Death of the Rat

CHAPTER SEVEN

  From its outset the next meeting of the Selection Committee to choose the new Principal was charged with tension and conflict. It was apparent that several factions had come prepared to force certain issues upon the Chairman. Despite his best efforts to maintain some control of the agenda, the meeting rapidly gained its own momentum and, like some enormous vehicle without brakes, careened wildly down-hill, creating no little damage along the way.

  The first sign of trouble emerged when a list of nominees was being circulated from the files.

  "Mr. Chairman." George Atwood looked up from his papers to acknowledge M. J. Keenan, one of the senior members of the Board of Regents and President of Keenan Construction Company, Ltd., which had bid successfully on every major capital development project at Essex University for the past decade.

  "Do you have a nomination to add, Mike?"

  "No Mr. Chairman, I do not. But I can tell you that members of the Committee have gone over that list pretty carefully. There isn't a name worth considering except for one. Now we all know what a fine job our Acting- Principal has done over the last year." He beamed at the new faculty members of the committee, daring them to deny this claim. "We don't need to waste time over the other names -- no criticism intended of those fellows -- they just don't measure up to our man on the job. He gets down to cases, keeps things humming along without any of those riotous disturbances we had under his predecessor. He understands the business of running the shop, good contacts in town, and he's got the ear of a good number of politicians, good fiscal practices, balances the budget, keeps the alumni happy --all those qualities you need in a C.E.0. Mr. Chairman,” and he turned pleadingly toward him, "if we want to get a good strong message across, let's act right away, no mistake. We can effectively tell everybody ,‘look , we’ve got the man right here already’-- don’t waste all these good peoples' time and effort. Do it first as well as last and make him an offer of the job. Then he'll know that this University is right behind him. Give him that vote of confidence he so richly deserves.“ Then he lowered his voice and, in a paternal tone, he addressed the faculty representatives. "What you folks need most here is some stability, sound management at the top. Give us the go-ahead, and we'll get you a strong executive to raise the money, give you folks the chance to get back to your books and labs. We'll give you the tools to get on with your job, with a man for the future like Jackson Nicholas," and he sat down nodding benevolently to the other members.

  "I'm sure most of us agree with your sentiments, the Chairman responded with a laugh. Bu t we don't need to act quite as precipitately as you suggest. You may think of it as a vote of confidence in the incumbent. The other nominees, on the other hand, would surely have grounds to complain if we didn't consider their qualifications rather seriously."

  "Mr. Chairman. I was prepared to speak to this further in the appropriate section of the agenda, but with your permission I will raise it now." Professor Radlock had risen from his chair.

  "Oh, lord, we're in for the full fifty minutes if he gets to his feet!" hissed John Antwhistle to Janet, not so sotto voce. The chairman in the meantime had carefully measured his response.

  "At present we are considering nominations. Do you have one to add, Professor Radlock?"

  "I do. And some comments about the qualities and qualifications we should be seeking, which I gather we were slated to discuss under the next item."

  "Then please proceed."

  "Thank you Mr. Chairman. As one of the shareholders referred to by the previous speaker, I have admittedly an interest in an institution that is stable and fiscally responsible. I am not in agreement, however, with his assessment of what is needed to keep this place humming along as he puts it. Nor would I agree that the past year has been a milestone in the evolution of Essex University."

  Several of the Regents stuck out their chins at the last remark. The smirk on the face of Mike Keenan was replaced by a more truculent pose. Professor Radlock plowed on with gathering momentum.

  "What we folks need Mr. Chairman, is credibility in the academic world. We need a spirit of scholarship and some appreciation at the top of what this place stands for. That appreciation has been lacking for the past year, perhaps even longer. This administration has been attempting to carry on as if we were just another dividend-paying corporation. You cannot continue to run it like that! " He pounded angrily on the table.

  "What we need Mr. Chairman, is a principal with academic credentials, a person with stature in the learned societies. Of course he must have the capability to balance the books, but he should also be a person who is concerned with reading books written by academic colleagues, and who is acquainted with the process of writing books. We need a person who is a scholar in his or her own right, has the respect of the faculty and in turn, respects the scholarly goals of the faculty. Such a man Mr. Chairman, is the former member of this committee, an internationally recognized historian, who has served this University with spirit and dignity. I put in nomination the name of Dean Roger Owens."

