I do of course tempt fate by raising this memory today. But I do so for a purpose. Encaenia this summer was entranced by the elegant device with which the Professor of Poetry fashioned his last speech on that occasion. He enfolded the simultaneous restoration and renewal of the Old Bodleian within a circle that began with the tap-tapping of the deathwatch beetle and ended with the tap-tapping of computers. I cannot and have no reason to emulate his prose but I do wish to underscore his message.
In the first place, the restoration work in this building has been a major act of stewardship. We have stood to our responsibility as stewards not only of a great historic building but more especially of a great repository of accumulated knowledge, belief, and interpretation upon whose basis new knowledge is built. In second place, this work has served to introduce into this historic library those elements fundamental to the current use and future growth of the most modern methods for accessing library materials and for individual work here. Indeed, the Library is vigorously engaging in new technologies such as digitisation. Third, all of this has required clarity of direction, steadiness of purpose, a sense of the common good, hard work, and special skills from all those engaged in this difficult project: members of the Library staff, the Surveyor's department, the Development Office, and the skilled craftsmen and women who joined us. It has, moreover, been made possible only through the belief and generous commitment of those individuals and foundations who have helped to finance the enterprise. It is proper that I should recognise all of them today.
It seems to me that we have here a powerful image of what characterises the contemporary University of Oxford more generally. A professor from the office of the President of Peking University spent some time in Oxford this year studying European universities and, no doubt, more particularly this one. A couple of months ago, she wrote to me from Beijing saying that what had struck her most about Oxford was its combination of tradition and innovation. I know that she intended this as high praise. I am equally certain that we should draw confidence from the care with which we have set ourselves to conserve that which is essential to us (and, we believe, to the general endeavour of Higher Education) and yet also to innovate with determination and spirit where we need to do so. I shall return to these themes at several points in this Oration. First, however, let me review some aspects of our activity this year.
I began my previous Oration by reporting on the protracted negotiations with the Government about college fees. At that time, the outcome had not been announced. So, I should report here on the settlement finally reached in November 1998. This comprised essentially three parts. First, the state funding of colleges through fees paid on behalf of students directly to colleges by Local Education Authorities was abolished. It was replaced by a premium added to the University's grant from HEFCE. This premium was to be calculated as a sum equivalent to that previously provided to colleges directly, though subject to the contraction imposed in the second element of the settlement. However, this premium will henceforth be based upon a formula of special factors which can be incorporated into HEFCE's general funding formulae, thus ending Oxbridge's funding exceptionalism. Second, this premium will be reduced by one-third over ten years in equal annual tranches beginning in the academic year we are about to start. As a result, at the end of the cycle the annual recurrent income loss will be £6.5m in current prices. Third, a commitment was required and given to increase progressively the amount available in the College Contributions Fund until it reached a sum double the current one. On this last point, proposed legislation will be placed before Council next week. It is important to note that richer colleges have long contributed to sustain the common good of the collegiate system and we should acknowledge that here.
Compared with the apparently established view in 1997 that college fees and any Oxbridge premium ought simply to disappear, this must be accounted a happy outcome. However, it is so only in that respect. There are bound to be considerable anxieties over the financial consequences and also about the potential implications of the shift from the previous mechanism to a route from HEFCE through the University. There are necessarily different interpretations around the whole University. For the year now beginning, the Vice-Chancellor was asked to make a determination and this first funding cut will be shared equally between the colleges and the University. These are difficult matters, but they must be resolved speedily during this coming year. We all need to move on from here very soon now in a way that commands a broad measure of assent and strengthens, in as much as we can, our whole academic undertaking here in Oxford.
In my previous Oration also, I announced that on receipt of the Report of the Commission of Inquiry, we had set up two working parties to take forward what we saw to be the two stem areas of the Commission's recommendations: governance and joint appointments. The Joint Working Party on Joint Appointments has had a particularly arduous set of questions in front of it. They are arduous because they concern how we distribute and recognise our teaching and research activities and because they affect each of our colleagues. Wide consultation, ably led by the Chairman of the General Board, has cleared a considerable amount of the terrain, narrowed the number of issues outstanding, and refined their definition. Among so many other tasks awaiting him, the new Chairman of the General Board will be seeking a resolution in this coming year.
