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I read that Petter Wiig rubs his eyes. I’m scratching my head myself. What does the man really mean? That the ‘amateurs’ should preferably stay away from management and care?
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In his statement with the self-chosen title “the entry march of the amateurs” Petter Wiig delivers a scathing criticism of the management and implementation of Universitetsavisa’s third “chancellor candidate debate,” subtitled “NTNU vs. the employees.” Most things went wrong here, we are to believe Wiig. 1: UA demonstrated a lack of “capacity and competence” to lead the debate, 2: when we bring in an external interviewer, we do our best to choose Aksel Tjora himself! And 3: allows a member of the hiring body to participate in the questioning.
Upon closer inspection are points 2 and 3 essentially the same thing. Ad 2, a personal dislike of Tjora is felt on Wiig’s part. I’ll let that ball roll on.
Ad 3: That is in and of itself correct that Tjora is a member of the assembly that formally appoints the rector. He is not a member of the appointment committee, which is the body that does the actual job of interviewing, evaluating and ranking the candidates. Incidentally, at the time when this debate was organised, all candidate interviews, in the first and second round, had been carried out and concluded. I see no problem with the fact that a person participating in the formal appointment here had the opportunity to ask the candidates some timely questions. If anything, this round presumably serves to make board member Tjora (even better) able to make an informed choice.
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Ad 1: On the eve of this last debate the undersigned commented that I have spent somewhere between four and five hours with the rector candidates, in interesting and, I would say, insightful conversations about how NTNU can best be led in the years to come. I have asked most of the questions. So there is nothing wrong with the capacity. Hopefully some of the questions were also competent.
– Stay close to us at institute level. We have not experienced that from previous principals
The appointment process for the rector at NTNU is a professional one, closed process. What the candidates are asked about and how their performance is assessed is not disclosed to the public. This is handled like any personnel matter. NTNU would not even say which of the candidates were called in for a new round of interviews, it was only after UA appealed the case to the Joint Appeals Board and was upheld that we were given access.
‘The amateurs’ march,’ Wiig? We check Store Norske for the definition: “Amateur is a person who practices art, science or sport without making a living; an art lover, as opposed to a professional artist.”
Democracy is for amateurs – aka. those who do not “have it as a way of life.” That is the very point.
