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Second Annual Report of the General Board on the establishment of personal Professorships and Readerships: Notice

12 June 2000

In their Notice dated 20 March 2000 (p. 570) the Council, after noting that none of the speakers at the Discussion of this Report on 14 March 2000 had spoken against the Report's recommendations, stated that, following consultation with the General Board, they had agreed to submit a Grace to the Regent House for the approval of the Report's recommendations.

In response to the remarks made by Dr Edwards at this Discussion (p. 593), the Council comment as follows:

Dr Edwards rightly draws attention to the distinction between an Ordinance and an Order; however, in the Council's view the criterion on which he bases that distinction is incorrect. The term 'Ordinance' means a rule or regulation, i.e. a prescriptive statement usually incorporating the verb 'shall' (typically 'The Faculty Board shall have power to…' or 'The Library shall be open…'). As defined by the Cambridge Commissioners in 1925 (Reporter, 1925-26, p. 146), an Order is an approved Grace which does not result in such a rule.

A decision of the Regent House to establish any University office is an Order. Such a decision may also entail the enactment of an Ordinance, if there are to be special regulations governing the office in question, but if no such special regulations are needed a simple executive decision is all that is required. All established Professorships are listed in the schedule of Professors; the reasons for this are that (a) Professorships are commonly placed in Schedule B of the Statutes and therefore need to make an appearance in Statutes and Ordinances, (b) all personal Professorships are established for a single tenure, so that the customary formula 'That a Professorship … be established for one tenure' implies the approval of a regulation 'The Professorship of … shall be limited to one tenure', and (c) it would be unsatisfactory to print an incomplete list of Professorships including only those which have a regulation attached to them, since this might seem to suggest that other Professorships are of second-class status. For these reasons it is desirable to include all Professorships in the relevant schedule, whether governed by an Ordinance or not.

The schedule of Readers, in the form in which it existed until 1994, was introduced, not by Grace but by editorial decision, in 1985 with an editorial note explaining the schedule. In an earlier form (subdivided by Faculties) it had been introduced, again by editorial decision, in 1949. The practical reason for discontinuing the schedule of Readers in 1995 was that the University's arrangements for the establishment of personal Professorships and Readerships made it increasingly difficult to maintain an accurate list of Readers in Statutes and Ordinances. The new edition of Statutes and Ordinances is distributed on 1 October each year. On the current timing, proposals for the establishment of personal Professorships and Readerships are published during the Michaelmas Term, the appointments being back-dated to 1 October; this means that in any year a schedule of Readers published on 1 October would omit the new Readerships which will subsequently be established from that date, and would include those Readerships which will be discontinued from the same date when their holders are promoted to Professorships. Thus any list of Readers printed in Statutes and Ordinances would be doubly inaccurate.

The Council have received the following comments from the General Board in response to the remarks made by Dr Laming and Dr Evans.

In response to Dr Laming the General Board cannot emphasize too strongly that the fundamental principle on which the consideration of promotion to senior academic offices has been based is equity of treatment. This principle is manifest throughout the guidance, not only that which concerns promotion to personal Professorships and Readerships but also that concerning promotion to University Senior Lectureships which has just been distributed to Faculties and Departments. Dr Laming remains convinced that bias is all too evident in the process of consideration. The Board draw attention again to the obligations placed upon all members of Faculty Promotions Committees and of the General Board's Committee to declare any interest which may be or may appear to be prejudicial to the impartial consideration of any application. These Committees themselves must decide in the light of such declarations whether there is then likely to be any risk of bias in relation to the consideration of an application for promotion. Guidance of itself is, of course, unlikely to produce the perfect outcome; the integrity of the process depends on the quality of judgement exercised by members of Committees; any selection or promotion arrangements can only operate effectively if those chosen to exercise academic judgement are trusted to discharge their task with integrity. The Board have received no evidence to suggest that any member of a Faculty Promotions Committee or the General Board's Committee has acted other than with complete propriety and integrity.

With regard to Dr Evans's remarks, the Board wish to respond by making it clear that they do not consider it appropriate to comment on those remarks which relate to her own application for promotion. Dr Evans's comments on the Learning and Teaching Strategy document are not relevant to the purpose of the Discussion of this particular Report.

As they have previously announced, the Board will review the current promotion arrangements for considering applications for promotion to personal Professorships and Readerships in the light of the experience of operating the first three annual exercises.


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Cambridge University Reporter, 14 June 2000
Copyright © 2000 The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge.