SPIRES

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Philip Greenfield groaned inwardly. He had drawn the short straw this year and had to sit in on the Exam Board for the loonies down the hall. So here he was. Four hours of unrelenting boredom, infighting and petty arguments to go, in the knowledge that he would have to catch up on his own exam marking when he went home.
Professor Jenkins rapped the table. “Welcome to the Department of Applied Metamagical Anthropology exam board and progression board. Thank you to our external examiner Professor Gribonnaci for attending” here he inclined his head at his rival and attempted a smile. “and to Philip Greenfield from Physics who is here to make sure we dot our “i”s and cross our “t”s. Got to follow university regulations, you know.” Philip winced as the deathly grin was directed at him.
“Joining us on Skype is Dr Hawkins, director of the MSc programme, who is travelling to our Bhatar campus and cannot be here in person.”
Gwen switched on the projector to reveal a bleary eyed unshaven Hawko peering at the assembled company. “I'm in Labrador” he said with a hefty buzz of static.
Gillian glanced at her laptop screen to see that she had an incoming request to text chat on Skype from “GraniteMan”.
“It's me” typed Hawkins. “Can't get through these meetings without someone to complain to. Solidarity and all that.”
“GraniteMan???” replied Gillian.
Jenkins continued “I shall now read the marks for each candidate and our recommendation for their degree classification or progression to the next year. I remind colleagues that our job is to keep standards high, not be kind to students.”
“Yeah right” typed Hawko to Gillian. “We all know professors get bonuses based on how many firsts we award.”
Gwen was busy handing out pages and pages of closely printed documents.
“Progression code bingo!:-) :-)” typed Hawko.
“What?” typed Gillian, who was new to the ways of Exam Boards at Granite.
“All of these codes are a fate for a student. Like “11 – resit required”. Or “63- progress to next year of study”. The aim is to be first to circle all of the codes in your table.” He paused, then typed some more. “But that's hard because you have to stay awake. Even harder if your flight has been delayed for the last 9 hours and the airport is out of coffee due to unforseen supply chain problems”.
“Aitken, Tim. Recommend 14. Arrow, Barbara, recommend 11 for F21AD” started Jenkins at speed.
“Hang on!” said Philip, “ Haven't you got the year groups mixed up? Aitken is a first year but Arrow is 3rd year.”
“We do it alphabetically for all students” explained Gwen patronisingly.
“But that's crazy” Philip protested. “It makes it harder to compare quality of the final degree students because you can't see them ranked together.”
“Yes dear” said Gwen “But it's not fair to age discriminate against the students. The first years need our attention too.”
“What she means” typed Hawko “Is that she doesn't know how to make Excel do anything but alphabetical sorting”. Gillian laughed out loud, earning herself a black look from Gwen.
Streams of names and marks followed. Names were mangled. Degrees were awarded. Students were booted out. Students were allowed to proceed against the better judgement of their lecturers.
“Jones, Matilda: 61” said Jenkins. This caused a buzz and a flurry of paper flipping as people tried to work out what that decision code meant.
Philip found it first. “61 – student forgot to attend exam. Resit. Acquisition of diary required.”
“Forgot to attend an exam? This is outrage!” exclaimed Irene. “At home such student would be finished. No further chances.”
“This is not Latvia, Dr Pop.. um... We strive to be fair here” said Jenkins.
“I am not from Latvia! I tell you once, I tell you many times!” said Irene furiously.
“Shouldn't we “42” her then?” asked Hawko from afar.
“42? Temporary suspension of studies. Common sense required”.
“You're just saying that to fill up your bingo card” typed Gillian.
“ I got it first. Paws off” he replied.
“That fits. Minute that, Gwen.” said Jenkins impatiently, mindful of his golf game at 6pm. “Joyce, James: 23. Karamah, Sirinya: 11. Lennon, Robert: 55.”
“He's one of the ones with the medical certificate” reminded Gwen, passing it to him.
Jenkins read it. “Leprosy. Covers the period from semester 1 till now.”
“But I saw him in class last week!” protested Dr Singh, who taught Psi Studies. “What if he infected the other students? What if he infected me?”
“You show a lack of concern for the student's welfare” said Dr Smith loftily.
“You're only saying that because all your stuff is distance learning and you never have to meet your students.” glared Singh.
