From: The Departmental Secretary (Maureen)
To: Full-time, part-time, casual and downright marginal staff
The following points apply to this year's finals marking:
1. Following a dispute over the relative significance of Herbert Marcuse in neo-Marxist thinking, W. B. will not second mark the Radical Inquiry course with T. O. (Ted Odgers). Attempts to find an alternative departmental marker have failed, so this paper will be now be marked by T. O. and someone from his local branch of the RRCP (the Relatively Revolutionary Communist Party) whom T. O. describes as "theoretically sound".
2. All finals marks must be submitted to the new LHMF committee (Let's Have More Firsts) for independent adjudication.
3. I am informed by Dr Piercemuller that the deadline for marking on SP 109 and TH 112 will have to be extended because of postal delays occasioned in Sicily by fears of Etna erupting. (Don't even ask.) 4. As more than 80 per cent of our undergraduate courses are entirely taught by graduate assistants, there is no longer any rule against such assistants acting as first and second markers.
5. The refusal by porters to help carry large bundles of papers to staff cars has created some problems for older faculty, but the practice of heaving such bundles out of upstairs windows for subsequent ground-level collection can no longer be condoned.
6. Avoid giving the mark of 57. Its appearance on more than 75 per cent of last year's papers suggested a certain lack of discrimination.
7. Although we theoretically operate on a marking scale of 1 to 100, note that the scale really runs only between 32 and 77. Marks below or above should be regarded as "maverick".
8. A script has turned up in the office that appears to relate to a course on "Devotional Texts in Anglo-Saxon Literature". There is no formal record of this option in the course handbook, but to be safe, the paper has been read by Dr Quintock who felt that, despite its "cavalier treatment of Bede", it merited a lower second.
Yours finally,
Maureen