Chapter 27: A Government Overboard

Restructuring the School

Late November, 2000

“Are you still sure about us all getting married?” Lori asked me when we woke up. “It was a pretty much off-the-wall suggestion, and I kinda sprung in on you last night.”

“No, I think it sounds a wonderful idea, let’s talk about it with the other two over breakfast,” I said. “Besides, what’s so crazy about people who love each other getting married?”

“Well, it’s not the usual marriage when four people are all getting married to each other, is it?”

“And when have we ever been concerned about following the rules, and doing what is ‘expected’ of us?”

“That’s true,” she said. “Now, I think you need to fuck your future wife – at least one of your future wives – again before we get up and dressed!”

“Well, when you put it like that ... how would you want to do it? On the balcony? Bent over the side of the bed? Something else?”

“Over the side of the bed, I want to feel you driving into me!”

We moved around, and she bent over the side of the bed, I stood behind her, and took her, fucking her hard and fast. She was moaning loudly, crying out instructions – in very explicit terms – until she came, groaning, her body shaking. After my own orgasm, we were both very sweaty and breathless; after I pulled out of her, we went into the bathroom to get ready for our day.

Sitting at the banquette in the kitchen having breakfast, I announced to the others what Lori’s idea was.

“Lori and I were talking last night,” I started to say, “and she came up with an interesting suggestion.”

“I bet it was interesting!” Megan said. “A new position?”

“Well, more interesting than that,” I continued. “I asked her, now that she had been baptised, whether she had second thoughts about us having sex, the complicated relationships, and none of us married. She said it didn’t change her mind about anything, what we are doing isn’t causing harm to anyone, we are all very happy with how things are, and one thing led to another, and I told her that if it was just her and I in the relationship, I would have asked her to marry me – just as if it was only each of you, I would have don’t the same.”

“I think we have all realized that, Will,” Michelle said. “I know ... if it was only you and me together, we would either be married already, or well on the way to the altar!”

“Same here,” Megan said.

“And that’s what makes things for us difficult; as much as each of us would be willing to be married to me, how can that work when there are all four of us, and I’m sure each of you women would want to be married to the other two women, too.”

They all nodded.

“So, there’s no real answer, is there,” Megan said. “We are stuck just living together, in our complicated foursome.”

“A menage a trois ... no, that’s three people, a menage a quatre, if I remember my high school French,” Michelle said.

“Exactly.” I said, summarizing things. “So, here’s where Lori’s suggestion comes in. What if all four of us marry? It would be very unofficial, since there is no legal way I can marry more than one of you, and you all can’t marry each other. But we could have an ‘unofficial’ marriage, where we all pledge ourselves to each other, vowing to be faithful to each other, and to be together, in love, for the rest of our lives.”

“How would that work? Who would do it?” Michelle asked.

“It sounds good in theory, but what effect would it have?” Megan said.

“I’m thinking about asking my sister to do the ceremony, taking a standard wedding service, modifying it as appropriate, adjusting the vows, but still, each of us would be promising to each other,” Lori said. “We don’t need the force of law to make us obey our vows, we are giving our word, and we either accept that or not. What it means, though, is we are making a public – well, a semi-public – statement about our commitment to each other. We probably wouldn’t want to make it widespread knowledge, we would attract too much attention and criticism, and there’s no need to do that. Things have been running smoothly the way things are; even if a few people at Church might have some suspicions, no one has said anything, and it hasn’t affected us in a negative way.”

“No one has to make a decision either way right now, think it over today, and we can talk more tonight,” I said. “But think, if the laws allowed all four of us to get married in a four-way combination, would we go through with it? I suspect we would, so all we are doing is making our own rules, doing what we think is right for us.”

“I know I would do that if the law would let us,” Michelle said. “Would you see us wearing wedding rings?”