  There followed a series of procedural wrangles concerning the form for admitting new nominations, and for soliciting other nominations from external sources. To Janet, the forces on the committee seemed to have established a clear demarcation of interests, with the Regents probably supporting Keenan in his bid to elect the Acting-Principal, and the faculty rallying around Radlock on the side of the Dean. The discussion of the qualities to be sought in the ideal Principal embodied all the attributes of both men, with varying emphases upon fiscal responsibility and business acumen versus academic standing and scholarship. In the end the committee dissolved in conflict and irresolution by mid-morning, to Janet's relief. Her mind, she had to admit had been preoccupied throughout the debate by the imminently pending deadline for the completion of her grant renewal, and there were two unfinished sections that she was undecided about. One concerned the admittedly incomplete but negative attempts at large-scale isolation of her active growth factors. The other was the extent of the long-range planning which should be indicated to depend on the still somewhat dubious outcome of this venture. As she walked back across the campus with John Antwhistle, these worries still captured most of her attention.

  "Kiss of Judas, kiss of death!" exclaimed the Professor with a snort.

  "Referring to what?"

  "Referring to our statistical colleague, Radlock, he growled. "You know the old chestnut that figures don't lie but liars surely can figure. Here we have a clear case of the proponent as opponent and, a liar to boot! "

  "What could be his motive then in nominating the Dean?" asked Janet in genuine puzzlement.

  "My dear, when you stop to reflect, it is not necessary to nominate the Dean."

  "But if Mr. Keenan was serious in his attempt to ram through the acceptance of Mr. Nicholas --"

  "And if the rest of the committee took it seriously. Even Keenan knew he'd never get away with that. And after the Chairman's response it was obvious to Radlock and everyone else. I can't guess what Keenan hoped to gain. Somehow I don't believe he got where he is by simply bull-dozing, though he tries to make you think so with his folksy style. In the earlier meetings he showed no sense of urgency so long as Nicholas was in the chair. This show of loyalty may be just a smokescreen to hide some other candidate he's nursing along, I don't really know. But Radlock's game is pretty clear."

  "You think he's going to discover some objections later to Dean Owens?"

  "Oh, he's too cagey for that sort of blunt instrument. The Dean is such an obvious candidate he couldn't be ignored; that was the main signal from his resignation. He saw that the committee now would have more academic input, and was no longer going to be considering strictly procedural issues, upon which he could have exerted an influence. He resigned de facto as a self-nomination."

  "Then how could Professor Radlock have been premature, or indeed devious, in speaking in his favour?"

  "By deliberately polarizing the Regents against the faculty. If th
e Dean has all those qualities of kinship with his faculty in scholarship, that issue of reading and writing books isn’t just a shot at Nicholas (who by implication reads nothing more enlightening than the stock-market quotations). The other corollary is that the Dean in all likelihood has his head so embedded in the towers of ivy, that he probably couldn't function and survive in the real and dirty world. In portraying the Dean as antithetical to qualities in our somewhat limited, but practical Acting-Principal, in short as a glorified idiot savant, the reductio absurdum from our mathematical friend is that neither of those extreme candidates could satisfy a majority on the committee." Here the Professor paused for breath as they reached the doorway to the Biology Building.

  "Then what good came from all that?" asked Janet.

  "Ah that I cannot tell said he", quoth the Professor, "but 'twas a famous victory!"

  After pausing briefly to collect the mail from her box Janet bustled back to her office. She looked forward to a full day to wrestle uninterrupted with the difficulties of her grant proposal. In one sense she was driven, driven by her deadline to commit her ideas to paper; in another sense, the gnawing uncertainty about the feasibility of her proposal held her back. While in this state of muddled preoccupation she noted with some irritation that among the notices of seminars, advertising circulars, and assorted memos dealing with radiation safety, chaining of bikes to fences, and smoking in the cafeterias, there was a square-shaped envelope that could only contain an invitation, in all probability to some official function. Although she had little desire to attend such functions, Janet succumbed to curiosity and opened this envelope first. She had been correct in her assumption: the envelope did contain an invitation, but not as she had surmised to an official faculty function. It was a personal note requesting the pleasure of her company at a cocktail party in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Alan Goldsack. She was just beginning to contemplate the, consequences of this when the telephone rang.

  "I'm feeling terribly ignored and neglected."

  "Archie!"

  "You are so engrossed with Principals, Deans, and that domineering Department Head of yours, what chance has a lowly faculty member?" he moaned.

  "I'm afraid I wasn't even concentrating on those matters today," Janet confessed, and explained about her grant deadline.

  "Ye gods! Another rival for my attention. I was going to suggest some frivolous diversion but I can see your mind is rivetted upon more serious matters."

  "After Friday I'l be totally susceptible, to any and all frivolous diversions. And speaking of Friday did you by chance receive an invitation in the mail today?"

  "Haven't opened it yet. Let me see." There was a sound of rending paper and a pause. “Cocktails at 1483 Avebury Crescent.”

