left to my own devices – occasional thoughts on higher education

Image by Stevekeiretsu – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62316734

‘I may be being grumpy, but …’

There was a time a few years ago when I made a fair amount of use of this phrase when starting to make a point in committee meetings.  It wasn’t that frequent, but it was often enough that for those who sat on two or more of the same committees as me it may have felt that frequent.

In that phrase the may was doing a lot of work.  It wasn’t really (if at all) a question as to whether I was being grumpy.  It was more a way of acknowledging that state of mind, but implicitly arguing that there was justification for it.

As noted above, it’s a little while now since I dropped this phrase from my regular rotation of opening comments.  However, something that’s not a new thing in HE-sector-speak but which has for some reason started to grate a bit more in recent weeks has made me think I may be being grumpy, but …

it’s all in a word …

And it’s this:

Not the words ‘prestige’ and ‘prestigious’ as such.  I have no problem with judgments of quality and value being made.  When a few years ago colleagues started to gib at what they saw as the over-use of the word ‘excellence’ at the university where I then worked and in the sector more generally, I frequently jump to that word’s defence.  Making judgments (on the basis of informed analysis) about quality and value are a crucial element of what we do in universities.

… or how it gets used …

Rather, it’s the way in which these words get used by universities and sector organisations.  Occasionally it’s the egregious self-description of their own organisation as ‘prestigious’, but that’s fairly rare (though perhaps seen a little more in the Editor’s notes at the foot of press releases and webpages).

What has become endemic though is the bid for ‘prestige by association’.  The online article or press release about the latest prize, award or grant, with the gratuitous reference to the ‘prestigious’ body that has awarded it.  The recipient not immodest enough to refer to itself as prestigious; but seeking to emphasise that that is indeed what it is, as it has been recognised in some way by an organisation that is prestigious.

It’s become a far too common ‘go to’ in external communications, and it’s one that really grates on me.

Why?

… or where it came from

Perhaps the answer lies in the etymology of the word, delving back to its original meaning:

‘Conjuring trick’.  An attempt to create an impression that doesn’t reflect the actual event or thing in question.

And perhaps that’s why the overly frequent use of ‘prestige’ and ‘prestigious’ in higher education press releases and webpages grates so much and, yes, makes me grumpy.  It’s a conjuring trick, an over-used and clumsy one, trying to achieve ‘prestige by association’ for the writer’s own organisation.

Sometimes it amounts to delusion of grandeur. Other times it’s an attempt to create an illusion of grandeur. Either way, the end result when I see the phrase is an uptick or surge (depending on how gratuitous the use of the word is) in my levels of grump.

is it me, or is it them?

Of course this may just be me being old fashioned, in denial that in the 2020s it’s all about organisational self-promotion; and my still having an internal voice that whenever I see this kind of bald claim to ‘prestige’ silently shouts at me, though directed at the organisation making the claim, ‘we’ll be the judge of that, mate’.

Or perhaps it’s just the brazen, artlessness of this grasping for ‘prestige by association’.  If someone is going to try to manipulate my view of their organisation I’d like them to do it with a bit of subtlety and class on the basis of a little thought, rather than simply throwing ‘prestige’ and/or ‘prestigious’ into their text in a parody of a bad Large Language Model.

hoping for a miracle

Either way, I’d like to feel a bit less grumpy.

That could happen if people grasped less readily and often for ‘prestige’ and ‘prestigious’ when writing about their own organisation.  Or it could happen if the current spell of blazing spring weather continued.  I’m not sure which of these two developments is the less likely.