Oration by the retiring Vice-Chancellor

I have been reading the regulations concerning this particular ceremony, involving as it does this year the passage from one Vice-Chancellor to another. I read there—to my relief and no doubt to yours also—that the outgoing Vice-Chancellor shall make a short speech. My Oration will, therefore, be somewhat shorter this year than on previous occasions, though I am obliged to make my usual report on the year. Nonetheless, you should not conclude from the (very) relative brevity of this Oration that the University and its members do not continue to be as highly achieving and complex as I have reported them to be in previous years.

Indeed, a review of the past academic year demonstrates continued achievement on a great many levels. I have been accustomed to using the opening of new or refurbished buildings as an indicator of vitality and ambition. They demonstrate our sustained effort to give great traditions of research and academic life a chance of renewal and continuing success through new and flexible facilities. The new Chemistry Research Laboratory sums this up well: the formal opening by HM the Queen, who thus marked the national importance of the initiative, was followed later by the presentation of a plaque by the Royal Society of Chemistry, recording the long history of creative and path-breaking Chemistry in the Dyson Perrins. Elsewhere, the Oxford Centre for Gene Function was opened by James Watson, Nobel Laureate; the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism opened its Takeda wing, and Institute of Musculoskeletal Sciences opened the Botnar Centre; the new Beecroft Institute was opened for research in Particle Physics and Cosmology, while Social Sciences have moved into the modern environs of their Centre for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (to be opened formally in November). Current work in St John Street testifies to a generous gift from the Khalili Family Trust for the development of a research centre for the art and material culture of the Middle East; and we have completed and opened the new Club facility in Mansfield Road for the use of all University staff and graduate students. Finally, in this abbreviated catalogue, we did achieve the formal opening of the Rosenblatt Pool, a facility which I have eagerly heralded in earlier Orations. I must, however, express one note of personal disappointment here. We were treated to a display of the variable geometry of the pool whereby the pool floor can be brought up to the surface. Regrettably, I was detained by some loquacious person and thus stepped forward only to see it sinking again below the waves. Unhappily, therefore, I cannot report that by the end of my Vice-Chancellorship I was walking on water.

Benefactions lie behind many, though not all of these initiatives. Benefactors are, indeed, a crucial element in the continued success of the University. I am very glad that we were able to use the newly created Sheldon Medal to honour the two most significant benefactors in recent years, both of whom have enabled the University to make step changes. Mr Wafic Sa‹d's enabling gifts have established the Business School; through his Foundation Lord Wolfson of Marylebone has made more than 100 gifts to Oxford. Benefactions, large or small, are hugely important to a university firstly because they allow it to undertake things that it would not otherwise have been able to do. For example, the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation (also opened formally this year) opens a new field in which Oxford can demonstrate how vigorously it engages with one of the proper functions of a university. That function is to seek to understand that which we do not understand and, by so doing, to contribute the elements of solutions which will help to resolve complexity and, in this particular case, to allow the world better to confront some of the threatening consequences of humanity's progress.

Yet, the greater importance of benefactions is that they diminish the dependency which results from over-reliance on a single income source and from which ensues a loss of institutional independence of judgement about itself and its parts—whatever that income source is. The independence of universities is a serious matter. I have discussed in earlier Orations how government regulation has been growing. We must be careful to be clear on this. The government is right to point out that it does not prescribe the number and type of courses, that it does not prescribe the content of courses, that it does not demand that all those with a school-leaving certificate be admitted to university or each be admitted to a specific local university, that it does not directly employ university teachers as civil servants. Some or all of those elements pertain in other countries. Equally, it is right that if we receive public money, we should be accountable for its use. Accountability is perfectly compatible with independence. Nonetheless, it is the case that growing regulation does not enhance but restrains a university's ability to make unfettered choices about how it operates and about its strategic directions. Moreover, this regulation is articulated so visibly in a spirit of distrust of universities that we may legitimately be anxious about its future direction. Indeed, we must seek to defend the universities—not for some petty motive of selfish comfort, whose indulgence would undoubtedly lead to decline, but because history demonstrates that the health of a society requires there to be some institutions protected from constraint in the nature of their enquiry, the character of their instruction, and the freedom of their criticism. A relationship with government is inevitable; it has always been there. The heart of the matter is the nature and management of that relationship; and it is the collective responsibility of both universities and government itself to deal with that wisely.

For my part, I would think it a regrettable simplification to reduce the complex issue of independence to simple financial independence from government, even if any political party in this country had that on offer (which none does). I myself believe that higher education is a matter of public interest (though not a public function) and that therefore it should receive support from the public purse. If universities do not do so, they are at jeopardy either of growing public irrelevance and indifference or else of dependence upon other interests with strong agendas. American private universities certainly benefit from federal funding; but, they demonstrate a different way in which federal funding is directed towards higher education and above all the different spirit which presides over federal attitudes to higher education. Of course, large endowments are critical to the success of well-managed North American private and state universities. Building a larger endowment is an objective that Oxford must pursue in a sustained way over time. In order to succeed, however, the whole University really must subscribe to this as a collective action. Endowments are powerful because they provide unhypothecated or substitute income and that is a tool of independence. By the same token and more immediate, independence is nurtured financially by the multiplication of different income sources as I said earlier. In the meantime, we must welcome the recognition of fundraising's importance in the Thomas Report and its favourable reception by the government, although we must remain vigilant that our success does not result in some covert or overt discrimination in whatever national policies may be adopted.

I am very pleased to be able to report once again that our colleagues have continued to receive recognition of their outstanding quality either personally or as part of the departments or institutions in which they work. Colleagues have been newly elected to the Royal Society and the British Academy; they have won national and international prizes; they have given distinguished invited lectures; and in all parts of the University they have earned competitive research grants. I am glad to say that (if I may put it this way) they are so numerous in their distinction that I cannot begin to list them individually. I will allude only to the magnificent and very challenging grant of œ15m to the Ashmolean Museum from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The quality of universities depends crucially upon the quality of their academics and students, even though they cannot operate fully without an appropriate infrastructure. Measuring such things comparatively has become a general pastime. All such tables of universities in ranking order depend upon the weighting which the compiler gives to this or that element, simply as a matter of his or her choice without any agreed basis. Nonetheless, I was impressed by the publicity given to a table published in China this year, possibility due to the fact that it is the first to try this on a global scale. I was struck by that fact that two British universities appeared in the top ten. In this Olympic year, I was struck also (and I am not the only one to have voiced this thought) by the disparity between the praise given by public spokesmen and the media to British medal winners in a global competition, on the one hand, and, simultaneously on the other, that given to Oxford and Cambridge. The quality of our academics is just as much a product of outstanding skill, long training, and the determined perseverance over a long time in pursuit of the highest achievement. The organisers of the Olympic Games were more alert, however, since they invited Dr D'Angour, Fellow of Jesus, to compose a Pindaric Ode for the closing ceremony (though they appear also to have decided that it would be more accessible translated into English—o tempora o mores).

We do of course have our own national form of assessment. The QAA undertook an institutional audit of the University earlier this calendar year. Although this was by no means the excessively intrusive exercise that characterised the previous QAA, it did demand considerable preparation. This was ably led by Dr Macmillan, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic), but equal praise and gratitude must go also to the administrators and academic staff who laboured so effectively over this. Of course, success in these matters depends upon being able to present material transparently and respond clearly; but it is also a process of making visible the real quality in teaching and assessment that is here. The QAA report is very favourable. Among the matters in the report, I am particularly glad to see the reviewers' recognition of the good balance between research and teaching. In a research-intensive university such as this, there is always a tension between teaching and research. It is a tension that is institutional (between the institution's functions to create new knowledge and to transmit acquired knowledge) and also personal (between the hunger for new understanding that inhabits us and the joy of imparting understanding that brought most of us into the profession in the first place). There is an anxiety about this among us, inevitably so. However, I think that we should feel that we have been reassured that collectively and individually we are managing that tension fairly well.

