To Gazette No. 4450 (16 October 1997)
The year just ended might in many ways be characterised as the Year of the Review. There has been a flurry of review activity in the university world in general and in Oxford in particular. On the broader scene there was published in July the Report of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education—the Dearing Report. In Oxford, we have had the benefit of a range of regular reviews under the auspices of the General Board, including reviews of the Computing Service, of Law, of Geography and of Continuing Education as well as that of Chemistry which has led to the creation of a single unified Department. Another major review was completed this summer with the report of the Working Party on University Sites, under the chairmanship of my successor, of which report more later; and there have also been reviews of the registrarship, in the light of the fact that the present Registrar retires next Easter, and of the whole of our development activity, given that the present structures have been in place for some nine years. The report of this latter committee under the chairmanship of the President of Wolfson College was received last week. Another major review in train at the moment is of sports facilities and their organisation right across the University at large, under the chairmanship of Dr Bill MacMillan. Over the summer, the President of Mansfield College has been examining the role and the activities of the Europaeum, whilst the Secretary of the Chest and his colleagues have been undertaking a major review of the University's financial systems and procedures.
Alongside all that activity there has continued to run that of the Commission of Inquiry under my chairmanship. That body's very existence makes my task today a somewhat difficult one. This autumn the University will, in a sense, receive two Orations from me—today's and the report of the Commission of Inquiry; though I hasten to say that the latter will be very much a team effort. We had intended to report a good deal earlier this year but we concluded, and so informed the University last term, that it seemed more useful for us to delay our work and to report once we had had time to reflect on the major implications of the Dearing Report. This we intend to do during the course of this new term.
I would like to say a further word about two of the reviews to which I have just referred being ones that are in a way interconnected. The report of the Working Party on University Sites provides an extremely thorough analysis of the University's long term needs and opportunities in the way of sites. Expansion is, I think, inevitably set to continue, and there is a limit to the extent to which we can develop our existing sites. Even given, as we hope, the ultimate acquisition and development of the Radcliffe Infirmary site, there will be further site expansion needs. Whilst I am sure that our priorities will change over the next few years, I have no doubt that this report will form a secure basis on which we can plan strategically the way ahead so far as physical development is concerned. All of this development will, however, cost money and it is estimated that to meet the needs identified in the report would cost between £100 and £150m. That sounds a lot of money but it is not quite so frightening when you put the cost in three contexts. The first is that of the twenty-year period over which this money would probably need to be raised and then spent. The second is the context of our current building activity. The total cost of University buildings either under construction now, or on which building is due to start in the next twelve months, is close to £90m. The third is that of the success of the University development activity over the last nine years. It was this passage of nine years that made it seem right to appoint the Committee to Review Development Activity to reflect on where we have got to and where next we should go. It is, however, worth noting that during the six years of Campaign for Oxford we raised just over the planned £340m, split between endowment money and money for scientific and other research. In the three succeeding years, the figure is the remarkable one of £369m. From the development perspective, the figure is, however, somewhat misleading as much of the sum is accounted for by our very substantial research income. Nevertheless, the funds raised by and through the Development Office over the last three years amount to almost exactly half the equivalent funds raised during the six years of Campaign for Oxford. For all these reasons, I think that the funding objectives in relation to site acquisition and development are realistic ones for the University to adopt.
In terms of the review of our development activity, it does seems to me right to reflect on the current inter-relationship between fund-raising, friend- raising, the sustaining of links with old members of the University in this country and abroad, the increasing number of commercial activities with which the University is centrally involved and, finally, the continuing and important activity in fund-raising for research in the University. The total research income figure for the year just ended is £107m, a relatively small increase on the previous year, but a massive sum, nevertheless. A reassessment of the inter-relation of all those activities, of the structures in the University to handle them, the priorities for fund-raising expenditure in this country and abroad, and, indeed, of the amount of money that the central University and colleges together ought to be devoting to this activity seems to me to be very timely.