As for governance, during the past year the University has adopted a substantial reform which will, I believe, be seen as a major step-change of improvement in the history of the University. The new structure is rooted in the general thrust and recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry, but its particular character was shaped by the Joint Working Party on Governance. I believe that the University owes a considerable debt to the sense of the common good, careful scrutiny, harmonious discussion, intelligence, and pragmatism not devoid of principle shown by our colleagues in this group, namely, Dr L.G. Black, the Principal of Linacre, the Principal of St Anne's, Professor R.J. Cashmore, Professor A.S. Goudie, Dr K.A. Fleming, Professor P.C. Newell, Dr R.C.S. Walker, the Principal of Hertford, and the Warden of New College. I should also record the excellent support given to the Working Party by Dr Jeremy Whiteley.
Of course, the issue of governance reform has been an object of examination and public consultation since the beginning of the Commission of Inquiry in 1994. The Working Party itself also consulted, held seminars, and tested its views widely as well as in General Board and Council before the general propositions underpinning reform were brought to Congregation for debate and vote in May 1999. At Congregation, no amendments were entered, debate was measured and positive, and the general resolutions were adopted by large majorities (confirmed in much the same proportions on postal vote). Given the seminal character of this change in the way we run ourselves, it does seem to me that the University has acted with despatch, focus, and confidence to convert advice received in early 1998 into practical reform. We should not allow ourselves or others to doubt our ability to change decisively where the University is convinced that change is necessary and timely.
Let us be clear as to the purpose of the reform of governance. The new central arrangements are designed to provide a more transparent, streamlined, and integrated structure which is able to take key strategic decisions in a proactive way and to respond swiftly, clearly, and appropriately to individual issues and opportunities. The gathering of strategic and policy thinking into a single, overarching Council will enhance the ability of the University to assess wisely its needs, potential, and interests in the context of a rapidly changing world. The attribution of the central aspects of the main functional areas of University activity to a small number of major committees will provide a more regular and sustained attention to the particular needs, problems, and development of each activity. The addition of probably four fixed-term Pro- Vice-Chancellors with carefully defined functional roles will further enhance our capacity to think clearly and act appropriately.
At the same time, the placing of much appropriate planning and executive responsibility in five Divisions and beyond is the necessary twin of the reform in the centre. While the exact pattern of the internal structure of Divisions is likely to vary (in the early years, at least), it must be expected that operational responsibility and resources will be delegated as much as possible.
Indeed, the whole reform is based upon the principle that decision- making should be placed at the appropriate level and that we should seek to reverse what my predecessor Sir Richard Southwood so rightly referred to as `delegation upwards'. At the same time, we need to be careful to ensure that the different elements of the University remain within the general policy directions of the University. We need to ensure that subsidiarity does not mean that this or that part of the University takes initiatives or makes commitments that affect directly or by implication other parts of the University, especially if the effects are deleterious. It is for this reason that the new structure depends crucially upon the mechanism of agreed annual plans presented by the divisions and services against which budget resources will be allocated. Clearly, the flexibility and capacity to innovate more easily that we seek requires that we do not lace ourselves into the rigid stays of a stupid planning corset. At the same time, one will not be able to dismiss this budgeting against plans as irrelevant and embark blithely upon initiatives of the character I have described without reference to the Planning and Resource Allocation Committee. The coherence of the University depends upon that.
