The Rosie Project (Don Tillman #1)(7)
‘Did the symptoms remind you of anyone?’ she asked.
They certainly did. They were an almost perfect description of Laszlo Hevesi in the Physics Department. I was about to relate the famous story of Laszlo and the pyjamas when Gene’s son Carl, who is sixteen, arrived in his school uniform. He walked towards the refrigerator, as if to open it, then suddenly spun around and threw a full-blooded punch at my head. I caught the punch and pushed him gently but firmly to the floor, so he could see that I was achieving the result with leverage rather than strength. This is a game we always play, but he had not noticed the yoghurt, which was now on our clothes.
‘Stay still,’ said Claudia. ‘I’ll get a cloth.’
A cloth was not going to clean my shirt properly. Laundering a shirt requires a machine, detergent, fabric softener and considerable time.
‘I’ll borrow one of Gene’s,’ I said, and headed to their bedroom.
When I returned, wearing an uncomfortably large white shirt, with a decorative frill in the front, I tried to introduce the Wife Project, but Claudia was engaged in child-related activities. This was becoming frustrating. I booked dinner for Saturday night and asked them not to schedule any other conversation topics.
The delay was actually opportune, as it enabled me to undertake some research on questionnaire design, draw up a list of desirable attributes, and produce a draft proforma survey. All this, of course, had to be arranged around my teaching and research commitments and an appointment with the Dean.
On Friday morning we had yet another unpleasant interaction as a result of me reporting an honours-year student for academic dishonesty. I had already caught Kevin Yu cheating once. Then, marking his most recent assignment, I had recognised a sentence from another student’s work of three years earlier.
Some investigation established that the past student was now Kevin’s private tutor, and had written at least part of his essay for him. This had all happened some weeks ago. I had reported the matter and expected the disciplinary process to take its course. Apparently it was more complicated than this.
‘The situation with Kevin is a little awkward,’ said the Dean. We were in her corporate-style office and she was wearing her corporate-style costume of matching dark-blue skirt and jacket, which, according to Gene, is intended to make her appear more powerful. She is a short, slim person, aged approximately fifty, and it is possible that the costume makes her appear bigger, but I cannot see the relevance of physical dominance in an academic environment.
‘This is Kevin’s third offence, and university policy requires that he be expelled,’ she said.
The facts seemed to be clear and the necessary action straightforward. I tried to identify the awkwardness that the Dean referred to. ‘Is the evidence insufficient? Is he making a legal challenge?’
‘No, that’s all perfectly clear. But the first offence was very naive. He cut and pasted from the internet, and was picked up by the plagiarism software. He was in his first year and his English wasn’t very good. And there are cultural differences.’
I had not known about this first offence.
‘The second time, you reported him because he’d borrowed from an obscure paper that you were somehow familiar with.’
‘Correct.’
‘Don, none of the other lecturers are as … vigilant … as you.’
It was unusual for the Dean to compliment me on my wide reading and dedication.
‘These kids pay a lot of money to study here. We rely on their fees. We don’t want them stealing blatantly from the internet. But we have to recognise that they need assistance, and … Kevin has only a semester to go. We can’t send him home after three and a half years without a qualification. It’s not a good look.’
‘What if he was a medical student? What if you went to the hospital and the doctor who operated on you had cheated in their exams?’
‘Kevin’s not a medical student. And he didn’t cheat on his exams, he just got some help with an assignment.’
It seemed that the Dean had been flattering me only in order to procure unethical behaviour. But the solution to her dilemma was obvious. If she did not want to break the rules, then she should change the rules. I pointed this out.
I am not good at interpreting expressions, and was not familiar with the one that appeared on the Dean’s face. ‘We can’t be seen to allow cheating.’
‘Even though we do?’
The meeting left me confused and angry. There were serious matters at stake. What if our research was not accepted because we had a reputation for low academic standards? People could die while cures for diseases were delayed. What if a genetics laboratory hired a person whose qualification had been achieved through cheating, and that person made major errors? The Dean seemed more concerned with perceptions than with these crucial matters.
I reflected on what it would be like to spend my life living with the Dean. It was a truly terrible thought. The underlying problem was the preoccupation with image. My questionnaire would be ruthless in filtering out women who were concerned with appearance.
4
Gene opened the door with a glass of red wine in his hand. I parked my bicycle in their hallway, took off my backpack and retrieved the Wife Project folder, pulling out Gene’s copy of the draft. I had pruned it to sixteen double-sided pages.