The Dearing Report was published in late July, and much press attention and speculation has been devoted to its, and the Government's, proposals on funding. This is a crucially important issue but was by no means the sole issue addressed in the Report. Later in this Oration I refer to a number of Dearing related funding issues. I would, at this stage, wish to make just two broad points. The first is that universities need clarity. Since July, we have had statement and counter-statement on funding. The sooner universities, students, would-be students and their parents know clearly where they stand, not only for next year but also for the students' whole time at university, the better. The second is that the fees to be charged to students must come directly to universities to relieve the funding crisis therein. If that means sensibly altering the rules for calculating the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement, so be it.
As I said, the Dearing Report is about more than funding and the University has just submitted its comments on the Report as a whole to the DfEE, to meet their deadline of yesterday, comments which will be published in the Gazette. In broad terms, there is much to commend in the rest of the Report, for example on standards, on diversity of institutional mission, on access, on expansion, on focusing on quality of teaching, on the better use of IT, and on research funding. Indeed there is a risk of categorising many of the recommendations as `motherhood and apple pie'. I use this phrase not in a derogatory way, but because many of the proposals will and do, in their broad forms, command wide support. However, as in so many matters, `the devil is in the detail' and, indeed, in the funding of the detail. A new Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education needs to be paid for; earmarked funding by the Funding Councils of special projects reduces the general funds available; extending the remit of the new Quality Assurance Agency carries the risk of higher institutional subscriptions—all this at a time of planned further cuts in public support for higher education. It is said that expansion of higher education can be funded, in significant part, by £1.3b in savings—an heroic assumption. We have to be confident that we can really afford all that the Dearing Committee, and many others, would wish to achieve.
There is one recommendation in the Dearing Report which is of very particular interest to this University. Recommendation 74 reads as follows:
`We recommend to the Government that variations in the level of public funding for teaching, outside modest margins, should occur only where:
—there is an approved difference in the provision;
—society, through the Secretary of State or his or her agent, concludes, after examining an exceptionally high level of funding, that in relation to other funding needs in higher education, it represents a good use of resources.'
The report then goes on to say, in paragraph 19.46, that `the college fees in Oxford and Cambridge represent a substantial addition to the standard funding for institutions of higher education. We propose that the Government reviews them against the two principles we have proposed'. We had already been given an indication, during the course of the annual negotiation of fee levels between the colleges and the Department for Education and Employment, that a review of college fees was on the cards and, indeed, that it was likely that the issue would be referred to the Higher Education Funding Council for England. That is what has now occurred, and yesterday we had our first review meeting with the Chief Executive and officers of the Funding Council. We shall play our full part in this review, ensuring that the views of colleges and of the central University are fully co-ordinated, and that there is proper liaison with Cambridge.
I believe that a powerful case can be made to justify the continued payment of college fees at a significant level. In other words, I believe that the Dearing criteria can readily be met. Although college fees payable to Oxford from the public purse amount to some £33m a year, there is a deduction of £14m a year from the University's Funding Council grant in reflection of these payments. So the actual additional public funding to Oxford is £19m a year; though one must not forget that college fees are also paid by non-publicly funded students. The central issue is whether it is justifiable to continue to spend that amount of money of public funds to support two of the country's internationally renowned universities. That issue immediately provokes international comparisons. If we look at the leading universities in the USA, we find that their fees are considerably greater than ours whilst at the same time their endowment is also very significantly greater than ours. For example, Harvard's endowment is some $9bn; ours (colleges and university combined) is but a quarter of that. Nevertheless, we have to compete with the major American universities for staff, research students, and, indeed, research resources.