Finally, in one sense this reform involves a change of culture; but in another and arguably more important sense it does not. The reports laid before the members of the University (and upon which rested the resolutions put to Congregation) have made quite clear that our usual principles of election and democratic accountability continue to underpin our governance. The powers of Congregation remain intact: only the requisite numbers of voters in specified cases have been modified to take account of the increased number of members. Divisional authority is explicitly vested in divisional boards; there is considerable placing of responsibility and choice in the divisions and beyond; there is a careful balance of forms of representation and of interests; Council approves the choice of functional Pro-Vice- Chancellors; the Proctors and Assessor continue in their functions as tribunes of the people. The forms may be unfamiliar but they do not abandon our ordinary principle of governance in my view—and also in the view of Congregation by whom this question was explicitly debated.
This reform is timely and necessary. It is so because of the general internal need for greater clarity in our activity; it is so because it will allow us to navigate more surely in the great sea-change that has come upon our higher educational context. I will return to that point later. Of course, a great deal remains to be done. We have set ourselves the target of having the new system in place for the academic year 2000–1. The timetable is tight but its virtue is that planning blight is reduced to the unavoidable minimum. We have much practical detail to resolve and construct.
It is inevitable that there will be anxieties: anxieties about change itself, anxieties about the protection of some interests felt to be vulnerable, and so on. We shall address these during the coming year. Equally, however, it is inevitable that the new structure will need care and nurture in its first few years and that will require a good measure of patience, understanding, and co-operation, not to mention firmness of collective purpose on occasion. It is always thus with new practices at their inception. However, I have a strong sense that the University is going into this change with confidence and so I have no doubt that we shall manage any difficulties that we may encounter. My next Oration will, I believe, be the proper time to salute the very real virtues of the General Board and the Hebdomadal Council, destined to disappear but whose combined virtues indeed form the heart of the new central structure.
This new structure with its delegation of resources does require also a new resource allocation model. This is a further major undertaking to add to the already onerous business in hand this coming year. Although preliminary technical study has begun, we are clearly limited by the amount of technical skill and staff time available. I do not think it possible to implement anything in this domain before 2001 or 2002, especially in light of the necessary processes of discussion and consultation.
As it happens, however, pressure for change comes from another direction. One result of the Comprehensive Spending Review in 1998 was the allocation of considerable additional sums for the sector, principally for research through the Joint Infrastructure Fund upon which I reported last year. As a condition, however, a Transparency Review of Research was instituted in order to meet a requirement to demonstrate the full costs of research and other publicly-funded activities in accordance with public accountability. Clearly, there are quite a number of issues to be determined, especially which parts of a university's activity fall within the transparency requirement and what will be the criteria for satisfying funders. A national steering group is currently running a number of pilot schemes and all research-intensive universities will be receiving guidance during this coming year. What is certain is that, in common with all such universities, we will have to adopt a transparent accounting of the full cost of research and that this is likely to include some calculations of the allocation of individual academics' time. This is a consequence of the case previously made by the sector about the research funding gap; it is likely to have a powerful effect upon decisions in the next Comprehensive Spending Review in the matter of research spending. Of course, requirements of accountability are not the same as the whole issue of our resource allocation, but the Review necessarily contributes to our need to rethink the latter.
This year, the University has addressed two other reports which I should mention. The first is the Review of Sport. It is undoubtedly the case there are some great strengths in student sport in Oxford. On the one hand, the colleges offer good facilities for team sports in particular; on the other, University Rugby and Rowing have achieved emblematic status through the annual struggle with Cambridge, now reaching a large audience through television (and I know that for brevity's sake I risk the wrath of other successful teams by limiting my remark here). However, the Review has shown up areas that need attention: first, safety (Council has moved immediately to implement and fund the recommendations here); second, issues of management structure and of the organisation of clubs (steps are under way here too); third, the underprovision for women's sport (which is now being addressed) and for more individual sports. On this last, I can report that the swimming pool in particular looks closer to realisation thanks to a most generous challenge grant from the Rhodes Trust. Let me add also that this year, Oxford University and Oxford Brookes University have combined to establish a new Centre for Cricketing Excellence which will attract national funding and allow First Class cricket still to be played here. The Oxford and Cambridge match remains unaffected.
