Graeber from CHE

Once, a colleague and I approached the newly appointed director of our university — a man who was clearly keen to make a name for himself — and tried the following. "We have a plan for how you can make yourself famous," we said. "I’m sure you’re aware this university tops the ranks in percentage of lecturers’ time spent in self-assessment exercises. Imagine that you were to announce you’re going to totally reverse this, and embark on a campaign to eliminate unnecessary paperwork and go back to teaching and learning things again. You’d be instantly on the cover of every magazine in Britain!" He replied, "Well, that certainly sounds appealing. Are you willing to come up with a detailed plan for how this would be done?"

It was a very gentle way of saying, "Don’t be ridiculous." If we had tried to write up a plan, the result would have produced more paperwork than we were all already doing. (In British universities, this even has a name: the "forming committees to discuss the problem of too many committees problem.").