We celebrated also a few days ago the publication of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Although begun with a subsidy obtained by the British Academy, 85 per cent of the cost has been borne by the Oxford University Press, in the words of the Delegates at the time `as a service to scholarship, in no expectation of a commercial return'. It is a superb achievement in the quality of its scholarship, the scope of its ambition, the rigour of its design, and the punctuality of its delivery. It is a tribute to the memory of Professor Colin Matthew, who laid down the tracks on which it proceeded, and to Professor Brian Harrison who led it after Professor Matthew's untimely death. It is also a powerful testimony to the Press's fulfilment of its prime mission, which is to disseminate to the world the results of academic scholarship and of the growth and deepening of knowledge. We should be proud of our Press, of those who lead it and of all who work in it. What they produce is a significant guarantee of our reputation worldwide; and, during my time as Vice-Chancellor, the Press has contributed handsomely to the operation of the University.

The provision of a modern infrastructure with which the University may function effectively in the changing environment has continued this year. All but the detailed regulations concerning trusts have now been completed in the renewal of the University's statutes and regulations. I should renew the University's gratitude that I expressed in an earlier Oration to the former Principal of St Hugh's, Mr Derek Wood, who now steps down from chairing this committee. However, the implementation of a new integrated accounting system has not been nearly so trouble-free. This project has been delayed more than once as modules failed in tests. By the time of its implementation, the tests were all positive. However, a number of functional failures in some operations became rapidly apparent after go-live. Of these, certainly the most troublesome, the most difficult to understand, and the most difficult to cure has been the reporting function. It appears that only one Division was put in a situation of anguish by this situation, but it is certainly the case that all those responsible for financial matters in the Divisions and elsewhere did have a very hard and frustrating time of it over the summer. I do very much regret this and wish to thank them for their fortitude and perseverance in the circumstances. I am assured that core reports are now working, known data issues have been identified and mainly corrected, and month-end difficulties should be resolved very shortly. Notwithstanding these difficulties, I have to say that if this university is to manage its financial business effectively, if it is to plan and implement its business in a context of predictable under-funding, if it is to satisfy outside requirements (not least but not only Full Economic Costing), if it is to prosper in the future, then it must have an integrated accounting system and it must have it now. Hitherto, we have had a complicated, fragmented system, full of historic accretions. In part, that itself has made the transition difficult; but I do not think that big systems are ever easy to implement.

Another matter that has caused difficulty this year and will, I am sorry to say, continue to do so is the extremist element in the agitation around the use of animals in laboratory work. Let us be quite clear on a number of points. First, it has been repeatedly alleged that the new building is being constructed in South Parks Road in order to continue the research programme prevented by activists at Cambridge. That is an untruth. We are simply re-providing better facilities for what we already do as research. Second, we are committed to reducing the use of animals for bio-medical research as other techniques for achieving the same results emerge and we ourselves contribute to their development. Third, the use of animals in laboratories is more highly regulated in this country than in almost any other. We obey scrupulously the legislation on the matter and we are constantly monitored by outside inspectors on both our procedures and the conditions in which animals are kept. What we do is lawful. Fourth, by the same token we do not reproach anyone for expressing opposition in a lawful and peaceful manner. No opinion should be silenced simply because it is unpopular. Civil perdition lies that way and it must be in the very nature of a university to defend the right to lawful protest and the expression of opposing opinion. Equally, however, civil perdition lies in allowing intimidation of people going about their lawful business. Whatever the Web sites may say, there is no secret about this: those who were building the new building originally were coerced into ceasing work by unlawful intimidation and harassment in their places of work and in their homes.

The Government has expressed its determination to put an end to this intimidation. I am grateful to it for the support it has shown for us. The government must see this through, for it is no exaggeration to say that significant parts of British bioscience are at stake here. These actions are beginning to happen elsewhere; but, after Huntingdon Life Science and Cambridge, Oxford has assumed iconic status, not least in the media. Let no one believe that the extremists are interested in only one category of animal. It is the use of any animals at all that they seek to prevent. This was made evident—as indeed were their tactics—by the newspaper accounts this summer of the intimidation of a village where there is a breeding establishment. We would not have wished to be in this situation. Now that we are, I think that we must persevere. I believe that we have received, however involuntarily, a responsibility for defending not just bioscience research but, through this case, the ability of university research more generally to seek knowledge now hidden from us, by procedures that are both lawful and scientifically sound. To my mind, there is a serious point of principle here. If we are to allow ourselves to be intimidated into ceasing to do what we are lawfully entitled to do, what next will we be intimidated into ceasing? Will we desist from seeking ways to prevent possible harmful side-effects of technologies that can help feed the starving through improved yield or nutrients? Will we stop writing on certain historical subjects because some dominant view of how the national past validates us brooks no other interpretation? Will we give up employing members of this or that ethnic or faith group because some fraction of opinion reviles them?

