Giants

The Times Newspaper used to print the names of every student in the country awarded a First Class honours degree. They couldn’t do it now. There would be too many. A quick estimate tells me at least fifty times the number. As well as there being four or five times as many students, the number of Firsts has exploded. Around one in three now get them. In my day it was more like one in fifty. The percentage of Upper Seconds has increased too. Students are clearly becoming more intelligent, and universities are doing a much better job.

Or is it that universities now have to compete with each other? They have to run costly marketing operations to bring in students. “Come to Cleckheaton University. We give higher grades.”
 

The marketing departments concoct increasingly strange schemes. The most unlikely I came across was a tie-up between the university where I worked and the local Rugby League club. For those unfamiliar with Rugby League, it is a professional team sport played in Yorkshire and Lancashire, and other parts of the world. I suppose the idea was that the club received sponsorship from the university and extra support through discounted student tickets, while the university benefited from match-day advertising and publicity. 

One day I was told I would be taking two new students in my personal tutorial group. I was not pleased because I already had around fifteen. Having a personal tutor is a good idea. It provides a named person to whom students can turn for individual guidance and support. It works best through individual meetings several times a term. Students get to know and trust their tutors and air their concerns, both academic and personal. But it is labour-intensive, and when there are large numbers of students and fewer tutors then short cuts are taken. Our managers decided we would do it through weekly, hour-long, group meeting. They came up with a framework covering study skills and similar issues. The students saw it as just another lecture, and a pointless one at that, because they knew it all already. They sat there reluctant to discuss anything. Well, would you? “I have mental health issues because I’ve fallen out with my parents and I can’t start that essay.” The ones that say nothing at all are the ones you really need to reach. I struggled to make it work.

The two new students were from the rugby club; professional rugby players. They were giants. One was particularly striking in appearance. He had long blond hair, was 6 feet 5 inches tall (1.98m) and weighed over 18 stones (116kg). I felt intimidated just standing next to him (not knowing then that he is actually a gentle soul). He would later play for England and remains on television today as a commentator and pundit. One of his uncles had been a famous professional wrestler. Please don’t name them, or the club or the university in comments. Use initials if you have to.

They were to take the Sports Psychology degree part-time with a view to gaining qualifications useful after their playing days were over. Perhaps it was good in principle, but it was awful in practice. I think they were led to believe it would be easy.

For a start, the club retained first-call on their time. They had to go to training sessions and all the other activities with sponsors, schools and other community groups. Their attendance at university was low, and they came to only two tutoring group meeting. They were late both time, and the room fell into star struck silence as they walked in. Girls swooned, as did some of the boys.

Lecturers began to tell me about their absence from teaching, especially in the experimental design module based on the SPSS statistics software. As their personal tutor, I asked them to see me, but they never came. They abandoned their studies.

I met the tall guy again more recently. I was walking along a field path near home and he passed in the opposite direction. He lives around two miles away in what some call the millionaires’ village. I said his name as we passed.

“Hi! How you doing?” he said in a friendly voice, used to being recognised.

I mentioned where we had met before. He couldn’t remember me, but did remember the university episode, and that it had not turned out well.

I said that was because it was never given a proper chance. Presentation without substance. He agreed. Pawns in a bigger game. It was all about how it looked. We both seemed pleased with that. What a pity it could not have been said twenty years ago. The powers that be would not have liked it. University staff have lost their jobs for making accusations of grade inflation and declining standards.