Dr John Hood has been Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University since 5th October 2004. In his first year he has focussed on three things: developing the academic strategy, reviewing matters of governance and upgrading the financial position of the university, which because of its intensive teaching structure has been significantly underfunded for many years.
Robyn Williams: Well, Oxford has a new Vice-Chancellor and he's from New Zealand. And if that's not shocking enough it turns out that this great university is strapped for cash. So how's Professor John Hood managing so far?
John Hood: Well, we have spent the first year I've been here focussing on three things. One, developing the academic strategy of the university and that's now come to a conclusion satisfactorily. We focussed on our governance, because clearly there are improvements that we can make in governance. That's a work in progress and a revised paper on governance will be discussed on the 1st November by congregation. And the third thing we focussed on is our financial position because for too many years this university, like all research-intensive universities in this country, has been significantly under-funded. Things are improving but we have a lot of work to do before we can confidently say that Oxford has a bright future financially.
Robyn Williams: Well I think many people in Australia would find that astonishing, because here's one of the most famous universities in the world with many departments that glow with what looks like wealth, and yet you say you're on your uppers. How can Oxford be short of money?
John Hood: In essence, there are two holes in our funding streams. The first hole relates to the funding of overheads on research contracts. We have a rapidly growing research book, in fact, it was up between 20% and 25% in the last twelve months. That book is carrying overheads currently at the rate of about 20% of direct costs, so we are under-funded by tens of millions of pounds. This has affected our ability to reinvest in our infrastructure and our ability to provide the sort of support for our scholars and colleagues that we'd like to provide for them. The second hole relates to our teaching of undergraduates. Oxford is unique in its tutorial system, in its one-on-one, one-on-two tutorial teaching, it's incredibly resource-intensive. The combination of a low fee level and relatively low government grant means that we are probably forgoing about £6,000 per home or EU undergraduate per annum at the present time and we have 10,000 of those home or EU undergraduates. So our challenge in the period ahead is to capitalise on the opportunity top-up fees is going to give us to improve our fund raising so that we get better fundability into our funding streams and to close that gap over the course of the next 5 to 10 years.
Robyn Williams: It must be slightly frustrating knowing that there are many colleges, which there are what, 36/37, but many of them are extremely rich, they have real estate property from here to the coast. Couldn't you ask them for a few quid?
John Hood: Well, it's interesting, there are a few of our colleges that are relatively wealthy but compared with private secondary schools in up-state New York for example, they're not all that wealthy, even those with the highest endowments in Oxford. But many of our colleges actually have quite low endowments. It is interesting though, that on average our colleges are funding about 30% of their annual budgets from earnings off their endowments, which is comparable with Harvard. So our college endowments on average are okay, the range is too great, we have to get the endowments of the less well-endowed colleges up. And the trick at Oxford is not, in fact, to look for the colleges to subsidise the university or vice a versa, it's actually to work in harmony across the federal institution to ensure all elements of it are funded robustly as we move forward.
Robyn Williams: What about that famous tutorial system that you just mentioned, 1 or 2 students per don, is that going to last?
John Hood: We are committed to the tutorial system as the basis of our undergraduate programs. We are committed to the quality of undergraduate education that Oxford has offered for centuries. So our challenge is to find the resources to ensure that we can continue to offer undergraduates that very special education, training and cultural and sporting activity that they've enjoyed in years gone by.
Robyn Williams: Now I think there's been a business school in Oxford only for a matter of a very few years, and quite a few critics wondered why it was that Oxford took 900 years to discover business. You have a background in business. When you start talking in business terms to the dons do some of them give you a leery look?
John Hood: Well note, first of all, that the business school, which has now been in existence for nine years, is doing exceptionally well and is growing. The standing of its MBA program was recognised by the British Treasury as the best in Europe this year. It's also growing its research base and has five research centres now located in it with the prospect of several more joining in the course of the next two years. So we're very pleased with the development of the business school. On the question of language with dons, I have some experience of universities prior to coming here and hope that I have sensitivity towards the sort of language one might use in universities. Nonetheless, I think colleagues in Oxford probably have found a different sort of Vice-Chancellor from time to time a challenge as well.
Robyn Williams: What was specifically your own background in business?
John Hood: I spent 19 years with Fletcher Challenge, which at the time was New Zealand's largest corporation and in that period I was responsible for the construction business then for the building industries business which is the Fletcher Building Company today. And then in the final period I was with Fletcher Challenge for the international pulp and paper business.
Robyn Williams: And of course latterly Vice-Chancellor of the University of Auckland.
John Hood: Yes, I spent five and a half years, five and a half glorious years at the University of Auckland.
Robyn Williams: Doing reform and successfully, I hear.
John Hood: Well, it was a very fine university when I went there. It had its financial challenges but the thing that it really had was enormous potential and so the Auckland challenge, if you like, was a matter of working with the policy makers and with the business and wider communities to ensure that the institution had a chance of realising its potential. And I think when I left I might say that we had a very confident institution.
Robyn Williams: When you came here from New Zealand was there any questioning as to what you could bring to an ancient university in Europe?
John Hood: Well there probably was a lot of questioning but I wasn't privy to it, and I perhaps should add that I didn't ask to come here, I was asked to come here, so I responded to a request that I come here for interview and subsequently thought that this was a wonderful challenge; that the opportunity to put something back into the two institutions that had been so formative in my own life was a privilege that one should take very, very seriously.
Robyn Williams: Who actually asked you, was it the equivalent of a council or the Chancellor?
John Hood: My understanding is that the nominations committee of the council of the university, which was a committee I think of 16 or 17 members of the university, was responsible for the search. They worked with a head-hunter and it was the head hunter who first approached me.
Robyn Williams: Well, in the Australian scene of course there's a huge debate on the future of universities, quite different from the sort of challenges you face here in Oxford, which has got a tremendously strong research tradition, as we know. Can you imagine in a place like Australia, which you know reasonably well, there could be a split between top universities or old ones, if you like, which keep the research responsibility and other ones which are essentially teaching places with no research to speak of?
John Hood: I wouldn't call it so much a split, I would call it a differentiation that's happening for natural market-related, societally-related reasons. And yes, I think that differentiation will become more and more enhanced and greater and greater as time moves on. I think it's entirely credible that institutions will specialise, so you'll find some institutions that will drop out of a range of disciplines because they can't be excellent at them. I think that the basic challenge each institutions has is to work out what its core mission is and then to determine how it can be best in class and constantly to pursue that objective of being best in class. And if they do that then you'll see a great fabric of diversity in our society among our tertiary institutions and that I think will be to the benefit of their societies.
Robyn Williams: Can you imagine maintaining a vigour in teaching if you don't actually have people doing research at the front line at the same time?
John Hood: If you're talking about universities in a conventional sense that are concerned about scholarly learning, then I struggle with the notion of a university, per se, that doesn't have some form of research or scholarship underpinning.
Robyn Williams: Finally, a question about Oxford. When we come to visit in maybe three, four, five years time, what differences might we notice if all your dreams come true?
John Hood: Well, I think the first comment I would make is that my dreams are possibly largely irrelevant because Oxford is the product of congregation; it's 4,000-odd scholars and so it's their dreams at the end of the day that will create the future of this university. But I think what we will see in four or five years is a university that has an even stronger scholarship and research underpinning; that has perhaps a slightly smaller undergraduate complement but a much larger graduate complement; that is a confident institution, that is financially secure, and that is able to make the most of its wonderful history, of its wonderful undergraduate programs and of its huge research potential.