Heads of Department Question New Ruling

Following the recent ruling by an independent adjudicator that student Christian societies should be open to non-Christians and wine societies open to teetotallers, it appears likely that this university will be in breach of equal opportunities policy unless departments open their exclusive staff seminars to all comers. The news was greeted with alarm by some of our leading scholars.

Professor D. W. Dingbat (Psychology): "Good God! What the hell is going on! We've spent the past 50 years clearing out philosophers and sociologists from our discipline. The idea that they might now come into our private seminars with their wishy-washy nonsense about refining concepts and paying proper attention to the socio-cultural context is simply appalling."

Professor G. Lapping (Media and Cultural Studies): "Most disturbing. Before you know it, we will have people attending our highly specialist seminars on Coronation Street who believe they have something to contribute simply because they've been watching the programme for years. It's an open invitation to philistines!"

Professor T. R. Gumpertz (Economics): "It's too horrible to contemplate. How can we be expected to get on with our vital mathematical work on the relationship between nominal yield curves and exogenous consumption growth when there are people in the room raising entirely irrelevant questions about Marx and Schumpeter?"

However, other leading academics detected possible benefits in the new ruling.

Mrs Pamela Starling (Complementary Medicine): "This is excellent news. We look forward to attending staff seminars in the medical faculty where we can inform our more traditionally minded colleagues of the great leaps forward that have been made in the treatment of intractable diseases with aromatherapy."

Reverend Doctor S. R. Noakes (Theology): "My colleagues and I welcome the opportunity to attend biology seminars where we will have the opportunity to explain the essential compatibility between recent advances in evolutionary theory and, er, God."

"Experimental rats from Psychology ate my summer pudding," claims Head of Catering and Hotel Studies - see page 24.