I think that the essential issue in this context is not, in a way, that of college fees themselves, but rather that of the desirability of the United Kingdom continuing to have two collegiate universities. It is unavoidable that collegiate universities are more expensive than monolithic universities. It is also the case that the contribution made to the collegiate system by college fees is not something that can be simply replaced by a contribution from college endowments. Not all colleges are well endowed. College endowments are currently fully used to support the academic endeavours of the colleges and thus of the University at large. There is no great unspent pot of income which could be used to fill the £19m plus gap which would stem from the loss of fees. A collegiate university means colleges. It is the college system which enables a university which is large in British terms to operate to the benefit of all, teachers and taught, in some forty small multi-disciplinary academic communities. What this does is to facilitate close partnership between students and teachers, the latter also being at the forefront of research activity. It enables particular care to be taken of the students' academic development and of their more general well being. It enables decisions to be made, college by college, in relation to admissions when particular attention can be paid to individual applications in relation to their academic potential as well as to their paper qualifications.
There are various measures which could be applied to judge the success of the college system. For example, Oxford has a considerably lower drop-out rate than the national average. It has a considerable lower unemployment rate of graduates than the national average. The latter indicates the value put by employers on the highly demanding, but personal, nature of the tutorial system. That system could not function in anything like its present way without the collegiate structure. Colleges are also significant contributors to the research excellence of the University. They help to sustain the general academic environment, not least in inter-disciplinary fields. They make a major contribution through the use of their endowments, funding some 150 Junior Research Fellowships, with all that that means for the development of research in the university and, indeed, for those individuals' research careers. Furthermore, college libraries, again supported from both endowment and fees, house specialist research material and a number of important historical collections. So the contribution of colleges to the intellectual strengths of Oxford is through both teaching and research.
Were college fees to disappear, whether paid directly to colleges or in some other way, it has to be realised that there are not sufficient funds available for transfer to the less well endowed colleges so as to ensure the retention of the collegiate tutorial system. Furthermore, any such transfer of funds, even if lawful, would be at the price of current expenditure on proper and highly desirable activity. Loss of college fees would mean that the strengths of both the college system and the tutorial system would be lost. It is also striking that such a dramatic change could not be accommodated without considerable shedding of posts which, itself, would have a significant effect on the economy of Oxford, to say nothing of the implications for the individuals concerned. So I come back to my original view that Oxford, and I am sure Cambridge, can mount, and will mount, a sustained case to convince the Government, and society more broadly, that the current funding arrangement through college fees `represents a good use of resources'. I said in my address last week to the Chancellor's Court of Benefactors that I did not believe that any rational Government would wish seriously to put at risk the intellectual achievements of the two ancient universities or to destroy their competitive position on the world university scene. But that is what is at risk—and the danger comes when those responsible for the decisions are not fully aware of the risks and their implications. It is important that we all ensure that, over the coming weeks, no one is in any doubt of what is at stake.
I referred earlier to the publication due this coming term of the report of the Commission of Inquiry. My work and that of my colleagues on the Commission has inevitably caused us to apply our minds to the future of the University. What I have to say now is, though entirely personal also, in a way, a foretaste of some of the issues which the report of the Commission will, necessarily, address. I think that the challenges for Oxford in the future are considerable, but I also have no doubt that meeting them will strengthen the University overall. What then do I conceive of as the challenges, not only for the period of the next Vice-Chancellorship but beyond?
I believe that the University will need to focus even more attention on teaching and on how greater regard for it can be introduced into our system of recognition and rewards. We shall need to become more aware of the fact that, of the 4,000 or so people who are employed in the University as a whole to teach and/or to do research, the largest single group are employed on short term research contracts. Furthermore, those employed by the colleges, primarily to teach, constitute almost as large a group as that of the traditional academic staff holding both University and college joint teaching and research appointments. The huge growth in the first two categories poses particular challenges for us in areas such as career development, involvement in the collegiate structures of the University and in the governance of the University and of its various bodies, and in the provision of appropriate social facilities.
There needs to be a wider realisation in Oxford of the impact and significance of the University across the world, and of the interest in our future shared by the wide family of Oxonians to be found in over 170 countries. One important resource for the University in this context is the Oxford University Press and its many, and indeed increasing number of, branches overseas. We need to give further thought to the opportunities which there are for developing those links ever more strongly for the benefit of the whole University. I also believe that there are now many opportunities for building a stronger relationship between the University and a constitutionally independent Oxford Society.