We are accused of a cruel lack of compassion. Let me put it this way. The use of animals in carefully controlled ways is necessary to help that person you are watching decline month by month into the shrunken incoherence of Parkinson's disease. It is necessary in order to find alleviation for that person you know whom Alzheimer's disease is robbing of even the consciousness of her own loss of dignity, let alone of the spark of spirit that marks us as human. It is necessary in order to prevent others coming after that over-grown child whom you have seen strapped into a buggy pushed by caring parents, unable to control his limbs or wipe his mouth or utter sounds understandable by the rest of us. These whom you have seen or know stand for countless others around the globe, often in circumstances more abject than you are ever likely to encounter in this country. And these three conditions are only a fragment of what academic research seeks to improve in this and other universities. Do those who try to intimidate us have a monopoly on compassion? I think not.

The national context has been dominated this year by the passage of the Higher Education Bill through the two Houses of Parliament and into legislation. The outcome has been abundantly publicised and the issues and debates lavishly commented in the press. So, I do not think that I need to cover this ground again here. My views are known to you through what I have said and written. The Higher Education Act does mark a significant shift in the funding of universities, albeit a modest step—though that is perhaps understandable given the kind of numbers agitated either by those who had not reflected carefully enough on the nature of a market in fees in this country at this time or by those seeking to subvert any change by dealing in panic. As matters stand, I think it unlikely that there will be a market in fees but that, perversely, there will probably be a market in bursaries at some levels. However, whether one believes or not in a personal financial contribution from students, this University certainly subscribes to the principle that also informs this legislation—that is, no one should be deterred from seeking entry to a university of his or her choice by financial considerations. I am quite clear that the collegiate university will act appropriately on this front.

The disciple which the Act brings in its train to universities is the Office for Fair Access. This too may well mark a significant shift. It does appear to me that the government has listened to those such as myself who pointed out to them dangers in the original ideas for this Office. OFFA is not particularly onerous in its demands nor does it require new data; the Director may not interfere in the content of courses or in admissions decisions; there will be some appeal possible against decisions; no university is deemed to have failed simply because it is not meeting its benchmarks; once accepted, the access agreement lasts for its full period unaltered. OFFA's existence is the condition of the new system; without it, the Bill would not have been passed. Nonetheless, the access agreement is a serious matter: it must contain not simply dedicated financial support for students but also a clear programme of outreach and an agreement based upon a sense of how we measure our accessibility. I do not read the document as saying that this should be expressed in a crude numerical description of the composition of the student body. However, it does require the collegiate University to be clear about how it fulfils its own real desire to be available to the brightest students with the greatest potential, subject only to being adequately endowed with the practical educational skills to deal specifically with the education here.

The timetable is very tight indeed. At the beginning of October, we still do not know the name of the new Director of OFFA—and each university needs to publish its prospectus of details within the next three or four months. Of course, a very great deal will depend upon the spirit and the practice with which the Director of OFFA approaches the task. On that, we have every right to reserve judgement. I remain adamant on two matters. First, this collegiate University should be strong in its confidence that it does approach admissions with a spirit and procedures of scrupulous fairness turned towards each candidate as an individual, where the flaws in admissions decisions are only those that can naturally attend any matter of human judgement. We really could not and should not conduct admissions of the basis of a mechanical formula. Second, although we should always be available to new ways of defining and identifying quality, we should never depart from the paramountcy of academic quality in the selection of students. I have no doubt that if we were required to use other criteria instead, that would provoke a crisis in our relationship with government.