  "Archie, do you realize we have cracked the inner circle of Essex Society?”

  "I suppose you'll be wanting a ride?"

  "I won't say no," she replied thinking it would be a more elegant way to arrive than on her bicycle.

  "Nor to dinner after?"

  "We can argue later about the check," Janet responded firmly, "but I would welcome the company."

  "Until Friday then, fair Janet."

  The banter had been light, but she felt a little tingle nonetheless at being labelled 'fair‘, and admitted to herself that she was looking forward very much to Friday night and the pleasure of his company. Janet cleared her desk and bent with a will to the completion of the proposal section of her grant renewal.

  With removal of the pressure of teaching Biology 333 Janet directed her energy undiluted for the next two days to the final draft of her research proposal. By late Thursday afternoon, as she got ready to meet with her tennis team, she felt satisfied that she had done what she could and was prepared to live with the consequences. Much as she resented the time taken to justify her work to the unknown committee of scientists who would make the final decision whether or not to continue funding the work in her laboratory, she felt much relief and satisfaction that the job was accomplished.

  It was also a valuable self-evaluation process, to have to submit her research this way to the scrutiny of her peers, to examine how she would follow up her early success in demonstrating and isolating the cytomitin growth factors from cells. Her major worry now was the competition. Other laboratories were cranking out reams of papers on other growth factors, and there were doubtless dozens of teams trying to verify her recently published findings. She had had several letters and long-distance telephone calls of inquiry, requests for samples or details of her preparations. In the very near future she could expect to see publications from laboratories with many-fold greater resources than hers. It was a demanding and nerve-wracking competition In some respects, she reflected, not unlike the contest developing on the courts.

  Judy Nicholas was an energetic and gritty player, but she was no match for Diane Bennett when the latter was playing up to her potential as she was this afternoon. Diane, smooth and consistent, placed her first serves well and jerked her opponent about the court at will, In her own service games Judy fell behind too frequently, then gave away points on weak second serves or double-faults. Janet could sense the building frustration. And although she rejoiced in having the rejuvenated Diane to compete for the team, it was apparent that it was Judy who now needed the coaching and encouragement. Accordingly, when they had finished, with the expected outcome, Janet first congratulated Diane on her improvement then called Judy to join her.

  "I was just awful. Couldn’t do a thing right! "Judy was more angry than depressed about her performance.

  "It's hard to stand up to someone who's serving so well," Janet agreed. "That's where it all begins after all, so let's start with the serves and move along from there," and she explained to Judy about the weakness in her second serves, and the pressure she was putting on herself. For ten minutes she played points against Judy's serve, allowing her only one serve in each court. By the end the ball was landing crisp and deep near the service-line with regularity.

  “Forget the first serve and get away from the mentality that second serves are only a back-up. Take the pressure off yourself and put it on the opposition when you serve the second ball with confidence. Then they can't sneak in, take an early ball on the rise and run you around."

  She left Judy practicing her serve and went across to speak to Diane.

  "You're hitting your stride again."

  Diane smiled in response. "I guess I felt more relaxed out there today because things are going well."

  "It's important to have that good feeling about yourself. But you were just a bit too loose. When you were serving at 5-1, you didn't need to drop that one,"

  "She worked hard for that game."

  "And you didn't."

  "Well, maybe I felt a bit sorry for her."

  "An admirable failing among friends, but it can lead to a bad attitude. You know it's insulting to Judy actually, not to play up to her level. When she gets tough you've got to raise the level of your game, not the reverse. Otherwise you can get in a match at 5-1 or 5-2 and lose three or four straight games. Next thing you've lost the set."

  "My sister always told me I wasn't ruthless enough to finish people off when I got ahead."

  "Maybe it would do you good to work from behind for a change. Now let's reconstruct it. You're serving to me at 2-5 instead of 5-2. Let's see whether I can take the set."

  In the end it was clear that even Janet would have a hard time to beat Diane at the top of her form. And by the time they had battled two tough games to an even stand-off, there was a new feeling of rapport between coach and player. As she rolled sleepily into bed that evening, Janet reflected that her own days as a competitive singles player were definitely over. But what an exciting prospect it was to see the younger girls under her aegis coming along as future contenders.

  “Finished your Herculean task have you?" asked Archie as he picked her up next evening.

  "Finished, polished, corrected, signed, countersigned and dispatche
d!”

  "Sounds like a thesis dissertation."

  "In some ways it's more critical," Janet explained. "First is the awesome process of waiting; interminably it seems. They send out all the grants to be reviewed by so-called impartial referees. The trouble is, of course, that there is a contradiction in terms: a referee is by definition an expert in the field, ergo-- a competitor, ergo-- not impartial."