I am sure that the University could and should renew its efforts to widen access to Oxford. There are many good and effective schemes already, such as the Target Schools Scheme, the Access Scheme, individual schemes run by colleges with great success and, most recently established this summer, the Oxford Summer School, so generously funded by the Lampl Foundation—all of which are important in extending opportunities for entry to Oxford. Nevertheless, it is always the case that we could do more; it is important that we ensure that young men and women of real ability have every opportunity to enjoy the benefits that Oxford has to offer, irrespective of their educational, social or cultural background.
The college system is one of the great strengths of the University but it will need to be built upon and developed, and the colleges will need to show themselves adaptable in a variety of ways: in relation to funding methods, to their administrative organisation, to a reassessment of the quality of educational provision as between colleges, to re-examination of teaching practices, and to the need for the public assurance of the quality of the educational provision that they give. The world of higher education in which we now operate is increasingly demanding in many of these fields.
One of the great strengths of our University is its research excellence and here I must pay tribute to all my colleagues who contributed to our striking success in the latest Research Assessment Exercise whose results were published earlier this year. To have 92 per cent of academic staff in departments rated 5* or 5 is quite remarkable. This research strength must be sustained and developed; but we do need to realise that, though it brings in large sums of money, research also costs the University a lot. We shall need to be more vigorous in examining these costs and in determining just what research it is that we ought to support. Related to research is the question of technology transfer. The University has been in the forefront of developing technology transfer mechanisms, evidenced by the award of a Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher Education two years ago for the work of Isis Innovation. Nevertheless, I believe that we need to develop this work further and to do so for the benefit of the community at large as well as of inventors and the University itself. We will need to invest more in the commercial development of new ideas in order for us to gain more, both financially and, indeed, intellectually.
Oxford is one of the largest universities in Britain. We have been growing steadily over the last decades. I am convinced that we need to plan for continued growth but that that growth needs both to be slow and to be contained. We are a big University in a small City which also has another substantially sized university within its boundaries. Uncontrolled growth would damage the local community and put inordinate strain on our own academic resources. No growth at all would, I believe, tend to stultify the University unless we were prepared to cut back on successful activity in order to nurture new projects. Growth I think there should be, but I believe that it should be slower than that which we have experienced during the 1990s.
We need to re-examine our systems of governance and of administration. Both are more cumbersome and less effective than they might be. We need to ensure that we have the right tools to run a major international university and to do so as effectively, and as economically both in terms of money and of time, as we can. In the process we need to minimise the administrative burdens which now fall so substantially on so many, whilst retaining the participative ethos of a proper university. There are challenges here. Many in Oxford place great weight on the ultimate authority of Congregation. Yet it is not clear that that authority is fully compatible with the approach of the Dearing Committee to university governance. On the other hand, the Dearing Report welcomes diversity within higher education. We face the challenge of balancing participation with effectiveness.
Finally, there is funding more generally. Forty years ago, I enjoyed the benefits of Oxford, with my tuition fees fully paid by the state and with an adequate maintenance grant, albeit on a means-tested basis. We are now moving into a different age where we are told that all maintenance grants are to go and that contributions will have to be made towards fees. I see no other way forward in terms of meeting the current funding crisis in universities; but I cannot but compare the position of undergraduates today with those of my generation. In my heart I would have liked the old system to have continued, but in my head I am convinced that it cannot, change being the price we have to pay for the enormously widened access to universities that there is today. Indeed, I have serious doubts whether the funding regime that the Government is planning to introduce will in any way be adequate to meet the current needs of universities, let alone the cost of any expansion which is planned for two or three years hence as the Dearing Report suggests and the Prime Minister has recently endorsed. If that expansion is to come and no more public money is available, then I can see the new fees regime having to be extended ever further. I would not be surprised to see in my crystal ball, five years hence, differential fee structures for different universities. What will certainly make this more likely is if the new fees to be paid by students do not come in full to universities—and we have been given no guarantee that they will. I repeat what I said earlier—it is essential that they do. We have, of course, to bear in mind that it is only for the last seventy-five years or so, out of an 800-year history, that Oxford has been a University in receipt of public funds. I would not wish to go back to the days when all support for the University came from private funds, nor do I think that it is practicable to do so, but I suspect that the mix between the two is going to change quite radically over the next decade.
