… the University of Manchester who are checking out her comments on now-retired Professor Annmarie Surprenant (background here).
She’s been found guilty of gross misconduct. Manchester’s pharmacy school will take a massive hit to its reputation, and could lose accreditation altogether. You’re not supposed to hire and retain people like this.
There’s a rather chaotic comment thread about the events here, at the Times Higher Education. Read carefully, it gives you a sense of the woman’s ballsy, psycho, personality. [Note: That link’s not working very well at the moment. I’ll keep checking on it.]
Speaking of which, the one aspect of the affair which does surprise UD is Surprenant’s continued silence about the tragic youthful circumstances that made her the person she is today.
The definitive university precedent for this comes from Richard Berendzen, one of two recent disgraced ex-presidents at American University. Within minutes of his resignation, Berendzen issued a book about the tragic youthful circumstances that made him the person he is today. UD predicts a Surprenant memoir in the next few months titled
‘YOU’LL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING UNLESS YOU LIE, MARIE!’ — Surviving My Mad Mother
September 7th, 2009 at 12:33PM
I’ve just had a look at the Times’ comment thread, and what strikes me most is the paranoia of her many defenders: Surprenant is a victim of xenophobia, or sexism, or disgruntled colleagues…. Oddly, the point that she could have easily disproved the charges against her by naming the second marker was never picked up, not even after it was made in the thread. To me, the interest is less in the scandal – which seems to be a simple story of an unpleasant, lazy, arrogant woman riding her husband’s coat-tails – but in the reaction.
September 7th, 2009 at 12:39PM
Absolutely, Colin. You know how Americans – especially American university students vying for a Fulbright or a Rhodes or whatever – idealize British universities? I’m not saying the students shouldn’t want to go, and that it isn’t an honor, and that they won’t learn things, etc. But I think all American students should be aware of the really poisonous atmosphere at a lot of British (let’s not even talk about French) universities. This comment thread, as you say, leaves nothing to the imagination.
September 7th, 2009 at 1:37PM
I agree, although only to a point. I was at Cambridge, and got the usual (and wholly expected) teasing about being an American (actually Canadian, but nobody asked). It just made me work harder. Otherwise, I found the atmosphere stimulating and rewarding. Although there were plenty of bitter feuds that could have been taken directly from C.P. Snow, it was a reasonably tolerant, reasonably open, and reasonably rational place. An American friend who did a PhD at Leeds had the same experience. What I would really like to know is how many of the comments came from academics at the former polytechnics, which seem to be ideal climates for the growing of chips. I know Surprenant was at Manchester, but I wonder how many of her defenders are in research institutions?
September 7th, 2009 at 5:03PM
I agree with Colin, at least from my own experience in the Biochemistry Department at Cambridge. Incredibly smart people who worked their butts off on all sorts of things. They weren’t one dimensional and they came from everywhere. Just as an example – one guy was a Roman economic historian [sic]. This is the kind of stuff you wouldn’t find at very many American universities. As usual, it is the people who are important. But there seemed to be far above the average number of good ones at Cambridge. There is a great recent book about the Cambridge scientist and historian, Joe Needham, called the man who loved China. I don’t know very many American universities where a guy like this would have survived.
September 7th, 2009 at 8:22PM
Even in Cambridge, Needham was eccentric: a bibliophilic Anglo-Catholic Marxist bio-chemist who produced, almost entirely out of the resources of his own library, a massive groundbreaking work on China. Not only did he survive in Cambridge, for ten years he was Master of my College, Gonville and Caius.
September 7th, 2009 at 10:07PM
Even in Cambridge, Needham had a tough time, though. The worst of it was when he was hoodwinked by the North Koreans into signing a report that the US had engaged in germ warfare. It was only after a long rehabilitation period and a peasants revolt by the young people that he ascended the throne at Keys. Did you read the book, Colin, The Man Who Loved China? If not, you’d like it.
Eccentric? He and his wife and his mistress were an item for many years. Finally his wife died and he married the mistress. Then the mistress died and he reportedly asked three others to marry him. No takers.
September 10th, 2009 at 5:45AM
I don’t think the atmosphere at British Universities is quite so poisonous as made out above. There are plenty of departments, including some at Manchester, that have a generally happy and collegiate atmosphere.
Just glad I don’t work at Funcaster http://registrarsdiary.blogspot.com/!