“That might raise a few questions if we suddenly appeared with a gold band on our left-hand ring finger,” I said. “Now, I have an heirloom, it was my great-great-grandmother’s family ring, what the Irish called a ‘Claddagh Ring’, and the tradition is that if I wear it on my right hand, with the point of the heart towards my wrist, then I am in a relationship, someone has ‘captured my heart’, as the legend goes. If anyone asks me about it, I can truthfully say it’s a family heirloom, an ancestor brought it to the colony from Ireland. What each of you might choose to wear is up to you, of course.”

“That makes sense,” Megan said. “I think I have something like that ring that I could wear. But no sense in drawing attention to things and attracting unwanted criticism.”

“I’m thinking we have a few close friends around, those who we know would accept things, without criticising us, and not spread gossip around, either,” Lori said. “Obviously, my sister and Chris, since my sister will be doing the ceremony, but Allison and Jenny, Kaz and Angie, I was thinking Fiona and Jeff, but then Dennis – given he’s only a few years old – wouldn’t understand that he can’t tell anyone. I know I would like my parents to be there, they are very supportive of our relationships.”

“Mine, too,” I said.

“I can’t see mine understanding,” Megan said. “They don’t have a problem with the four of us living together, but they don’t want to know the details, and wouldn’t understand, either.”

“Well, I don’t have any family to invite,” Michelle said. “The three of you are my family, now.”

“Think about it today,” I said, “and we can talk about it further tonight. Now, it’s time I was heading over to the University.”

“I’ll be ready in about ten minutes,” Michelle said. “It’s going to be a busy day, with those two staff meetings.”

I made sure I had the floppy disk with the copies of the presentations, and we were on the road to Kensington in fifteen minutes.

“That was a bit of a bombshell, Lori’s suggestion about us all getting ‘married’,” Michelle said. “I’m not criticizing it, I’m not against it, there is some sense to it. I mean, it’s not going to change anything legally involving us, the law won’t recognize us having any sort of a relationship beyond friendship, but I like the idea that we are stating our commitment to each other. I know that you know if it was just you and me, I would want us to get married right away, as soon as possible, if we weren’t married already. But we can’t do that, where would that leave Lori and Megan? And I love them too, and if I could, I would marry them ... Why are things so fucking complicated! We all love each other, so who gives a flying fuck about us marrying each other, all four in a big web of married love.”

“Well, society wants to dictate how people can relate to each other,” I said. “There are lots of historical conventions, different interpretations on what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. And things are likely to go backwards, from what I hear; the Prime Minister – that turd Howard – is going to propose an amendment to the Federal Marriage act, defining ‘marriage’ as between a man and woman only, and refusing to acknowledge any overseas same-sex marriages.”

“Well, that sucks, doesn’t it,” she said. “I bet that will piss Kaz off. Is there really a need to make that amendment? I thought there was the assumption already that same-sex marriages weren’t legal here.’

“Well, as I understand things – and this is my layman’s interpretation – there’s no explicit definition that ‘marriage’, at least under the Federal Act – is between a man and a woman, that’s just how it has been over centuries of common law. Howard is doing a ‘pre-emptive strike’, basically as a big ‘up yours’ to the gay and lesbian lobby, to make sure they can’t make a legal challenge to being refused a marriage license, because same-sex marriage isn’t explicitly prohibited.”

“And even less chance of plural marriage,” she said.

“I suspect we will all be dead and buried before anything like what we have becomes legally recognized,” I said.

“Hence the reason for Lori’s proposal,” she replied. “It does seem to make a lot of sense.”

“Something we can think about more today,” I said. “Right now, I need to get things printed off for the first staff meeting, and to make sure my PowerPoint presentation will work in that lecture room.”