The Higher Education Act dispels neither the issues of the relationship to government nor the funding problems which have often figured in my Orations. The most serious issue in funding is without doubt the gross imbalance in the support given to the Humanities/Social Sciences as distinct from the Sciences, as well as in funding between research and teaching. As I have said in other years, while the government is doubtless right to emphasize the importance of science research in the growth of the new economy and while this University welcomes, as any university would, the investment and the renewed sense of the relevance of universities that come from that policy, this exclusively economic benefit-driven, science-oriented emphasis is extraordinarily diminishing of a university's true scope and function. This is not just a matter of government funding, but a general malaise of our time. In the United States, for example, while Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford with average endowments of $11.8bn can afford to fund across the board, Columbia, Chicago, Penn and Cornell with average endowments of $3.5bn are finding exactly the same internal stress in allocation that we ourselves confront. This situation is leading towards a damaging destabilisation of the ecology of universities and the atrophying of parts that are just as important in the role of universities in their societies. Indeed, we need to remember that universities are about exploring the universality of knowledge, about seeking the understanding of complex issues in all the domains of the individual human mind and body, of human society, and of the natural and physical world which enfolds human beings. As academics seek to understand this or that particular element, they are also contributing to understanding how these elements fit together. There are no especial hierarchies of value in such discovered knowledge beyond the particular intellectual prowess of individuals. And we cannot know, beyond some building blocks, what among the knowledge we deem important today will appear so to a future generation.

As for our teaching, surely it does not matter what branch of knowledge a student pursues. Universities aim to teach all students how to cope with complexity, how not to be misled by approximations and simple arguments, how to seek evidence and how to test it. In this respect, our function is to provide society with generations of creative and innovative, informed and alert, responsible citizens capable of identifying and defending the values and mechanisms of stable, civilised community amidst the challenges of competing interests. The messages that Humanities conveys on these things do, I dare say, appear more immediately accessible and engaging to many young people. A society that pauperises the Humanities is in great danger of impoverishing its defences and guarantees for the continued stability of a richly diverse mix. I have little patience with the reductionist talk of creative industries with which we seek now to soften the granite face of public funding on behalf of the Humanities. The Humanities are not essentially about the economics of leisure. In the 1940s, people did not go off to war with classical texts in their pocket in order to fill their leisure moments. They did so because these texts offered them lessons on themselves, on those around them and on the circumstances in which they found themselves. These lessons are to be found wherever, in whatever form, in whatever language and from whatever culture people have sought to express their perceptions of the human condition and to record its dilemmas. So, whilst we rightly pursue great opportunities afforded by large pulses of funding and are glad of them, as a University we must always remember our true mission; we must remember that it lies in our totality, that it is implicit in the broad continuous sweep of the disciplinary horizon. I was much cheered to hear this line of thought expressed (more pertinently and eloquently than I have managed) by the Archbishop of Canterbury at a University Sermon this year.

I have therefore now reached the end of my term as Vice-Chancellor. As I recall these seven years, it does seem to me that we have all together achieved a considerable change. We have reformulated the governance structure of the University. We have introduced a resource allocation method which, though not perfect in all parts, is the first attempt to treat the University's income and expenditure as a whole and to apportion it on a transparent basis. We have sought to give the initiative in designing academic plans and developments to those closest to the realities and opportunities. We have tried as best we can to devolve budgets to the divisional level to meet academic activities and developments. Bringing this sort of decision-making to that level has, we hope, ended a rather unthinking dependency on central decision-making and opaque funding. Of course, involving colleagues actively in these often hard choices that were previously dealt with remotely has seemed to some like a centralisation; but I think that many more have come to feel empowered and invigorated by it and I do detect real new ways of thinking about how and why we do things.

Beyond all this, we have invested substantially in our infrastructure (partly, but only partly, by means of national infrastructure funding rounds). On the one hand, we have sought in a concerted manner to re-provide as far as possible the buildings and equipment without which modern research and graduate teaching cannot now really take place; and we have tried to do this across as broad a front as possible. On the other hand, we have tried to invest for future needs by purchasing the Begbroke site and the Radcliffe Infirmary, as well as other buildings around the city for different academic and service purposes. The University did not before have a co-ordinated approach to these matters. We have built and successfully brought into the mainstream a whole new Business School. We have built at least fifteen new major buildings and many other additions and improvements. The colleges too have not been slow to respond to modern accommodation needs with a programme of excellent building. Finally, we have established the Clarendon Fund for scholarships for overseas graduate students. Before, we had very little provision and were unable to cope with the international patterns of talented student choice. This initiative was funded by money from the University Press with which we have established a new financial relationship. Finally, we have grown Isis Innovation into an arm of technology transfer that has been publicly recognised as exemplary.

