicholas Condon’, the utterance of which would provoke an outbreak of sniggers that could only be smothered by dutiful applause, while the poor sod who had been condemned to life by his parents dragged himself across the stage to receive his prize. The only other riffle to disturb the solemnity was the occasional presence of what Dr Mountebank privately named the ‘lingerer’, one of those individuals who would have felt cheated out of their £20,000 student loan had they not paused, for longer than was deemed polite, to bask in the triumph of their new qualification alongside the VC. Each time that this disruption to the rhythmic churning of the graduate machine occurred, Dr Mountebank would allow himself a wry little smile, noting the frissons of acute embarrassment rippling through the VC as he attempted to extricate himself from the overly familiar grip of his assailant.
On this occasion, Walter’s school (the School of History) had been scheduled for the final section of the ceremony and, at last, appeared the more familiar faces of those that had littered his lectures for the last three years. While his colleagues beamed benevolently upon their protégés, gazing at them through pride-softened eyes (while secretly stroking the oversized pedagogic egos nestling beneath their gowns), Dr Mountebank perused the scene with rather less gratification. Each year, he found himself questioning the justice of a system that allowed the likes of Darren Clump to foist themselves upon an unsuspecting world, armed with a degree labelled ‘History B.A.’. Had the whole higher education sector not been spinning in fear before the prospect of a declining ‘client base’ (as they were now required to consider the student body), Clump and his kind would surely have been turfed out on their ears for what could only be described as a wanton desecration of British history.
The procession was rounded off with a musical interlude, featuring tubular bells, heralding an address by the great visionary himself, the Vice Chancellor. Its purpose was to proffer a few wise words to ease the students’ passage into the Big Wide World, a place where you could gain a temporary position as a Tesco cashier with the proviso that you had done your three months of unpaid ‘work experience’
to build up your CV. And what flavour enhancer did the VC want to leave in the mouths of this year’s young hopeful to sweeten their plateful of debt? What wisdom could he offer about the world beyond the institutional gates from his years of incarcerated career climbing within them? Well… he could reassure them that the University that they had attended, the place in which they had invested their future hopes, was a good one, a decent one, with a solid track record, that they had not wasted their time because (and thank God that someone had come up with the idea of transferable skills) we are all vocational now, and (let’s hear it for the boys!) our greatness will continue into the future thanks to the likes of Mr Walmart (and his gun trade) whose generous funding blah blah (has got us out of rather a sticky wicket), an announcement that prompted the Pro-Vice Chancellor to break out into vociferous applause with a great hurrah for the multinational’s Big Fat Chequebook and Pen.
The VC concluded with a word of thanks to the most important people of all, to all those that had guided the students through their first shell-shocked emergence into world beyond home (he could sense his colleagues to his left and to his right filling themselves with pride), steering them with patience and kindness through the trials and tribulations of university life (he could feel the rosy glow of collegiate pride fanning out across stage), before helping them to arrive safely and certified on the other side… that’s right, ‘Lets please give a big round of applause to… The Parents!’ The baton was handed to this year’s honorary fellow, a rather weasily white-haired academic (unfortunately, David Attenborough had been booked by a more prestigious institution), who mumbled something irrelevant and then tripped over the camera cord en route back to the large ceremonial chair positioned in the centre stage. And with that, the ordeal was over for another year. Dr Mountebank lifted himself gratefully out of the plastic chair and followed the sombre procession out of the Great Hall, taking care to adopt an appropriately solemn expression, one that suggested that here was a man of great intellectual gravitas, while inside he chortled with glee at the prospect of eight whole delicious weeks without students, eight weeks in which to lounge in the garden and perhaps catch up on a bit of Ready Steady Cook, flip through a few Dan Browns, learn how to use his i-phone etc… (oh, and do some research, of course!)
Notes from the Classroom 