We walked from the car park to our offices, and once in mine, I put the floppy disk with my presentations into my computer. I printed off a copy of the main handout, the proposed School structure, and a sample research proposal document, and I asked Ann to run off enough copies for all the academic staff. Then I walked down to the lecture room where I planned to hold the meeting, and tested the projector system to make sure the PowerPoint presentation would work. The laptop computer had a remote control ‘clicker’ so I could advance and retard the presentation, without having to be at the main desk using the laptop, which I though was particularly useful. The presentation looked good on the projector screen, so I went back to my office, the staff meeting wasn’t until 10:00. There was plenty of time for me to go over my speaking notes, to make sure I covered everything that I wanted to, and to make sure what I said was clear, with no misunderstandings.

Ann had made the copies of all the documents for me, and at 9:45 Michelle and I walked down to the lecture room. I placed the handouts on the desk at the front of the room, double checked that the projector and laptop were working, and waited for the starting time. People started to file in, and I pointed to the handouts for them to get. I was pleasantly surprised to see Mark Wainwright, Timothy Hesketh (one of the associate deans), and Chris Daly (one of his main assistants) quietly come in and sit at the back of the room. Right on 10:00, I turned on the projector, and the opening slide was shown on the screen.

“Good morning, everyone, thank you for taking the time to attend today. As you all know, Michelle and I have been speaking with everyone in the school to get your views on what we should be doing, what changes we need to make, and how you see yourselves working with us. This morning, I want to go over a few points, firstly, what I see our goals and objectives should be, secondly, a revised structure and organization to the school, and thirdly, how we need to lift our research activities. You should have all got a copy of the handouts, they are a summary of what I will be covering today.

“So first, our goals and objectives. I don’t want to have a bunch of waffle that looks like we have been invaded by a horde of MBA graduates. But, unless we have a common aim, a shared vision of what it is that we as the School of Computer Science Engineering is meant to be doing, then we won’t be able to work in the one direction...”

My speech was interrupted as one person – one of the younger lecturers – came into the room.

“I’m sorry that I’m late,” he said. “I wasn’t watching the time.”

“Okay, take a handout, and take a seat, quietly. In future – and this applied to everyone – whenever I schedule a staff meeting, which I will try to avoid unless absolutely necessary – I will expect everyone to be here, and ready to participate in the meeting, at the scheduled starting time. If you are late, not only are you being disrespectful to me, but you are being inconsiderate and showing no respect to your colleagues.

“Now, as I was saying, we need to have a common goal that we can all get behind. For those of you who have been working with me for some time, it will probably come as no surprise that I have three key points on our ‘Goals’.”

I pressed the remote control button, and the next screen, with the title ‘Goals’ appeared.

“The first goal, the School will be the leading computer science educational institution in Australia, and our graduates will be in high demand by both the public and private sectors. Of course, that goes back to why the University of Technology, as we were originally named, was set up in the first place; our role was to train scientists, engineers, and technologists for the country.

“The second goal, we will be acknowledged across Australia, and around the world as one of the leading Computer Science research institutions. I want us to be thought of as the ‘Stanford of Australia’, or like MIT. There’s no reason why we can’t produce world-class research work, and I’ll be talking further about our research activities a little later.

“Thirdly, I want us to be seen by the rest of the UNSW community as a resource they can call upon for Information Systems and Computer Technology advice. That’s not to say we take away from the University’s Data Centre and help desk organization, but we have - or should have – a level of knowledge about the use of information systems technology that the typical IT Department lacks.”

As I spoke to each point, with the remote clicker I was able to advance the slide, to show the key words for that point on the screen. Having shared my vision for the school, it was now time to talk about the restructuring. I started out by saying that no one need fear that their job will be going, or they would no longer be needed; all I was doing was restructuring our existing staffing into a more logical structure. The first slide showed the high level structure of the school – the executive (myself, Michelle, Ann), the Administration group, the First Year group, and the four discipline areas. I mentioned what each discipline would cover, who the head of each would be, and said that over the next week I would be allocating staff to each group.

“Once we are happy with the structure, I want to start to look at our undergraduate degree syllabus. I will be relying on each discipline leader to suggest what changes we would need to make to our existing subjects, where they fit into our structure, and who should be responsible for teaching and administering each subject. This is how we will achieve our first goal; we must make sure we are teaching the sort of material that students need to know, that should be a key part of any computer science education.”