I think that the University has taken an historic turn. I have to say to all our colleagues, both academic and others who work in all parts of this institution, how great is the credit that is, I believe, due to them for the way they have embraced and managed change individually and collectively. Of course, change is difficult. It is doubly difficult in the climate of under-funding, increasing regulation, and data demands that came upon us and had to be fed through to many parts of the University. I am sure that from time to time many of us have felt frustration and irritation. Of course, we have not got everything right and some distortions need to be corrected. It will be the function of the review, upon which the University should soon embark, to identify what needs adjusting and to make recommendations on that. However, I do think that in general the members of the University have understood the very challenging and fast changing national and international pressures that surround us. They have seen the need for change and for new structures to enable us to deal with those pressures so that we may remain a great international university, even if not all have agreed with every step chosen. I take considerable encouragement from the recent consultation on future strategy. To my knowledge, we have not previously asked ourselves collectively these sorts of searching questions about what we should be as a University. The fact that we have been able to do so testifies, to my mind, to the degree of our change. On some matters, the direction was clear, on others less so. That is evidence both of healthy, engaged debate and of the extraordinary difficulty of holding a complicated discussion in this complicated institution. Much remains to be done, but I think that we have made an adequate start. To my mind, the greatest dangers come not from without, but from within. This University is composed of many parts—divisions and departments or faculties, institutes, libraries, museums and colleges. If we allow the individual interests and ambitions of the parts to triumph over the need of the whole, then I believe that this University sink slowly towards a mediocrity, back-lit only by a glorious past.

On a personal note, I should say that I have acquired an enormous and widely distributed debt of gratitude. Of course, there are those with whom I have worked the closest—David Holmes the Registrar and other senior officers in the administration; Pro-Vice-Chancellors and Heads of Division (Sue Iversen, Paul Slack, Glenn Black, Bill Macmillan; Brian Cantor, Peter Newell, Ralph Walker, Donald Hay, Ken Fleming, David Clary and Nigel Thrift); those in my office (Alison Miles, Alasdair Macdonald and David Kerbyson). However, there are many others in many parts of the University who have helped me—supported me, even—often with a natural grace and generosity which has touched me and made me feel rewarded. To them, I can perforce only say this general word of thanks.

And now, even as a departing Vice-Chancellor, I should welcome (though in an ave atque vale sort of way) the new Heads of House who join this year. Ms Frances Cairncross becomes Rector of Exeter in succession to Professor Marilyn Butler. Mr Tim Gardam follows Dame Ruth Deech as Principal of St Anne's, on her appointment as the first Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education. Sir Neil Chalmers, whose election I reported last year, takes up office as warden of Wadham is succession to the late Dr John Flemming. With the retirement of Sir David Rowland, Templeton College has divided the role of President and has appointed Mr Richard Greenhalgh as Chairman of the Governing Body and Professor Michael Earl as Head of the college. The Revd Dr Thomas Weinandy has been succeeded by Dr Nicholas Richardson as Warden of Greyfriars. Fr Henry Wansbrough, who is returning to Ampleforth, has been succeeded as Master of St Benet's Hall by Fr Leo Chamberlain. My departure coincides also with the arrival of two other elected figures in the University: Mr Richard Jenkyns as Public Orator and Professor Christopher Ricks as the Professor of Poetry. I should use this occasion most particularly to thank the demitting Public Orator, Professor Jasper Griffin, for his outstanding and bilingual service, which has enhanced the `vibrant' public ceremonies of this University. I should thank also Professor Reed for his long editorship of the Oxford Magazine., ended now by retirement. Finally, the University also has a new Marshal, Mr Nick Cheeseman.