  "An oxymoron -- the impartial reviewer," mused Archie.

  "It's a bit of a Catch 22 situation. Last time I had two tough reviews, but reasonable. On the whole they were pretty favourable, yet hardly impartial. The third was nonsensical: the comments were ridiculous. Obviously the guy didn't know what he was talking about."

  "A true impartial ignoramus."

  "Exactly. I'd prefer a sound criticism to that sort of incompetence. Anyway, it has already been picked apart by my severest critic."

  "Yourself ?”

  "No, John Antwhistle. He sits on the Review Panel that looks over all the referee reports and recommends which grants to fund. So he knows all the possible pitfalls, and he has a pretty sharp eye for finding them."

  "Doesn't it give you an unfair advantage if he influences that panel in some way?"

  "They are very strict about that sort of thing. He has to declare an interest and leave when they discuss grant reports from here. In the last competition they considered his own grant, and nobody on the committee would tell him how he had done. Of course he had no reason to doubt he would be funded, but he was as nervous as a cat for weeks, muttering about retiring from science and imagining the worst. It's pretty nerve-wracking, waiting till after Christmas for the news."

  "Christmas! Well, I hope we don't put off our decision in the Selection Committee till then. Incidentally, what did you think about yesterday's meeting?"

  "I'm not sure," reflected Janet. I have to confess that I was wrestling with other mental problems."

  "I'm wondering if our new friend, Goldsack, isn't about to put the bite on us."

  "To support Jackson?"

  "Perhaps. He hasn't really declared his preference yet.”

  "Well, here we are at the Goldsack castle, so we should soon know what the order of battle is going to be."

  Goldsack Castle was an apt description for the edifice they were approaching by a tree-lined drive. Set on a promontory at the edge of the city, the house commanded an overview of Essex, the lights of which glittered below them. The drive was crowded with expensive-looking automobiles.

  "Creme de la creme," muttered Archie sardonically as he ushered Janet through the front door. A vivacious blonde who turned out turned out to be Mrs. Alan Goldsack, bounced over to greet them and puzzle out their identities. An immense crowd of expensive-looking people to go with the automobiles could be made out in various rooms leading from the foyer, with a sprinkling of beards, tweeds, and other relics of academia in their midst. Janet and Archie were steered toward a relatively small book-lined room referred to by their hostess as the den.

  "Here's the bar, and here's Alan," she exclaimed and abandoned them to welcome a new set of arrivals.

  "Introduced in order of importance," Alan responded. "Order yourselves a drink and I’ll take you in tow."

  Suitably fortified by the bar tender with a potent martini-on- the-rocks, Janet followed in the wake of her host and met the creme de la creme. After a few words of polite conversation, she and Archie gravitated to an unoccupied window-seat.

  "Spectacular view," she offered, gingerly sampling the barely-diluted gin.

  "Where oh where is the food?" asked Archie plaintively. "A few more sips of this drink without sustenance and I’ll be flying out over the chimney tops!"

  "You can take me with you when you go," Janet concurred. "But some of these people are already well on the way to being airborne. Oh look!" she broke off, "there does seem to be a hopeful sign of food down the hall," and she led Archie off in the direction of what proved to be the dining room. Here they settled into some serious sampling of the shrimps, meatballs, and other assorted canapes.

  From the doorway Janet could see down the hall into the entrance foyer. Over the past fifteen-minutes or so no-one else had entered the house. Now a new couple arrived, only this time both host and hostess made a point of greeting them. From the reception and the length of time they stood talking in the entrance-way Janet felt safe in assuming these to be the guests of honour.

  "Dr. Edmund Tyler, Dr. Janet Gordon and Dr. Archibald McManus, "said Alan when it came to their turn to be introduced. "Dr. Tyler is Dean of Medicine at Richmond University," he explained, "Dr. Gordon is a member of our Biology Department, and Dr. McManus is a philosopher."

  "Well, like Janet, a member of the Philosophy Department," Archie demurred.

  "Then you concur with Thoreau's distinction?" queried Dr. Tyler.

  "Between philosophers and professors of philosophy? It's nowhere more apparent than in our department."

  "One of the advantages of being a biologist," responded the Dean. "I even consider myself to be one, although I concentrate most of my activities upon a single species. Which is why medical men are inferior biologists to veterinarians or bacteriologists."

  "And medical men do specialize further on particular organ systems," added Janet.

  "One of my regrets of youth but consolations of later life. I remained a generalist. Chose to go into basic studies of endocrinology -- like yourself Dr. Gordon in a way."