A further challenge is that of pay. There are two issues here. The first concerns the nature of the system for determining levels of pay, and this focuses on the question whether there should continue to be national pay bargaining or whether we should move to local determination, with all the costs and uncertainties that I believe go with that. The second concerns the level of individual pay in the University system as a whole. The Dearing Committee is uncertain as to what is the best way forward on both matters, and they have recommended the establishment of an independent review committee to report by April 1998 on the framework for determining pay and conditions of service, including the question whether pay levels for all or any groups need adjustment. Such reviews are all very well, but in Oxford we have particular and atypical concerns. We are faced with trying to recruit some of the most able academics from other universities in this country and in other parts of the world. We have to be competitive with the pay levels that some people have achieved in other British universities and, to a degree, competitive with the sorts of levels that are paid in North America or the Far East. So far as non-academic pay is concerned, we have to compete with local professional or commercial rates of pay. Whilst we have done quite well, I do not believe that we are as successful as we might be in doing all of this. At the higher academic level, I have no doubt that the introduction of five levels of professorial distinction awards has helped greatly in terms of both recruitment and retention. Nevertheless, the University will, I believe, have to look again within the fairly near future at the current levels of award under that scheme. I also think that we will be under increasing pressure to examine whether the current age wage scale can continue in operation, given the fact that we are now often attempting to recruit people who are faced with a pay drop when they come here at the lecturer level, coming as some do from readerships or professorships elsewhere. We need to be able to continue to recruit those people, just as we need to be able to recruit professionals and others to provide the necessary support for the academic activities of the University. If there is no more money, then the really difficult question will be whether the solution is to pay fewer people better.
One of the particularly pleasurable aspects of the Oration is that it gives me the opportunity to draw attention to varied manifestations of distinction across the University. I am delighted to have been able to congratulate the following new Fellows of the Royal Society: Professor Mike Brady, Professor Julian Jack, Professor Christopher Perrins and Professor Kenneth Reid. Similar congratulations have gone to seven new Fellows of the British Academy: Professor Vernon Bogdanor, Professor John Kay, Professor Basil Markesinis, Professor John Muellbauer, Professor Tony Nuttall, Professor Nigel Palmer and Professor Alfred Stepan. It is an added pleasure to be able to congratulate Sir David Cox on his election as an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy. Closer to home we have now had the experience of two rounds of the Titles of Distinction exercise. In July 1996, the title of professor was conferred on 162 members of the University and that of reader on 99. This summer 57 professorial titles and 54 titles of reader have been conferred. Whilst this exercise has not been without controversy, it is worth noting that over the two years there have been in excess of 500 applications for these titles and there is no doubt that many in the University appreciate our ability in this way to recognise the international distinction of so many of our colleagues.
During the course of the summer, the Museums and Galleries Commission designated thirty-two museums as ones holding outstanding collections. It is a particular source of pleasure that all four major museums in the University—the Ashmolean Museum, the University Museum of Natural History, the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Museum of the History of Science—were included on that list. Oxford was the only university to have four such museums on the list. This emphasises the major contribution that they make to the cultural life of Oxford at large. In 1995, as I mentioned earlier, the University was awarded a Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher Education for the work of Isis Innovation; last February we received a second award, this time for the work of the Institute of Molecular Medicine. We are only one of three higher education institutions to have received two such awards. It is now becoming something of a habit to report that the Botanic Gardens won another Gold Medal at the Chelsea Flower Show. The record over the last six years is one silver, two silver gilt and four gold medals. This marks the great pleasure that the Botanic Gardens give to wide sections of the community stretching far beyond the University.
