A Don calling!

Our university has responded quickly to the news that more students are choosing institutions in their own locality so that they can save money by continuing to live at home.

Last week saw the inauguration of the Poppleton Domiciliary Project, which will encourage supervisors and personal tutors to visit their supervisees in their own homes.

Second-year History for Business student, Dave Granby, of 23 Elm Tree Drive, Middle Poppleton, was surprised last Tuesday morning to find his supervisor, Dr L.G. Ames, standing on the doorstep. "At first it was quite a shock," he admitted, "but it was relaxing to have a chat about my academic progress in the back kitchen, and Dr Ames seemed to enjoy his mug of tea and three slices of sponge cake. So much, in fact, that he stayed on for a chat with my gran about the aftermath of the Battle of the Somme."

Support for the scheme came from our Director of Corporate Affairs, Jamie Targett. He forecast that the increasing number of "domestically incumbent" students would soon allow for the development of "street seminars". "We hear a lot about the need for universities to be business facing: we like to think we are pioneers in making them home-centred."

One small note of dissent was sounded by Granby's mother, Mrs Tessa Granby (47), who said that although she appreciated the pedagogic aims of the new scheme, tutors like Dr Ames did need to be reminded that "sponge cake didn't grow on trees".

Here be treasure

Allegations of "cultural vandalism" were made this week after the discovery in a skip outside our Central Library of the complete literary collection formerly belonging to the Poppleton nature poet, Sylvia Dobbins.

Ms Dobbins, whose works include Rhapsody on a Sunny Morning, Lines Written on Blackfriars Bridge and The Waste Ground, bequeathed her entire collection of papers "in perpetuity" to the university in 2007, just six weeks before her untimely death in a bizarre canoeing accident.

When The Poppletonian asked Mr J.B. Thorpe, the new Corporate Manager of Information Services (formerly the Head Librarian), for an explanation, he claimed that he was "sick and tired" of people bequeathing things to his library. "No sooner have we cleared away all those books and journals that used to clutter up the place than along comes someone else wanting to bequeath another pile of old dusty boxes for perpetuity. Anyone would think we were a Sue Ryder shop rather than a state-of-the-art online electronic teaching resource."

Who Guards the Guards?

Janet Fluellen, our Director of Curriculum Development, has denounced academics who cheat during exam invigilation. "We've already had one case in which an invigilator gave himself permission to use the toilet and was never seen again, and another in which the invigilator was found reading a copy of Forever in my Heart by Jade Goody, which he'd stitched inside his sports jacket." Ms Fluellen refused to comment on the controversial case of Dr Quintock, who is alleged to have constructed an escape tunnel under his invigilation desk.

Thought for the Week

(contributed by Jennifer Doubleday, Head of Personal Development)

A clerical error meant that the mantra used in last week's Advanced Meditation course appeared as Lakshmi: Om Shrim Mahalakhmiyei Swaha when it should have been Lakshmi: Om Shrim Mahalakshmiyei Swaha. Apologies to all those who wasted time repeatedly chanting the mistaken version.

lolsoc@dircon.co.uk.