Dons at Oxford University ended years of debate yesterday by rejecting a set of governance reforms championed by vice-chancellor John Hood, who vowed to remain in his position in spite of speculation that the vote would make him a lame duck.
In a postal vote among more than 2,500 Oxford acatemics and staff, more than 60 per cent turned down a sweeping set of proposals outlined in a white paper published in June. The proposal that "raised the most heat, if not light", according to Dr Hood, concerned changes to the university's highest governing council, which would have been rebalanced between academics and outside professionals in an arrangement resembling a board of directors or a US university's board of trustees.
Supporters saw the proposal as introducing outside perspectives and modern administrative expertise, while opponents saw it as an attack on the self-governing traditions one of the oldest universities in the world. The postal vote made it clear that the latter view prevails in Oxford's 3,000-strong "parliament of dons". The outcome confirmed a November 28 vote that saw 60 per cent of almost 1,200 dons reject the proposals after a three-hour debate in the Sheldonian theatre.
Less clear were Dr Hood's prospects after the defeat of his reform plan. His tenure lasts two more years. While no body save the "parliament of dons" itself is powerful enough to force him to resign, he could have little political capital left after the two-year-old reform debate's conclusion. "He nailed his colours to the mast, and the mast appears to be broken," said David Palfreyman, bursar of New College. "I would not be surprised if he feels uneasy over his future. One has to ask whether [Dr Hood] would be happier at another organisation with a more top-down approach to management of the kind he favours."
Dr Hood, a former Auckland University chancellor and New Zealand businessman who joined Oxford in 2004 with a mandate to reform, was careful to place the outcome of the ballot in the context of the institution's long history. "I shall continue to work unstintingly as the servant of a university with a great past and a great future," he said in a statement. He also hinted that he might shift gear in the final two years of his tenure, dropping governance reform to focus on academic salaries and minority recruitment. In spite of the stridency of the opposition's arguments over the past two years, no opposition dons publicly called for Dr Hood's resignation. "This has never been about personalities and therefore this is not a resigning issue," said Nick Bamforth, a fellow at Queen's College, who played a key role in all the debates.
A key argument deployed by John Hood, the former businessman left licking his wounds, was that Oxford had to bring itself into line with "sector norms" policed by the Higher Education Funding Council of England, the quango that distributes state money to universities and which has recently been given greater regulatory powers under the Charities Act. Last month a letter from David Eastwood, the chief executive of Hefce, to dons in Oxford emerged, claiming that it was a condition of funding that the university comply with a code of practice with which all universities have complied following the 1992 Higher Education Act.
According to those guidelines, designed to reduce fraud, universities must be governed by a chief executive supported by a board with a majority of non-executive directors from outside. In other words, universities should be run like a public company, not the workers' co-operative model of Oxford and Cambridge. But 1,540 members of one of the world's leading universities blew a resounding collective raspberry at the idea they should do what the funding body demands. Cambridge had already laid the groundwork with the rejection in 2002 of plans by Lord (Alec) Broers, then vice-chancellor, to give himself chief executive powers and introduce outsiders as non-executive members of the university's governing council. He failed on the former and only managed to get two outsiders introduced.
Some argue that this failure to conform is a terrible mistake, exposing Oxford and Cambridge to the risk of government intervention to force them into line. lain McLean, a pro-reform academic at Nuffield College, believes the universities are "sleepwalking to disaster", and says the 2004 Treasury-commissioned report by Richard Lambert, former editor of the Financial Times, obliges Oxbridge to agree with the government by July next year on what further steps should be taken.
But Nick Bamforth, a law don at Queen's College, persuaded his colleagues that higher education regulations do not oblige Oxford to conform. Rather, they are required to explain only why they do not accept the post-92 "sector norms". "Our case is our position in the international league tables [Oxford and Cambridge are the only European universities in the top 10 of the big comparative surveys] - compare that to all the others with the Hefce system." The two high-profile universities, he says, can show that "there is more than one model of how to run a university". It leaves Dr Hood in the awkward position of having to explain to Hefce why his own plans have been deemed not to be the best way to run Oxford university.
Alan Ryan, the warden of New College and one of the most senior opponents of the Hood reform package, acknowledges this acute problem but says it is no reason to resign. "The vice-chancellor has lots of clever people to advise him and he can point to the existence of the powerful new audit and scrutiny board that can ensure we are held to account." There is also likely to a round of cherry picking from the rejected white paper for those elements that did carry widespread support and which also might help to satisfy Hefce that there are other ways to avoid fraud.
Will it be enough to satisfy Professor Eastwood, who has specialised in avoiding awkward questions from journalists seeking to clarify Hefce's power over Oxbridge? The funding body says it notes that Dr Hood's proposals have failed but the university would continue to debate its future. "We will continue our discussion with the university on this basis," it adds.