The Dean
Newspeak House is an experimental institution, cherry picking features from various types of traditional institution - colleges, members' clubs, learned societies - and it seemed fitting that the director should receive the title of Dean.
The current Dean is Edward Saperia.
The purpose of the Dean is:
- To protect the long term interests of the institution
- To set, update and communicate the mission
- To ensure the programmes are fulfilling the mission
- To balance service provision against long term stability (i.e. budget responsibly)
- To balance policy against flexibility (both for one off circumstances, and large scale change)
- To balance the needs of the vocal membership against the silent membership and the wider (non-member) community
- To defend the value of things that cannot easily be measured
- To learn from history, and from the experiences of other institutions
Stuff about Edward Saperia
bio goes here!
Reflections on Deanship
Newspeak House has a venue as an asset, but its purpose is not to be a venue. It shouldn’t matter if events are at Newspeak House or elsewhere. (Hmm, the current rules break this; Fellows are expected to go to events at Newspeak House but not elsewhere.)
Newspeak House should not be a single point of failure for the community; e.g. avoid centralising communication by creating a Newspeak House mailing list, instead create the community map which allows resilient networks to form, and forces participants to stay open and outward facing.
The Dean shouldn't be an organiser, but support others in being organisers.
Remember that the institution is there to serve the wider community, not the membership.