I talked some more about each discipline, including the various aspects of computer science that would fit into each, and examples of the types of subjects that would be taught by staff within that discipline. I told them that over the next two weeks, the discipline manager and I will work on revising our existing subjects.

“The next major issue concerns our research program, or, to put it bluntly, the LACK of a proper research program. This isn’t a problem isolated to our school, from what I hear, it is affecting all schools within our faculty, which is why the Dean has appointed Professor Paul Compton as Associate Dean of Research, to coordinate our research activities across the whole faculty. The bottom line is that EVERY member of our academic staff needs to be actively engaged in a suitable research program – EVERY ONE OF YOU. No exceptions. If you don’t know how to find a suitable project, look around. There are hundreds of free and open source development projects going on in the world, they are always looking for people to be involved in their projects. If you are interested in web development, the World Wide Web Consortium runs lots of research and development activities. There are projects doing in the School of Electrical Engineering with considerable overlap to some of the things that we do.

“Among the handouts you will see a sample ‘research project registration’ form, which covers some of the work I do in Linux kernel development. Before the Christmas break, I will expect every one of you to have found a suitable project, completed a form like that, and submitted it through your discipline leader to Ron van der Meyden, who I have designated our school’s research coordinator. He will work with Professor Compton, to ensure what we are doing is known and coordinated faculty wide.

“Now, there are three key reasons why each academic staff member needs to be actively involved in research. One, it is a great way for you to learn more, to see new perspectives on fields that you think you understand, and to see what is happening at the cutting edge of that field of knowledge. Two, it’s a way to contribute to the further understanding of our fields. If no one did any research, then things would stagnate. And finally, it establishes both your reputation and that of the University in the wider world as someone – or as an institution – that is leading development and the understanding of new knowledge in our field.

“You don’t need any special permission to research in a certain area, so long as you complete the registration form, and discuss it with your discipline leader and with Ron. If you don’t know how to find something to work on, speak with your discipline leader, or Ron, or myself. If you come to me, I will expect you to show me all the areas that you have investigated, I want you to show initiative, show me how serious you are in looking into things. Don’t come to me expecting me to do all the investigation for you.

“Now, unless there are any questions, that’s all I have to cover this morning. Over the next two weeks, I will be speaking with those of you responsible for one or more undergraduate subjects, so I will expect you to have copies of your detailed syllabi, lesson plans, textbook recommendations, sample assignments and projects, and anything else related to how those subjects are taught.”

“I have one question, prof ... I mean, Will,” one of the younger lecturers started to ask. “My name is Peter Ho, and it’s about research projects, at least the choice of areas in which we might seek to do some research. I can remember Professor Hiller telling us that he didn’t want, and these were his words, at least as I can best recall, ‘he didn’t want the University diluting its reputation on silly projects like open source stuff’. His view was that the people involved in those systems, and in that ‘free software movement’ were just ‘socialists and radicals’. What’s your view on that?”

That comment threw me, but then again, knowing what I did about Hiller, his disparaging comments on open source work didn’t surprise me.

“Well, this may come as no surprise, considering I disagree with just about all of Professor Hiller’s views and pronouncements, I am completely opposed to his approach there. If you look at the record, rather than not ‘diluting’ our research reputation, he completely destroyed it. As far as open source projects are concerned, there is a lot of very important work being done in that field. Programming Languages – like Perl, PHP, Python – operating systems work, like Linux, other software products – the Apache Web server, MySql for relational data base management, the Mozilla project with its web browser, the list goes on.