It is not clear to me that this University should seek to emulate some other universities in their thrust for national and international stature in sport with its concomitant high cost. This is not a necessary part of our emphasis on academic excellence. However, it is the case that sport is an important part of a balanced student life, that student taste in sport has diversified, and that expectation in the matter of facilities is quite high. We do ourselves no favours in terms of student recruitment if we do not pay attention to that.
Council also received another report on student matters. The Working Party on Access was set up in late 1997. Its report has been delayed because, jointly with Cambridge, it commissioned a survey of attitudes to Oxbridge among potential applicants and their teachers in a range of schools. This had to be administered in early autumn 1998 and its results analysed. The recommendations (which are currently with the colleges, faculties, and departments) concentrate on offering practical steps to achieve practical results. The evidence is clear that able pupils in the state sector are deterred from applying by a number of factors which the survey identified. A number of these factors cannot be remedied nor indeed would we wish to do so for some of those. However, where it is so often a matter of incomprehension, mythologies, stereotypes, puzzlement over procedures, and lack of contact, the Working Party makes recommendations concerning the way in which we explain ourselves, the way in which we handle applicants, and the way in which we go forward towards this sort of pupil (including the summer schools generously funded by Peter Lampl).
Access is of course one of the leitmotifs of the present Government; since it came to power, this rather vague word has acquired a sharp meaning. Yet, this is no reason to suggest that what the Working Party proposes amounts to a `dumbing down' of Oxford and an easy acceptance of what is fashionable. Oxford has long been concerned about the composition of its undergraduate body and has repeatedly sought to respond to the shifts and changes in secondary education. This Report is just another step in that campaign. Indeed, the establishment of the Working Party anticipated a recommendation of the Commission of Inquiry. The Report emphatically states that there can be no dilution of academic standards in our entrance; it does not wish to abandon the interview (though often urged to do so); it does not suggest much modification to current assessment methods. The issue is simple. It is in Oxford's interest to attract the ablest undergraduates wherever they come from; if there are obstacles to their application and admission, we should seek to lift them. One part of Oxford's reputation is the brilliance of its students. This is not to strive to make this University indistinguishable from every other institution of higher education. On the contrary.
We are all conscious that the University has this year attracted often hostile media comment. We should not be intimidated by this nor should we dismiss it all as irrelevant. We ought to be confident enough to be interested in fair criticism, but to respond robustly to the patently wrong (as I did this summer). A lot of this comment bases itself upon so-called `league tables' published by national newspapers and I should perhaps say a word about these. Rankings have been published in the United States for many years. So, it was with interest that I read a recent article in The Wall Street Journal which pointed out that the `tweaking' of methodology in successive publications produces unpredictable and unbelievable shifts and that ultimately such surveys are `a brilliant way to sell magazines.' The President of Stanford University has spoken of their `specious formulas and spurious precision.' As far as this country is concerned, I feel no cause to dissent from President Casper when I see a major national newspaper accord exactly the same credibility to a wholly casual and flawed survey of a handful of employers as it claims for its own table.
Universities are complex and diverse institutions. They require sophisticated judgement about the quality of their provision which such tables appear incapable of providing. I mention, simply as examples, that in terms of staff:student ratios and expenditure on student resources, the tables make no allowance for the organisation of collegiate universities; large items of expenditure in one year (e.g. a major upgrade of the computer network) would distort a supposedly stable indicator; the teaching quality indicator simply conflates two entirely different types of assessment since the methodology has been profoundly modified; degree classifications are scored as if a higher number of Firsts and 2:1s is an indicator of institutional excellence. I leave the account there. Fundamentally, such tables ignore the legitimate and healthy differences in character and mission between universities in order to line them up in an uncomplicated ladder of ranking. Nonetheless, these tables are here to stay and they will have their effect in the public mind.