This year has seen the retirement of many distinguished colleagues who have contributed to the University's intellectual life over the years: Professor P.E. Bryant, Watts Professor of Psychology; Professor M.S. Child, Coulson Professor of Theoretical Chemistry; Dr J.J. Coulton, Reader in Classical Archaeology; Professor R.R. Davies, Chichele Professor of Medieval History; Dr J.H. Dunbabin, Reader in Medieval History; Mr J.P. Dunbabin, Reader in Politics; Professor R.F. Gombrich, Boden Professor of Sanskrit; Professor J.F. Harris, Professor of Modern History; Professor B.H. Harrison, Professor of Modern British History and Editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Professor H.A.O. Hill, Professor of Bioinorganic Chemistry; Professor A.W. Lintott, Professor of Roman History; Professor P.A. Mackridge, Professor of Modern Greek; Professor A. Morpurgo-Davies, Professor of Comparative Philology; Professor G.M. Morriss-Kay, Professor of Developmental Anatomy; Professor D. Noble, Burdon Sanderson Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology; Professor A.D. Nuttall, Professor of English Literature; Professor T.J. Reed, Taylor Professor of the German Language and Literature; Professor C.F. Robinson, Professor of European Literature; Professor B.C. Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics; Professor E.M. Steinby, Professor of the Archaeology of the Roman Empire; Dr K. Tiller, Reader in English Local History; and Professor M.S. Tite, Edward Hall Professor of the Roman Empire.

Other colleagues, whose service to the University deserves recognition, have retired from academic or research posts: Dr. I.A. Ault, Dr D.L. Bevan, Dr J.F. Bithell, Mr D. Bostock, Dr J.D.P. Donnelly, Dr G.J. Ellis, Mr M.B. Gearin-Tosh, Mr J. Hackney, Dr T.J. Horder, Mrs V. Knott-Hunziker, Dr R.B. Lee, Dr M.J. Malowany, Dr D.W. Maskell, Dr O. Murray, Dr R. L. Nettler, Dr. P. Nightingale, Dr V.T. O'sullivan, Dr B.W.F. Powell, Mrs J.P. Rawlins, Dr N.J. Richardson, Dr D.J. Roaf, Mr B.B. Rundle, Mr J.G. Sandham, and Dr E.J. Williamson.

I should also mention those colleagues who have retired from important administrative, library or service posts in the University: Mrs S.L. Allcock, Mr D.J. Allen, Mr V.W.A. Allison, Mr C.S.J. Annetts, Dr K. Bannister, Mr M.P. Barnsley, Mr R.D. Bell, Mrs A Cawasjee, the Hon J.A. Chubb, Miss F.J. Cousins, Mr G. Davey, Ms Y. Hibbott, Mr J. Johnston, Dr C.R. Repp, Mr R. Snowball, Mr K.W. Stone, Mr S.J. Taylor, Mr D.H. Thomas, Mr J. Whitney, and Mr D.L. Williams.

This year, the University community has lost valued colleagues whose early deaths have been a source of great sadness: Professor P.B.H. Birks, Regius Professor of Civil Law; Dr J.A. Black, University Lecturer in Akkadian; Dr E.A. England, Academic Administrator in the Department of Biochemistry; Dr C.M. Florio Cooper, Instructor in Italian; Mrs F.C. Drury, Senior Tutor at University College; Professor J.W. Harris, Professor of Law; and Dr J. Logue, CUF Lecturer in Philosophy.

Finally, we pause to remember the contributions of those colleagues who have died in retirement over the past year: Mr A.A. Adams, Mr R.E. Alton, Dr R.D. Barnes, Miss D.V.P. Beatty, Mrs J.M. Beirne, Dr R. Berman, Dr B.P. Glynn, Dr J.M. Hammersley, Dr J.C. Harle, Mr B. Hitch, Mrs Kraay, Mr A.F.A. Lamb, Dr J.L. Lloyd, Mr P.J. Lockton, Sir Donald MacDougall, Dr W.S. McKerrow, Dr Monostori, Miss J. Nicholson, Professor E.G.S. Paige, Sir Malcolm Pasley, Dr A. Ramm, Dr M.E. Reeves, Mrs P. Turner, Mr S. Wilson and Dr S.R. Woodell. I should mention most particularly Lord Bullock, my most distinguished predecessor as Vice-Chancellor who set the mould in which I inherited that office.

In conclusion, let me say that I have been immensely proud to have served as Vice-Chancellor of this great University. I greet my successor with pleasure. Perhaps, I may do so with these words: `E te rangatirata John ... haere mai ... haere mai ... nau mai'. I cannot guarantee my pronunciation, but I have it on good authority that I have just said in Maori: `esteemed John, I bid you welcome ... thrice welcome'.