Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

performance agreements. Senior managers met the 5th. Two issues were very sensitive
in this meeting: the establishment of an overarching profile for the whole UAS and
the definition of contact hours for students in their foundation course. Given the
standing policy regarding spearheads an agreement emerged that the overarching
profile should be formulated in the direction of natural sciences. The deans of the
faculties of Health and Technology were contended with the chosen profile, the other
deans more or less reconciled themselves to this fact. The discussion about contact
hours was intensive: the prescription of 424 hours (afterwards corrected to 504 hours
due to my miscalculation) of real contact between a lecturer and students would have
quite some financial and didactical consequences for some faculties or departments.
For me it was the first time since long that I participated in a meeting of the board and
other senior managers (about 20 persons). Many diverging remarks were made on
style, missing details, lacunas and unclear descriptions. Moreover, every faculty wanted
to be recognizable in the document. I hardly participated in the meeting which
instead of one took two and a half hour. I experienced the management meeting as a
Babylonian confusion of tongues. Given my former experiences as a dean I know we
always had trouble to focus. I vainly had hoped for a more concise discussion.
To cut a long story short, up till the 26th, supported by colleagues and with feedback
from a selected group of members of staff, Fiona and I continued working on the
agreements. From time to time we had discussions with Frans Custers and Ella Rietkerk.
During this month the project became dominating my free time. I adopted the
role of and was accepted as the planner by the members of the board and Fiona. I
assembled quite some versions of the document, that constantly expanded due to the
urge of managers and associate professors to profile their faculties and due to the fact
that Frans and Ella preferred a detailed and precise document. They did not want to
take any risk in respect of the review commission and were anxious about the possible
negative consequences of ill prepared agreements. Especially Ella was very critical
regarding precise formulations and definitions and one time beforehand she asked me
if I could take criticism. Afterwards she told me she did this – given that she and I
cooperated the first time since her appointment - to test whether I was competent
enough to handle different opinions and to convert them into one document.
Still for quite some time uncertainty about issues dominated. Different perspectives
on priorities among management remained and it appeared that the Dutch UAS’s
approached the agreements very differently. Moreover, former vagueness in policy and
lacunas in our management information avenged itself. Of course Frans, Ella and Fiona
got annoyed with all the difficulties to get the right information and with the different
perspectives. I got most annoyed from the every time changing perspectives on the
content of the document. At one moment I even exclaimed that my work was a
Sisyphean task, as if I like Sisyphus was punished by the god of the underworld, to roll
back a stone (read: document) to the top of a mountain every day. Although, I have to
admit, this Sisyphean task was sometimes compensated by the fun we had during
5. Drafting performance agreements: gestures of a contemporary jester | 123