We are a highly successful university and in my previous Oration I gave a number of examples of our pre-eminence. These remain mostly unchanged and I will not repeat them. I would only add that this year once again we were the home to more new FBAs and FRSs than any other university; that we received the largest amount in grants from the new Arts and Humanities Research Board; that the breadth and size of our success in the first round of JIF awards demonstrates the range and quality of our science; that our Biological Sciences received the highest rating in Teaching Quality Assessment. Those who read both the Gazette and the national press will have noticed reports on a whole range of activities including, very briefly and at random, new research in diabetes; some dangerous conditions in pregnancy and nanotechnology; our role as lead partner in the international Gemini telescopes project; and finally, at the other end of the spectrum, an innovative collaboration over imaging and unreadable ancient texts as well as a highly successful business and innovation fair. Among the achievements of our students, let me mention only the election of a member of Harris- Manchester College to the Welsh Assembly, revolutionary research on the fossil record of the development of flight, and a successful new Internet company. We gave honorary degrees to President Vaclav Havel and to the Presidents of Harvard and Yale Universities. Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip visited University College on the occasion of its 750th anniversary. As Vice- Chancellor, I must congratulate the College on the successful attainment of such longevity as Oxford's oldest college—though, as Master of Balliol, I am duty-bound to say that my colleagues there are perhaps not quite ready yet to concede the point.
In reality, the desire for league tables betrays a great uncertainty about the nature and function of universities. In my last Oration I noted the rapidly accelerating differentiation of higher education institutions over the last decade in terms of their defined purposes, organisation, content of courses, methods of delivery, and student population. This complexity is principally a response to society's desire to fit universities more directly to perceived social and economic needs. That has become the explicit base of current government policy. At the same time, both as a reaction to complexity and as an instrument of ensuring effective outcomes to government policies, universities are being increasingly regulated year by year.
Regulation takes two overlapping forms: on the one hand, assessment of quality performance and mechanisms of accountability, and, on the other, funding mechanisms. The first category continues to grow: there is the Transparency Review that I have just mentioned; the practical implications of the plans of the Quality Assessment Agency remain uncertain, though we hope for a lighter touch and a move away from numerical gradings; and in the Bett report we suddenly see the suggestion that salary might be linked to membership of the new Institute for Learning and Teaching. As for funding mechanisms, this year has seen an increase in the trend towards the multiplication of financial packages attached to policy objectives for which universities are invited to bid. Three more were announced only a couple of weeks ago. As the new President of the CVCP said last month, all universities feel beleaguered by the bureaucracy of endless assessment and, I might add, by the financial transaction cost of it. At the same time, there are palpable signs of bidding fatigue in this University as elsewhere.
Meanwhile, universities continue to be faced with efficiency gains and we can take only the most limited pleasure in their decrease relative to the previous level. Furthermore, the Government has now made clear its intention to bring 50 per cent of young adults into higher education. This will probably mean the multiplication of sub-degree courses. There is no information about the effect of this on the general budget. At the same time, we should welcome the initiative by which the Government has this year announced a programme to promote and largely finance an increase in overseas students coming to Britain.
Of course, even the most cursory glance at the long history of universities shows the ambiguous nature of their relationship with government and society. On the one hand, universities have always seen themselves as conscience and critic of government and society by virtue of their own preoccupation with some absolute values of knowledge and with a search for first principles. On the other, universities have always served their society and have adapted themselves—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly—to its perceived needs. So, the current situation is not in essence new. It seems to me that this University has been and continues to be responsive to the contemporary needs of society. Thus, for example, our unemployment rate six months after graduation is the lowest of any university in the country; we contribute directly to both the national and regional economy through our exceptionally successful technology transfer programme; we bring skills to a broader community through our active Department for Continuing Education. We continue to be attentive to this issue, within our definition of our particular function and purpose.
However, that is the point: `within our definition of our particular function and purpose.' Governments exist to have policies and set priorities by them; while we are in receipt of public funds, we clearly accept accountability though we may legitimately debate its forms. Within that general framework, it is important that we act upon our own beliefs and choices about this University and university education in general.