“Distance learning is entirely appropriate to the study of telekinesis” Smith snarled back.
“If I may interject...” said Philip.
“No, you may not” said Jenkins. “Lincoln, Cameron, 11”.
“It's against university regulations to reveal the student's medical details in an open meeting this way. It's sufficient to say the student has a medical cert.”
“But dearie” said Gwen, “It's not as if it's a scandal. Not like Amanda Nairn's cert from the STD clinic. Anyone could get leprosy, even if they were well behaved. Not like that tramp.”
Philip stared at her open mouthed, wondering where to begin. Jenkins moved on to “Lui, Xi: 99”.
Gribonnaci stood up. “I will not allow this student to receive a first class degree” he said firmly. “The standard at Granite is far too low. It is a clear 2:1”
“But he's one of our best students!” said Hawko, moved from his lethargy by this unfairness.
“Best at Granite does not mean much” sneered Gribonnaci.
“I notice he failed your module” said Singh to Smith. “Obviously the teaching wasn't up to much”.
Smith sniffed. “It's a topic which requires The Gift. Mere hard work will not suffice.”
“Pansy” said Singh under his breath.
“What this means: “pansy”” asked Irene innocently.
“Right, that's it! I've had it with you, you second rate piss pedlar” announced Smith. Getting to his feet, he slowly and deliberately poured his cold scummy coffee down Singh's impeccable white shirt.
Singh gave an incoherent bellow of rage and punched him full in the face.
“Move the web cam so I can see, will you?” typed Hawkins.
“WTF?” typed Gillian, horrified.
Jenkins glanced up. “That's your call, Greenfield” he said mildly.
Philip sighed and ambled over to where the men were circling each other like scrawny boxers. He caught Singh by the scruff of the neck, Smith by the ear, marched them into the corridor, closed the door behind them and returned to his seat.
“Shame” typed Hawkins. “I was enjoying that. They do it every year you know. But my money was on Singh this year because of Smith's sciatica.”
“Right, Lui, Xi: 99” said Jenkins briskly. “I'm taking Chairman's action to give him a first. Don't pout, Gribonacci.”
Gillian, having returned to the spreadsheet she had been working on now the distraction was over, felt she had to speak up.
“Err. Mr Chairman”, she said loudly, not giving him a chance to ignore her. “I've been checking the marks. They're not right!”
Gwen tutted loudly. “Rubbish! My mental arithmetic is as good as it ever was. Of course they're right.”
“You surely don't calculate the marks in your head?” asked Philip in horror.
“I've just checked them in Excel” said Gillian apologetically to Gwen. “And it looks as though you've sorted the student names alphabetically but not their marks column at the same time. So the marks against the names aren't the right ones. Its all hopelessly jumbled.”
Philip put his head in his hands. He didn't want to do this, but he had no choice. He was going to have to suspend the exam board, thus disappointing hundreds of students who would be waiting their results, not to mention making a life-long enemy of Jenkins.
“As representative of the university, I am afraid that I must call a halt to the meeting until such a time as we can be confident the marks are correct” he said, trying for a magisterial tone.
Jenkins looked at him, and then at the clock. It was 5.35. If he left now, he could be on the green in 20 minutes.
“How unfortunate” he said. “I believe Greenfield is correct. This meeting is adjourned. Gwen, take the usual action. Thank you all for coming.”
Philip and Gillian sat bewildered as the other academics unconcernedly filed out, chatting among themselves.
Jenkins clasped Philip warmly by the hand and escorted him out the room, chatting jovially.
“Again: WTF???” typed Gillian.
“Watch Gwen” typed Hawko with a yawn. “Good night!” he switched off his webcam. As soon as Philip was out of the door Gwen gathered up all the student files into a huge stack on the desk.
“Could you, dearie?” she asked Gillian, indicating she wanted help to climb onto the table. Gillian assisted in astonishment.
Gwen lifted the pile above her head and dropped them on the floor. “There we are” she said as they landed scattered across the floor. “The ones which land closest to the portrait of Jenkins get firsts, the ones closest to the bin fail, and the ones in between go in the order they land.”
She caught Gillian's look of consternation. “You mustn’t worry dear. It's perfectly fair. We do it every single year.”