Mention of the wider community takes me on to say something about the relations between the University and the City of Oxford. There is no doubt that, in the past, the relationship has at times been a turbulent one. Thoughts instinctively go back to the St Scholastica's Day riots in February 1355, though even in the context of the turbulent life of medieval England it is worth noting the comment that `evidence of friendship and co-operation between scholars and citizens is more impressive than the record of sporadic violence'. Happily the modern world is very different and, on 10 February 1955, the 600th anniversary of the start of those three days of rioting, the City and the University came together in a formal way with the conferment of an honorary DCL on the then Lord Mayor and the Freedom of the City on the then Vice-Chancellor. There is now a very real community of interest between the City and its two universities and I would like to say how much I have benefited from the kindness of, and co-operation from, successive Lord Mayors over the last four years and from the Senior Officers of the City Council—and indeed from the County Council and the successive Chairmen thereof. Education is the City's biggest business and it is important that we all develop policies and approaches which enable education to flourish for the benefit of all in the City and the County. There is no doubt that this carries responsibilities on the part of the University. We are all, of course, very well aware of the range of facilities and resources of the University and are concerned to make them as widely available as is practicable to the wider Oxford community. I think of our museums and our parks and gardens, and indeed of our libraries for those who are conducting research. We are, however, a major tourist attraction and there is a difficult balance to strike between making available the heritage of our buildings to citizens of Oxford and tourists alike, whilst still continuing the academic activities therein for which they were designed and built. It is undoubtedly the case that there are many contributions made to the life of the City and the County by individual members of the University, by student groups and by other organisations. I am, however, concerned that, at times, there is a failure on the part of some to realise just what contribution the University, in all its manifestations, does make to the wider community. We are, therefore, at the moment conducting a survey within the University centrally and with colleges in order to produce a comprehensive account of what is done by the University for the benefit of those who live in and near Oxford.
It would be foolish not to think that there will, from time to time, be tensions between the University and the City. The most obvious ones relate to planning and to traffic control. We all want to see a reduction in city centre traffic and pollution, yet we need reasonable vehicular access for those who work and, indeed, live in the city. We all want to see fine buildings erected in Oxford; we may not always agree as to the distinction of the designs or the suitability of the site, but we have to bear in mind that the future of the City, its economy and its architecture are in the care of both of us in so many ways. All this is, in a way, a prelude to my saying with what enormous pleasure the University welcomed the decision of the City to confer the Honorary Freedom of the City on the University of Oxford, the ceremony taking place in the middle of last month. It is the highest honour which the City can confer and I believe that it is the first time that it has been conferred other than on individuals, regiments or other cities. Both we and, I am sure, Oxford Brookes University on whom the freedom was also conferred, take great pride in this decision. We are grateful for it and I view it as a signal of the need for the City and the University to focus even more clearly on the contribution that education makes to the well-being of us all.
Mention of Oxford Brookes University takes me on to say how much I have appreciated the co-operation I have received from our colleagues there. I am particularly grateful for all the help I have received from the former Vice-Chancellor, Dr Clive Booth, and it was a great pleasure to be present a few weeks ago at the ceremony for the installation of his successor, Professor Graham Upton.
The year just ending is unusual in that there are only three changes in college headships to remark. We bid farewell to Dr John Albery, who will be succeeded at University College in January by Sir Robin Butler. Sir Marrack Goulding assumes the helm at St Antony's in place of Lord Dahrendorf, to whom I owe a particular debt as a long serving Pro-Vice-Chancellor; and, again in January, Sir Crispin Tickell will be replaced at Green College by Sir John Hanson. We thank those who are retiring for all that they have done in their different ways for the collegiate university and welcome in their place three distinguished public servants whose contribution to the life of Oxford will, I am sure, be both useful and substantial.