We should not only be identified as economic drivers and purveyors of economically productive skills to individuals, commerce, and industry, but also as creators or discoverers of new knowledge and transmitters of knowledge and understanding to each new generation. We must remind ourselves that our function is also to search for understanding as universal as we can make it and to do so by tests which produce rational meaning that holds true in as diverse and complex situations as possible. These tests must be rigorous, transparent, recognised by all and uncompromised by concession to this or that consideration of the moment. While we value greatly the significance of the application of knowledge and, as I say, participate considerably in its dissemination and transfer, our preoccupation is pre-eminently with the very nature of things. As for our teaching, we seek also to give our students a discerning independence and a questioning mind. These are qualities which a stable and successful society needs at a high level in its best-educated young people in addition to practical skills of employability. So, while we are certainly engaged in our contemporary society and its needs, we are rooted in a discrete set of values to which our decisions and policies must relate.
This is a successful university with a world reputation, many eminent researchers and teachers, a deep-pile provision of academic resources, and a great tradition of excellence to continue and emulate. Whatever the commentaries, we can be confident without arrogance about that. In reality, the danger that confronts us is what Harold Shapiro, the President of Princeton, calls `the danger of entrenched success'. Adjustment does not always come easily. As I said in my last Oration, the national and international context is in rapid flux, especially in relation to those important matters upon which we rely in terms of funding, collaboration, circuits, recruitment of staff and students—not to mention the healthy dynamism of disciplinary change. Let me reiterate that I believe that in reforming governance the University has taken a crucial step in equipping itself to deal carefully and appropriately with that context.
It is easy to identify our objective. That is to continue to be a great international teaching and research-intensive university. It is much more difficult to identify how to do it. The definition is not set by us and is much influenced by contextual factors. We need to understand the necessary conditions of this outcome and to seek to meet them where we do not. Clearly, we need to conserve our existing character and the strength that it affords us. The colleges are important academic communities that contain many of the values to which we hold as a University and provide an exceptional and outstanding form of educational experience. We need them to remain vital in their functions. At the same time, we derive great strength from the fact that we are both a research and a teaching institution. I would not myself view with equanimity a future in which, so to speak, we laid a research institute alongside a teaching institute even if they were to be connected by some limp institutional handshake. Teaching and research need each other. We are a complex reciprocating machine; but we all subscribe to a common intellectual and academic enterprise in all its mutually sustaining parts.
Beyond this, it seems to me that there are three conditions to the substance of international stature. First, we must aim to have an appropriate infrastructure in terms of libraries, laboratories, teaching facilities and buildings. Appropriateness is defined by the international quality of the activity which we wish to occur in them. The JIF initiative is a major and welcome opportunity for action here but it does not by any means cover the whole University nor can it respond wholly to the energy of the areas that it does cover.
Second, we need to find financial aid to help international graduate students. My recent trip to Brazil and Argentina confirmed the advice I gave you in my last Oration about the distortion of the flows of graduate students. I found there governments which had made firm policy choices to fund study abroad only in subjects defined as national priorities, preferably on the basis of government-to-government agreements, and certainly only within the context of recognised programmes. These are not isolated examples. Certainly, such policies mean that many excellent graduates will study abroad only where they can find some support. In this respect, we are not as well equipped as we should be. The emphasis that I give here does not mean that I am unaware of the difficulties of funding for British graduate students.
The allocation of resources is of course properly the business of Council, which has not yet had the opportunity to determine the matter. The transfer connected with the new relationship between the University and the University Press does offer the possibility for a significant first step in these two issues. At any event, I should express with clarity the pleasure that the University feels at the fact that the commitment and hard work of everyone at all levels in the Press makes possible this new relationship.
The third issue is the question of how the work of members of the University is rewarded. This is not a question confined to one part of the University nor is it a question confined to this University alone, as was demonstrated by public discussion this year about economists. This a highly complex issue. At one level, Oxford faces real issues of recruitment and retention in respect of other research-intensive universities here and abroad. At another, the recently-published Bett Report has demonstrated the downward shift of pay relativities at all levels throughout the Higher Education sector since 1981 (with some nuances). One might say that there is here a funding gap that echoes the funding gap identified by the Dearing Report. As for Bett's specific proposals in the matter, the Government shows no sign yet of funding them and without such funding it is difficult to see how the sector as a whole and individual universities could adopt them within the current regime.
