Welcome
Congratulations on your appointment.
You have joined a dynamic, innovative, student-centred institution committed to excellence, impact, inclusion, transformation, strategic alignment, and other nouns.
This handbook explains how things actually work.
Please destroy it after reading, or leave it prominently displayed on your desk, where no one will ever notice it.
Section 1: Understanding Priorities
You may initially believe that priorities are established through strategic plans.
This is incorrect.
Priorities emerge through a sophisticated institutional process involving:
recent emails,
approaching deadlines,
senior management anxiety,
and whatever was discussed most recently in a meeting.
Consequently, priorities operate according to a principle known as:
Simultaneous Hierarchical Fluidity
This means that everything is important, but some things are more important than other things until tomorrow.
Section 2: Meetings
Meetings exist to answer three fundamental questions:
Has everyone been informed?
Has everyone been consulted?
Can responsibility now be distributed sufficiently widely?
New staff sometimes make the mistake of attending meetings in order to make decisions.
Please avoid this.
The primary function of meetings is to establish that a decision pathway exists.
Actual decisions generally emerge later through email.
Section 3: Email
Email is the circulatory system of the modern university.
Messages fall into four categories:
Category A: Immediate Action Required
No action required.
Category B: Important Reminder
No action required.
Category C: Final Reminder
Possibly action required.
Category D: URGENT – RESPONSE REQUIRED TODAY
The sender has just discovered the problem.
Section 4: Strategic Plans
Every strategic plan contains five key commitments:
Innovation
Excellence
Sustainability
Collaboration
Transformation
These commitments appear because no one has yet discovered a strategic plan that opposes them.
Should you encounter two strategic plans that contradict one another, remember:
Both remain strategically valid until replaced by a third strategic plan.
Section 5: Student Feedback
Student feedback is essential.
Student feedback is invaluable.
Student feedback must be carefully considered.
Student feedback indicating opposite things simultaneously must also be carefully considered.
Examples:
"The lectures moved too quickly."
"The lectures moved too slowly."
"Assessment requirements were unclear."
"Assessment requirements were obvious."
The correct institutional response is:
"We appreciate this valuable feedback and will reflect upon it."
This phrase has successfully resolved feedback since approximately 1994.
Section 6: Performance Reviews
Performance reviews are opportunities for professional growth.
You will be asked to demonstrate:
teaching excellence,
research excellence,
service excellence,
community engagement,
innovation,
leadership,
strategic contribution,
wellbeing.
Please note that excellence in one category does not compensate for shortcomings in another category.
Excellence is assessed holistically.
No further clarification is available.
Section 7: The Most Important Rule
Eventually you will discover a secret.
The University does not actually function because of policies.
It functions because thousands of intelligent people quietly help one another navigate the gap between policy and reality.
This knowledge should not be shared with auditors.
Final Advice
When confused, locate the longest-serving administrator in your area.
Ask:
"How does this actually work?"
They will look around carefully.
Then they will explain everything.
Welcome to the University.