The past twelve months have been marked by the retirement of a number of colleagues who have provided the University with a wide range of distinguished service. I think in particular of Professor D.A. Allport, Professor of Experimental Psychology; Professor R.H. Cassen, Professor of the Economics of Development; Professor Sir John Elliott, Regius Professor of Modern History; Professor G.A. Fowler, Professor of General Practice; Professor D. Gray, Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language; Professor K.W. Morton, Professor of Numerical Analysis; Professor E.G.S. Paige, Professor of Electrical Engineering; Professor M.B. Parkes, Professor of Palaeography; Professor A.W. Raitt, Professor of French; Professor T.O. Ranger, Rhodes Professor of Race Relations; Professor L.D. Reynolds, Professor of Classical Language and Literature; Professor L. Solymar, Professor of Applied Electromagnetism; Professor N. Stone, Professor of Modern History; Professor M.J. Whelan, Professor of Microscopy of Materials; Professor C.J. White, Director of the Ashmolean Museum. From Readerships, the following have retired: Dr D. Tarin, Dr M.L.H.L. Weaver, and Dr J.C. Wilkinson.
Many others have retired from their academic posts after long and loyal service to the University: Dr N.E. Booth, Dr A. Corney, Dr M.P. Esnouf, Dr K.D. Gore, Dr D.B. Hope, Mrs P.T. Ingham, Mr R.S. Lucas, Dr D.F. Mayers, Mr H.M. Radford, Dr J.D. Renton, Dr M.J.T. Robinson, Dr C.J.S.M. Simpson, Mrs J.H. Solomon, Dr N.W. Tanner, and Dr V. Williams. Other areas of the life of the University have been marked by retirements. I think especially of the retirement of Dr S. Jones as Curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum, of Mr R.J. Roberts as Deputy Librarian of the Bodleian Library, and of Mr David Vaisey, to whom I paid tribute last year, as Bodley's Librarian. Others who have retired from professional or administrative posts include Dr G.B. Atkins, Mr R.K. Calvert, Dr D.W. Chapman, Dr J.C. Hasler, Mrs L. Hayes, Mr E.J.S. Powell, and Mr R.L.D. Rees.
The University should record its gratitude for the lives and service of those who have died in office during this past year. We salute the memory of Dr E.S. Hodgson, Mrs A.M. Northover, and Dr M.C. O'Brien. Our loss among our former colleagues who have died in retirement is considerable. I have in mind such distinguished scholars as Professor Kenneth Allen, Professor Sally Frankel, The Revd Professor Hedley Sparks, Mr Godfrey Bond—a former Public Orator, Dr H.J.H. Rose, Dr J.M. Thomas, Mr George Morrison, Dr F.N. Robinson, Dr Douglas Roaf, Dr Bernard Rose, Mr Reginald Perman, Mrs Mildred Taylor, Dr Nicholas Polgar, Dr W.R.C. Handley, Mr David Mitchell, Mr A.C. Baines, The Revd A.W. Adams, Mr R.W.B. Burton, The Revd Canon J.N.D. Kelly, and Mr P.L. Gardiner.
We have now almost reached that point in the ceremony when, if I may mix my metaphors, the baton in my hand is about to be passed on—presumably the same baton being seized by the Master of Balliol from his knapsack. However, there is one further, and pleasant, task that still lies before me, namely to express my thanks to so many people who have provided assistance and support to me over the past four years. Constitutionally, I am sure that it is right that I should start with the Chancellor. Oxford is unusual in its self-government, one consequence of which is that there is no chairman of a University Council with whom the Vice-Chancellor can discuss issues relating to the academic development or the external affairs of the University. Our Chancellor fills that role quite admirably so far as the Vice-Chancellor is concerned and I am extremely grateful to him not only for all that he does for the University in Oxford and elsewhere, but also for the very strong personal support which he has given to me over the past four years. He has been ever ready to provide quiet, wise advice on whatever issue I might raise with him.