Indeed, much in the previous discussion depends upon the future funding of universities, particularly research-intensive universities, and upon how we in Oxford are able to manage that.
In conclusion, I am glad to be able to welcome three new Heads of House who join us this year. Sir Alan Budd succeeds Dr Geoffrey Marshall as Provost of Queen's College, Dr Michael Mingos becomes Principal of St Edmund Hall in succession to Sir Stephen Tumim and, in January, Sir Peter Williams will follow Lord Plant as Master of St Catherine's College. I am glad also to welcome Dr John Rowett as Warden of Rhodes House and Secretary to the Rhodes Trust in succession to Sir Anthony Kenny.
This past year has also seen the retirement of colleagues who have given distinguished service to the University. I should mention in particular: Professor I. Brownlie, Chichele Professor of Public International Law; Professor C.H. Feinstein, Chichele Professor of Economic History; Professor N.Y. Gale, Professor of Archaeological Science; Professor C.A.R. Hoare, James Martin Professor of Computing; Professor J. O'D. McGee, Professor of Morbid Anatomy; Professor M.R. Matthews, Professor of Human Anatomy; Professor B.A. Rudden, Professor of Comparative Law; and Professor J.P.S. Simons, Dr Lee's Professor of Chemistry.
Many others have retired from their academic posts after long service to the University: Dr H.C. Bennet-Clark, Dr B.E. Juniper and Dr R. Sherlaw-Johnson; Miss A.G. Bruten, Dr G.S. Claridge, Dr C.W. Edwards, Mrs L.P.E. Edwards, Miss B.M. Everett, Dr E.W. Gill, Mr P.A. Hayward, Dr T.J. Huins, Mr J.M. Kaye, Mr R.M.P. Malpas, Dr D.E. Olleson, Dr D. Radojicic, Mr D. Robinson, Dr C. Ruiz, Dr G.L. Salmon, Mr F.A. Scott, Dr G.C. Stone, Mr F.R. le P. Warner, Mr D.C. Witt, and from senior administrative posts: Mr N.J. Fiennes, Mr P.W. Jones, and Mr A.W. Price.
I wish to record our gratitude for the lives and service of our colleagues who have died in office during the past year: Mr J.L. Allen, Dr M. Aris, Mr K.G Dunford, Mr R. Eagle, Mr M.S.T.A. Lawrence, and Mr J.A. Lloyd. We have also lost former colleagues in retirement. I have in mind such distinguished scholars as Sir Edward Abraham (from the munificence of whose Trust the University has received over £30m in benefactions which we shall not forget), Lord Beloff, Sir Alec Cairncross, Dr Alexander Cooke, Mr Arthur Crow, Professor David Daube, The Revd Dr Gwynne Henton Davies, Mr Eprime Eshag, Professor Margaret Gowing, Professor Albert Green, Mr Colin Hardie, Mr John Harris, Mrs Sonia Hawkes, Dr Geoffrey Hodgson, Dom Philip Holdsworth, Professor Nicholas Kurti, Dr Martin Lawrence, Professor Donald McKenzie, The Revd Graham Midgley, Dame Iris Murdoch, Mr John O'Brien, Lord Phillips of Ellesmere, Dr Garth Robinson, Professor Ronald Robinson, Mr Charles Smith, Dr Robert Torrance, Miss Rachel Trickett, Professor Robert Turner and Professor Bruce Wernham.
Finally, let me pay tribute to Dr Glenn Black, the retiring Chairman of the General Board. He has been willing to serve for the unusually long period of three years and I know him to have been an outstanding Chairman. The University owes him considerable gratitude for his skilful leadership. I myself owe him a real personal debt for his comfort, counsel, and occasional contradiction during my first two years in office.