Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

5.1 Countdown to May, building up till September
January: a flabbergasting invitation
In the mid-afternoon of the 6th the General Secretary to the Board entered my office.
After some chitchat he invited me to reflect on the performance agreements. In
asking me, he reminded me on the good salary I earn, probably suggesting that I ought
to do something in return. He invited me for the next meeting of the executive board.
A bit flabbergasted by his remark about the need to earn my salary I agreed on his
invitation.
In preparation of the meeting of the 17th I put up an outline based on the letter of the
State Secretary (Zijlstra, 2011). I emphasized the many risks we had to manage. I wanted
to attract attention for two topics. First the fact - based on our ranking - that we
do good things in our UAS, but never (exactly) the things politicians or management
strategically plan, made me ask what’s the worth of our strategic planning. Second my
concern was to prevent introducing new concepts which would suggest many changes
in standing policy. My option was to stay close to our successful long-term policy
and not to unintendedly broadcast a negative evaluation of our results so far. Given
the former lack of results of tight planning I wanted to tickle everyone to realize that
planning and implementation never will be an evident fact. I guessed that my input
would be inconvenient because it would put things into perspective before starting to
work on them.
I introduced “Imperturbably remaining ourselves” as a leading motto, to underline that
amidst of all political and societal turbulence we had our own convictions, successes
and stability on which we could depend. It should be an inspiring antidote for the
everlasting critical evaluations and the policy-hypes around Higher Education.
Present on the 17th were Paul Broersen (President of the Board), Frans Custers (member
of the board, portfolio: Finance and Control), Ella Rietkerk (member of the board,
portfolio: Education and Research), our director Finance & Control Fiona Cornips, the
General Secretary to the Board and I.
This meeting about the agreements did not have a specified agenda, so when asked
who would start, I started with an elucidation of my summary, especially pointing to
the risks of not being able to fulfil the demands at the end. It aroused some annoyance
and was interpreted as a bit of a cynical proposition. When Frans Custers wanted to
know what amount of money potentially was at stake, it struck everyone that it
concerned 5 to 7 million Euros. The focus of the discussions became the development
of critical performance indicators, the responsibility of Fiona Cornips. She had prepared
information on the indicators quality and educational success. From October 2011
she had felt urgency to start developing these indicators and tried to convince us of
this urgency. The other indicators profiling, spearheads and valorisation had not been
her concern. One of her conclusions was that the prescribed indicators did not match
5. Drafting performance agreements: gestures of a contemporary jester | 119