What would you do if you were vice-chancellor for the day?

That was the question posed by a couple of weeks ago. It gave us the perfect excuse to put the same poser to our 158,000 Twitter followers (). Hundreds of you responded using the ¡°¡± hashtag.

Postgraduate students and early career researchers were top of many people¡¯s agendas. Kate Muir (), a psychology researcher at the University of the West of England, said she would ensure that all postgrads ¡°are entitled to maternity/paternity leave and pay in some form, instead of falling through cracks in the system¡±. Meanwhile, Joanne Neary (), a ¡°qualitative researcher and methods nerd¡±, would make sure that ¡°all postgraduate students were entitled to sick leave and all supervisors had up to date training¡± in mental health.

Christopher Saville (), research project support officer at Bangor University, kept things simple. He tweeted that he would erect a ¡°giant statue of myself on campus¡±. Ayden F¨¦rdeline (), a graduate student at the London School of Economics, would ¡°fire any academic who has been resident at one university for 10 years + and never taught at another¡±.

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Ghislaine Dell (), careers adviser at the University of Bath, would ¡°make academics and professional services staff swap jobs for a week¡±. Adrian Coyle (), professor of social psychology at Kingston University, would ¡°commit to teaching part of a module each year...to know how things are at the coal face¡±. Simon Fraser (, a teaching fellow at Ulster University, tweeted that he would ensure that ¡°staff get to vote from a shortlist on who should be [pro vice-chancellor] or VC. Subsidised coffee would be nice too.¡±

The question posed a dilemma for ¡°missus moody¡± (, who is ¡°working and studying in higher education¡±. How would she wield the power? For her, it was a ¡°toss up between on-site creche facilities or subsidised doughnut mornings¡±.

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Russell Smith (), an astronomer at Durham University, would get trigger-happy and ¡°sack staff who chatter over visiting speakers¡¯ talks¡±. He later reflected: ¡°On balance, I think I probably shouldn¡¯t be .¡± Jenny McDonald (), an educational technology teacher and researcher ¨C and fan of bird metaphors ¨C would stop universities from ¡°breeding publishing super-chickens¡± and instead nurture ¡°a culture of empathy, equity and transparency for the benefit of the flock¡±.

Many were idealistic. Eleonora Belfiore (), associate professor of cultural policy at the University of Warwick, would ¡°publish the salaries of all staff, so we could all start a real conversation about gender equality in HE¡±. Dominic Dixon (), resource discovery and access assistant at Northumbria University, would ¡°take a huge salary cut, abolish tuition fees, remove all corporatisation and implement a model based on anarchist philosophy¡±. Jo Heaton-Marriott (), public engagement manager at the University of Central Lancashire, would ¡°open my office door, put the coffee on, open a packet of biscuits and meet my colleagues face to face¡±.

Some were less community spirited. Colin Cooper (), a research administrator, had one simple plan: ¡°Retire on a final salary pension. Simples.¡±

Chris Parr

Send links to topical, insightful and quirky online comment by and about academics to chris.parr@tesglobal.com

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