“Now, if anyone here feels that they can contribute to those projects, you will have my full support. Let me tell you about how we would select staff for my old company; of course, we would look at their technical abilities and work history, did they have the knowledge and experience, the proven ability to do the tasks the position required. But we also looked at their personalities, would they fit into the ‘culture’ of WTM Consulting, could they work well with others, and be good ambassadors for the company to our customers. The third factor; were they doing anything to contribute to society – were they volunteering in some way, were they involved in some free software development, were they using their talents to benefit others. We were looking for well-rounded individuals, people who tried to do more in life than just work and make money. So, I fully support those so called ‘socialists and radicals’ in the free software movement, they are trying to make technology better and more widely available. So, just because some project may not have some big profitable company behind it, while it may not be the next big thing that pulls in millions for its inventors, that’s not what is important to us – we are seeking to advance society’s knowledge and understanding in the computer science field. If that is done on a voluntary basis, where the products are available gratis, what’s the big issue?

“So, if anyone wants to work on a project or researching and developing a new piece of software, don’t be put off if it isn’t some commercial product, if it’s an open source project, go for it.”

“Tim Lambert,” another said, raising his hand. “How do you see these ‘disciplines’ working? Will that mean more meetings, more administration staff?”

“How each discipline leader runs their group is up to them,” I said. “My management style is to delegate to others and have them use their initiative and judgment to manage the tasks they have been given. If they believe that they need regular meetings with their staff, I’m not going to interfere. But – and this is a general comment – I’m not a lover of meetings just for the sake of meeting. At my old company, the CEO felt that any time people spent in meetings was time taking them away from doing things that earned money, that delivered products to our customers, so there had to be a damn good reason for a meeting. That’s not to say there weren’t any, obviously, some are required, either to make sure everyone knows what’s happening with a particular project, or to get people’s input, design ideas, things like that.”

“Adnan Amin,” another of the lecturers said. “When do you think subjects and their content will be determined for next year?”

“Given that classes start on February 26, we don’t have a lot of time to make any substantial changes,” I said. “My concentration will be on our first year classes, but I am looking at developing a series of what I have tentatively titled ‘Software Engineering Workshops’, where students will form teams, that will work on the complete lifecycle of a software project development, from initial specification, through design, development, implementation, rollout and maintenance. I don’t have any more details at this stage, but I’m thinking that these subjects will form the core of a new ‘Software Engineering’ degree course.”

That pretty much wrapped up the meeting, I thanked everyone for their time and patience listening to me, and they all filed out. Before I left, Mark Wainwright came up to me, and shook my hand.

“You know how to run a tight meeting, Will,” he said. “And how to deal with late comers, too.”

“Well, the comment I made about showing respect to your peers is absolutely true,” I said. “If you can’t be bothered to get to the meeting, prepared, and at the scheduled start time ... But the other comment, about being in a meeting is taking away from doing your primary job, that’s very true.”

“I think ... well, every interaction we have confirms my initial belief that you are the perfect person to run the school,” he said. “You know how to deal with people, I’m sure they are all on board with your goals and objectives for the school, and no one seems worried about the changes you are making. I’ll catch up with you later, thanks.”

“I think that went very well, Will,” Michelle said. “I liked how you answered Peter’s comments, where he repeated Hiller’s opposition to working on open source projects. You made things very clear about the ethics and standards of behaviour you expect from everyone.”

“Bill!’ I called out to Bill Wilson, who was walking just ahead of us. “Do you have a couple of minutes to see us before lunch? I want to float something past you.”

“Sure, Will,” he said, turning around. “Will things work now, once we are back at our offices? I’ll come up to see you.”

He took the elevator to the fifth floor, while Michelle and I went to our offices on the third floor.

“I’m thinking of asking him to be ‘Associate Head of School’,” I said to her. “Bill has a very good understanding of our current curriculum, what subjects are taught, and all that. You remember, he was here before we left, and I felt he had a good handle on most things.”

“I agree, he’s got a good handle on pretty much everything we do here,” she said.

“Are we right for the afternoon’s meeting with the admin staff?” I asked.