Oxford has nobody who is described as a Deputy Vice-Chancellor, though it may do so after consideration of the report of the Commission of Inquiry! Nevertheless, there are two offices which fall closest to filling that role. The first, and full-time, office is that of Chairman of the General Board, and the relationship between the Vice-Chancellor and the Chairman is inevitably a close one. It is important that it should be a relationship that works, and I must express my thanks to the three Chairmen of the General Board with whom I have worked, John Peach, Paul Slack, and Glenn Black. To all of them I owe thanks for their wise counsel freely given, and for their kindness and friendship over the past four years. The other post which might be regarded as that of a Deputy Vice-Chancellor is that of President of the Development Programme, in this case a half-time office, but my thanks are no less considerable to Professor Andrew Goudie for shouldering that burden for the past three years. It is an important and significant role within the University, and we are all in Professor Goudie's debt for the care and attention which he has given to that task.
To my ten Pro-Vice-Chancellors I owe a particular debt of gratitude. My absences in Northern Ireland during the first half of the academic year meant that they conducted more ceremonies, chaired more electoral boards, and conferred more degrees than it might have been reasonable to expect, and for that support, and everything else they have done over the past four years, I am indeed grateful. I must also express my thanks to five sets of Proctors and Assessors and would like to say how important I have found our routine weekly meetings in enabling me to retain a feel for the kind of problems and anxieties which end up in the Proctors' Office and which are dealt with each year with such care by the Proctors and Assessor. I hope that I, for my part, may have been able, from time to time, to provide advice which has been of assistance to them. My colleagues on Council and on many committees have borne my chairmanship with good humour and provided me, and the University, with abundant common sense.
The University owes much, as does every Vice-Chancellor, to its civil service, all those people who work in Wellington Square, in the Malthouse and in Oxenford House. So many of them have provided me with well drafted letters and briefs, and with courteous but, where appropriate, constructively critical advice. I would, however, like to single out three people for particular personal thanks. The first must be the Registrar, on whose support so many Vice-Chancellors have come to rely for nearly twenty years. At times the debates between us have been quite vigorous, especially when I have used the worst description I can find of him, namely that his arguments are `rational'. But his analytical skills, his ability to draft with both speed and clarity and his willingness to ensure that all the arguments are properly considered, even if the Vice-Chancellor or a committee must take the decision at the end of the day, have served the University extremely well for a long time. He retires next March and we shall miss him greatly. There will, I am sure, be opportunities in the months to come more fully to express our thanks to him. Secondly, and very differently, I would like to express my personal thanks to Douglas Livingstone who has clocked up over 60,000 miles driving me hither and thither, often at the most unsocial of hours, such as meeting flights at Heathrow at 4 a.m. Always this has been done with skill and good humour.
Just a few weeks ago, Anne Smallwood retired, having served as the Vice-Chancellor's secretary for nearly thirty years and having endured the eccentricities of no fewer than eight Vice-Chancellors. Her services to higher education were rightly rewarded with an MBE in the Birthday Honours List, and the University will confer on her an Honorary MA at a ceremony later this month. Today, I would simply like to express my thanks for all that she has done to organise my life over the past four years.
Of course, during the last four years, while I have been based in Wellington Square, life has continued in my college and I am grateful for the support which the Acting Principal, Dr Anthony Pilkington, the Fellows and all the staff in Jesus College have given me during my Vice-Chancellorship. None has provided more support than my college secretary, Mrs Geraldine Peissel, who has had to cope with the continuing miscellany of my `other' life. Finally, it is right that I publicly record my debt to my wife. The life of a Vice- Chancellor is at times hectic, stressful, and demanding, as well as at other times being exciting, invigorating and rewarding. I am particularly grateful to her for her help and support when times have been more difficult, and for being able to share with her the excitement and the interest that is the whole of the job. Indeed, the University owes her a debt not least for all that she has done to support its links with Oxonians scattered across the world on the various demanding foreign visits we have made together. I thank her very warmly, not only on my own behalf but also on behalf of the University at large.
And now for the future. I have come to rely over the past two years on the skilful perception and wise advice of the Master of Balliol, Dr Colin Lucas. The next four years will bring its challenges, but I have no doubt that he will guide the University with both dexterity and soundness of judgement to the post-Dearing and, indeed, post-North Commission world. I wish him every success and enjoyment as our 271st Vice-Chancellor.
7 October 1997