September 10th, 2009 at 11:42AM
The comments on the THE website hint at a "conspiracy" in a xenophobic and sexist faculty. The truth is that Life Sciences in Manchester is a multi-nationality faculty with a reasonably high number of female senior staff members and pretty good working environment. It’s essentially a meritocracy with the emphasis placed mostly on research prowess. Like anywhere, there are power struggles and personality clashes, and management is pretty leery of adverse publicity. However, Surprenant is unique in that she managed to offend pretty much everyone with whom she came into contact. It would be false to describe us, the other members of the Faculty as her "colleagues" because she exhibited not an ounce of collegiality. As far as the conspiracy angle is concerned, well, no-one stepped up to defend her that’s for sure. The story though is more one of multiple pigeons coming home to roost – what has not been in the press are the many other instances when she has lied, abused the system, ignored the rules and generally pissed everyone off in the 2.5 years she has spent in Manchester. Unfortunately, the truth is that most people were too intimidated by her connections to call her to account and it has taken several members of staff putting their necks on the block to bring things to their current resolution. Had she been a popular member of staff, this final "little transgression" would probably have been ignored and she would have been allowed to continue, at least in her research capacity. However, those members of staff who value collegiality, good manners and honesty are glad that management have grasped the nettle and got rid of her.
September 10th, 2009 at 11:54AM
Gilbert: I appreciate that background.
The core problem here, it seems to me, is the old give-the-spouse-a-job-because-you-want-the-spouse’s-spouse problem.
While I understand the occasional need for universities to bite the bullet and do this in order to get a really spectacular person, I’m in general strongly opposed to it. It’s simply corrupt. It too often lands resentful university departments with people they would not have hired had they been able to act autonomously. And in its worst cases, as in the Surprenant business, it’s destructive to the entire institution.
September 10th, 2009 at 2:33PM
Obviously the above poster only coincidently shares a name with Prof Alan Gilbert the President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Manchester….but if it is someone in the Faculty of Life Sciences writing under a nom de plume it is interesting to hear their perspective. One usually suspects these things are not as they seem in the news.
September 11th, 2009 at 2:58AM
As I have commented on the MEN website, Surprenant initially applied to Manchester in the "interregnum" period after her husband’s appointment as Dean of FLS but before he actually took up the post. The outgoing Dean, a virtually incorruptible individual, refused her application as "unsuitable". However, once Alan North (AMS’s husband) took up his position, she was transformed into an acceptable candidate and appointed, albeit to a different and more prestigious chair. This appointment was pushed through at a very high level, against the wishes of many senior members of staff and despite the fact that at interview, Surprenant expressed her unwillingness to take on any leadership, teaching or administration roles.
September 11th, 2009 at 3:11AM
“Surprenant expressed her unwillingness to take on any leadership, teaching or administration roles.”
The well-named Surprenant retains her capacity, even after her story is over, to surprise.
September 11th, 2009 at 4:45AM
I have renamed her Prof. Serpent-tongue. Or rather, Dr. Serpent-tongue as she now is.
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:19AM
I have met some of the people involved and the thing that amazes me is that nobody has suggested that perhaps AnneMarie might be the brains behind her husband’s career.
I can’t see him being as successful if he hadn’t been able to fix her a job at every institute he worked in.
August 22nd, 2011 at 4:29PM
Regardless of the fact that at interview she, ‘expressed her unwillingness to take on any leadership, teaching or administration roles’, the vast majority of students LOVED Surprenant.
It is barbaric to me that Alan Gilbert, President/ Vice Chancellor of the University of Manchester would think it were professional & constructive to spend his time posting comments about a fellow colleague, naming her ‘Dr. Serpent-tongue’ on a website.
The article in the Manchester Evening News refers to the fact that some students expressed worries about her quality of teaching within one module she taught in the final academic year. The fact is that this was a tiny minority, she taught a difficult subject and she helped the students by making the lecture style unconventional. The intermediate version of this module taught to largely the same students in their second year (by another lecturer within the University, who is a good lecturer) is one of the most failed subjects in the entire University of Manchester. Students taking her subject, however, grasped the material, despite the module being difficult and performed in exams (verified post-investigation into what students actually wrote on their exam papers). She delivers results.
It’s a shame the Vice Chancellor spends his time slating her on websites instead of recognising her strengths.