“We are, all I will need to do is update the organization chart, assuming Bill accepts being Associate Head of School,” she said. “That will only take me a few minutes, and I’ll get Ann to run off the copies for me.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said.

We arrived back at our offices, and a few minutes later, Bill Wilson knocked on my door.

“You wanted to see me, Will?” he asked.

“Take a seat, Bill, I’ll just call Michelle in,” I said.

Once Michelle arrived and we were all sitting around my coffee table, I decided to present my offer to him.

“What I want to ask you, Bill, is would you be interested in the position of Associate Head of School?” I asked. “Basically, I would be looking at you to run with the major task of reviewing all of the current subject curricula, and making sure our BE course in Computer Science covers everything that it should cover.”

“Um, well, that’s a big honour, Will, and I feel gratified that you think I’m up to that challenge,” he said. “Of course, I would love to do that, I think you know my feelings about how we need to change the current course, update quite a few of the subjects, we spoke about that last week. Thank you, I will gladly accept!”

“Great, I was hoping you would,” I said. “Michelle will work on the paperwork side of things. What I’m wanting to make a start on this week is to make sure I have the latest list of all our subjects, and who are the lecturers for each of them. We can go over the details of each subject, see how they fit into the course structure, and start working on any changes for the coming academic year.”

“I’ll pencil that into my calendar for the remainder of the week,” he said. “Maybe later today, we can make a schedule, what subjects we want to discuss when, and I can make sure the necessary staff can be here to give us the details of their subjects.”

I thanked him for accepting the position and told him we could get together around 3:30 to go over the schedule for each subject. After he had left my office, I stretched my arms, and yawned deeply.

“It’s not even lunchtime on Monday, and already I’m exhausted!” I said.

“Having Bill taking over as associate will take some of the load from you,” she said. “Things are starting to fall into place, before you know it, the school will be ticking along like a well-oiled machine.”

“I hope so, I mean, I knew what I was in for when I was offered the position, I knew it would be a hard slog for the first few months. I’m just not used to having to work on so many intersecting management tasks, making so many concurrent changes. I feel like I’m juggling a bunch of chainsaws, all of them running, and I can’t afford to let any of them drop!”

“If there is anyone around who can do that, it’s you,” she said. “Just don’t get discouraged, you know that everyone here has your back, everyone here wants to see you succeed. Everyone on the admin side, when I’ve spoken to them are so happy that you are back in charge, Hiller was probably the most disliked person around, I think. He completely disrespected the support staff; they weren’t important to him.”

“I put him in the same category as John Howard, just a petty, vindictive little man,” I said.

“Wow! You hate him that much? I can understand that, given how he treated you so badly.”

“It’s not because of how he treated me,” I said. “I dislike him because of what he did to the School here; he basically destroyed it. I can’t believe just how much damage he did in the short period he was here, but ... at least we are working to get things fixed. Now, is it time for lunch?”

“Give me a few minutes to update the org chart, and I’ll be ready.”

Fifteen minutes later, we were sitting in the Mech Eng undercroft having our lunch, I had my notes for the afternoon meeting in front of me, and I was making some changes to it, announcing Bill Wilson as associate Head of School. From what Michelle had told me, all the support staff were excited about the changes we were making to the School. I was pleased that Michelle felt that the key administration staff – Carrol Graham, Cassandra Nock, Yvonne Balakian – were all highly competent, as was Richard Foster, the building and services manager. We had made an appointment to speak with the various staff association and union representatives covering both academic and administrative staff later in the week. I wanted to make sure that they knew I wasn’t planning on making any wholesale staff or organizational changes, anything that might adversely affect their members. There hadn’t been any hints of concern that I had heard from any of the staff associations, but I wanted to get ahead of any potential issues, and let the representatives know that my door was always open to them, if they had any questions or concerns. I wanted them to know that they could always talk to me, and we would work together to nip any potential problems in the bud. That was something that I had learned from Lisa, and why she was so successful in her Industrial Relations roles.