Poppleton University is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 fictional university in the column that Laurie Taylor

Laurie Taylor (sociologist)

Laurence John "Laurie" Taylor is an English sociologist and radio presenter originally from Liverpool.-Academic career:After attending Roman Catholic schools including the direct grant grammar school St Mary's College in Crosby at the same time as Liverpool poet, Roger McGough, Taylor first...

 writes for Times Higher Education. Taylor's column, referred to as "like Nelson’s

Nelson's Column

Nelson's Column is a monument in Trafalgar Square in central London built to commemorate Admiral Horatio Nelson, who died at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The monument was constructed between 1840 and 1843 to a design by William Railton at a cost of £47,000. It is a column of the Corinthian...

, one of the truly great columns" by author Malcolm Bradbury

Malcolm Bradbury

Sir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury CBE was an English author and academic.-Life:Bradbury was the son of a railwayman. His family moved to London in 1935, but returned to Sheffield in 1941 with his brother and mother...

, and "suavely mischievous" by The Independent

The Independent

The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...

newspaper, satirically charts various situations at the imaginary university.

Location

Poppleton University is supposedly named after the real villages Nether Poppleton

Nether Poppleton

Nether Poppleton is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of the City of York in North Yorkshire, England. It is situated by the West bank of the River Ouse adjacent to Upper Poppleton, and west of York close to the A59 road from York to Harrogate...

 and Upper Poppleton

Upper Poppleton

Upper Poppleton is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of the City of York in North Yorkshire, England. It is situated by the West bank of the River Ouse adjacent to Nether Poppleton, and west of York close to the A59 from York to Harrogate. The village is served by Poppleton...

 near York, in Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

, England. Laurie Taylor taught for many years at the University of York

University of York

The University of York , is an academic institution located in the city of York, England. Established in 1963, the campus university has expanded to more than thirty departments and centres, covering a wide range of subjects...

.

Standing

Poppleton as described by Taylor, was formerly a polytechnic

Polytechnic (United Kingdom)

A polytechnic was a type of tertiary education teaching institution in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. After the passage of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 they became universities which meant they could award their own degrees. The comparable institutions in Scotland were...

. When the government abolished polytechnics in the 1990s, Poppleton applied for and was eventually awarded university status with power to award its own degrees. There is also sometimes reference to a nearby institution of lower status, City University, Poppleton. The University of Uttoxeter

Uttoxeter

Uttoxeter is a historic market town in Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. The current population is approximately 13,711, though new developments in the town will increase this figure. Uttoxeter lies close to the River Dove and is near the cities of Stoke-on-Trent, Derby and...

 is another fictional institution to which reference is made.

Characters

Regular characters feature in the satirical column. They include:

• Professor Lapping. Barely competent Head of department of Media Studies.
• Maureen. Secretary of the department, takes on most of the roles that Professor Lapping and the other academic staff ought to fulfill.
• Dr Quintock.
• Dr Piercemuller. Rarely in the university, takes numerous research trips to exotic locations.
• Mr Odgers. Lecturer with extreme Marxist views.
• The Vice-Chancellor.
• Mrs Dilbert. The Vice-Chancellor's secretary, signs most of his letters in his absence.
• Jamie Targett. Bureaucrat fluent in management-speak.
• Jennifer Doubleday. Spouts New Age
  New Age
  The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
  
   rhetoric supposed to promote staff and student well-being.

Scenarios

• Snobbery shown by the established British universities to the cynically named "former polytechnics" an example being:

...and although this is a fictional account there are real examples of use by government and academics.

• Mergers with lesser institutions verging on the ridiculous, such as plan to create the UK's first "Dancing University" by merging the University of Poppleton with the town's celebrated Gwen Holland School of Dance. These tend to "fall apart" after months of negotiation.

• Academic departments single-handedly run by secretaries taking over from incompetent academics.

• Sub-standard academic courses.

• Plausible internal reviews of doubtful courses.

• Dubious academic awards.

• Bureaucracy applied to trivia — in this case sickness leave.

• Adding the word London to the university name in a way to attract more students, rather than to reflect actual geographic location