  Janet blushed at this sudden revelation that the Dean knew something of her work. How and why had he obtained information about her, and how much information?

  "My old colleague, John Antwhistle, told me of your activities," he explained. "These cytomitin peptides of yours sound very interesting. Dr. Gordon has isolated a unique growth factor, Alan .It acts on cells in culture to induce them to divide beyond their normal restraints, isn't that so?" Janet nodded. "Could have some significant implications for cancer cell proliferation as well as telling us something about how hormones control normal cells.

  Archie, who looked suitably impressed during this exchange broke into the conversation at this point.

  "What about your endocrinology research, Dr. Tyler? Was it done with animal or human subjects?"

  "My direct contacts with patients have been minimal for some time, except for a few assays we set up to measure the thyroid hormones in human blood serum. No, most of our research, from which I become progressively distanced alas, is done with guinea pigs. One of the few species which like man, depends on a dietary source of vitamin C, and we have been looking into interrelations between vitamins and the thyroid gland.”

  "Now you see Dr. Gordon has the edge on you!" continued Archie much to Janet's embarrassment. She wondered what in the world was to come, and how much Archie had consumed from the bar. "I don't know what has transpired recently at Richmond U with the antivivisectionists, but here we've had a lot of accusations and bad publicity about animals in experimental laboratories. It's hard to convict somebody of cruelty to cells growing in culture medium (even if you do starve them of vitamins and so forth) so, Janet has escaped all that. Though some of my colleagues in Psychology have been attacked in the press, received threatening phone-calls and letters."

  "I've heard a bit about the troubles you’ve had in that connection. People breaking in and ‘liberating’ the rats and mice. We have had no difficulties so far, but we regulate animal usage very tightly through our Animal Care Council in the Faculty of Medicine. We have lay people, vets and MD's on the Council. We make a public report every year and open the animal quarters to the public also. Anyway, Idon’t think our guinea pigs have anything to complain of, unless the control group were to prefer the supermarket diet that is designed to parallel human fads instead of their balanced synthetic meals.”

  "I'm sure our kids would report us to the Children's Protective Agency if we made them eat balanced diets," said Alan . "Speaking of diets, let me have your opinion of the vitamin content of some of the
se," he continued, leading the Dean into the dining room.

  "Impressive man," observed Janet. "He talks more like a scientist than an administrator."

  "Are the two incompatible then? What of your Professor Antwhistle?"

  "I guess I don't really think of him as an administrator, which may be part of his success. Things just seem to happen in our department without a lot of pushing and shoving from above."

  "He may be more Machiavellian than you realize. So you're manipulated without knowing about it eh?"

  "Possibly. I'm sure that Dr. Tyler or Professor Antwhistle would have handled contentious issues involving town and gown with more sensitivity than our Acting-Principal has done."

  "Like the toxic waste disposal business. He kept us badly informed on that, then accepted some ridiculous advice. He managed to alienate the environmentalists and the entire Chemistry Department as well, no mean feat!"

  "And with the controversy over the animal care issue, neither the liberationists nor the researchers were happy about the way he vacillated on that one," Janet continued. "According to Professor Antwhistle some wag strung up a dead rat at Morton Hall with a nasty note attached at the time when that was brewing."

  "Very funny. Some crank with a warped mind no doubt. What was in the note?"

  "I guess it relates to Mr. Nicholas's nickname 'The Rat' (wherever he acquired that I don't know).'This could happen to you' sort of thing."

  "That's the trouble with some of these fanatics from the animal rights movement, or their fringe groups. They get carried away with emotion, start breaking and entering, committing acts of vandalism, threatening people. They lose credibility, and some of their points are well-taken," and he went on to relate problems with the exercise areas for larger experimental animals, and how some reasoned arguments in the Animal Care Committee had brought constructive changes. "The trouble is, some of these animal rights people don't want solutions of that kind, they want the experiments to stop altogether.”

  "And some of the experimenters are inflexibly defensive because they resent any interference with their autonomy. I think the sort of open policy Dean Tyler describes is the best. Let the public in on it. They can sort out the phonies and extremists on both sides. It's a bit like your fight for academic freedom. If you can't defend it openly it isn't worth having."

  Archie studied her intently for a moment, then shook his head with a sigh. "My but you are irresistible when aroused by righteous indignation!"

  "Oh do shut up!", retorted Janet, "and take me home before I turn into a pumpkin, or a stuffed shrimp."

  "OK," he replied. "I guess we have met the creme de la creme," said he scooping up two large meatballs as they passed the dining room, and popping one in each of their mouths added, "and they are ours!"