Miscellanea Cantabrigiana
Election fever
Forget Nick, Dave and Gordo; this week’s most gripping contest concerns University administration.
This week will see the culmination of a hugely significant election, one which could change the way our lives are run. Sadly, this is not one in which most of us will have a say. The Regent House, the University’s de facto legislative body, is currently voting on proposals to reform the ways in which Cambridge can sack its staff. These measures, which have been in the making for two years, are naturally complex in their final form, but they deserve our attention nonetheless.
Many suspect that the changes are designed to make it easier for the University to fire people. Their most controversial provision is that, whereas in the past the Regent House has had to approve first the principle of making redundancies and then the list of individuals to be sacked, in the future it will only be to approve redundancies in principle, losing control over which academics actually lose their jobs.
A small change, perhaps; but a significant one. One justification for the change is “to reflect modern employment law”, which is precisely what seems so pernicious about the movement. Of course Cambridge is an employer, but it is so much more than that: apart from anything else, its senior staff run the institution themselves through the direct democracy of the Regent House. Those who wish the University to adopt the thoughtless bureaucracy of a faceless corporation should consider more closely what makes this place so special. Perhaps our unique practices, outdated though they may seem, are precisely what have helped us resist the creeping homogenisation of Britain’s public life.
One can’t help suspecting that some Cambridge higher-ups would welcome a reduction in University democracy; after all, it must be so tedious to have to consult one’s colleagues on every significant policy change. Yet any move which removes power from the Regent House is another step towards domination of Cambridge by a small number of full-time administrators, headed by the Vice-Chancellor, who have good intentions but are too far from the academic coalface to understand the challenges facing students, dons and other staff. One of Cambridge’s glories is the way that an academic can go in a matter of minutes from supervising undergrads to making long-term strategic decisions on behalf of the University. The ultimate decision-makers, therefore, stay in touch with all levels of the Cambridge hierarchy, and any move away from that is inevitably saddening.
P.S. Since it’s that time of the year, perhaps I should say something about the other election. Frankly, none of the parties seems to have the interests of universities at heart – and why should they, given the other problems the next government will face? Nonetheless, economic reality suggests that political demands will restrict Cambridge’s self-government ever further (once upon a time, I proposed a solution to this). We can only hope that incoming Cabinet will be less keen on grand gestures than the last lot.
P.P.S. Speaking of elections, you’ll almost certainly have missed last term’s election of student members to the University Council, the only official representation we have on the administration. It remains a mystery why this event is always overshadowed by the meaningless babble of the CUSU elections.
Topics: Cambridge, Elections, Politics
