Cambridge University Reporter


Report of Discussion

Tuesday, 10 July 2007. A Discussion was held in the Senate-House. Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Jeremy Sanders was presiding, with the Senior Proctor, the Registrary, and nineteen other persons present.

The following Reports were discussed:

Report of the General Board, dated 1 June 2007, on the establishment of a Readership in the Department of Chemical Engineering (p. 758)

No comments were made on this Report.

Report of the General Board, dated 6 June 2007, on the establishment of a Professorship of Experimental Astrophysics (p. 758)

No comments were made on this Report.

Report of the General Board, dated 6 June 2007, on the establishment of a Sir Evelyn de Rothschild Professorship of Finance (p. 759)

Professor G. R. EVANS:

Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor,

'Cambridge has particular reason to develop its academic provision in finance because of its proximity to the City of London and the strong representation of Cambridge alumni among the City's professional workforce. The City is now the undisputed leader of European finance, and eclipses New York as global leader in some areas of finance. The City's interest in recruiting the University's graduates and in accessing its research is therefore very high and growing.'

I read this several times in search of the academic case being made for this appointment. The reasoning seems to turn solely on beefing up Cambridge's commercial competitiveness. And why should the City get privileged access to Cambridge research?

Then I read the explanation for the plan to establish this Professorship now. This appears to be an example of what is best described as the 'vanity benefaction', though in this case the attachment of a name to the money is more of a memorial:

'An opportunity to further develop (sic) work in this area has now arisen as the Trustees of the Eranda Foundation wish to support the establishment of a new Professorship, to be called the Sir Evelyn de Rothschild Professorship of Finance in honour of the distinguished financier, former chairman of N. M. Rothschild and Sons Limited, and student of Economics at Cambridge.'

This is just an example of a couple of trends and I merely rise to put it on the record to ensure that the trends do not go unnoticed in the report of Discussions. I add one further small observation. In the recently published annual note of the outcome of the Professorial pay review (still secret, for names do not appear), it is mentioned that:

'The Advisory Group were assisted by School-level Committees which undertook the initial assessment of applications in Band 1. Progression within and between bands is not automatic and is based on contribution, as described in Annex 7 of the Joint Report, and assessed through a biennial review process.'

How is the Advisory Group going to determine whether the new Rothschild Professor succeeds in achieving the competitive commercial objectives which are given as the reason for the establishment of his Chair, so as to decide where to position his (or her) prospective salary enhancement and whether to allow 'progression between bands'. We shall watch with interest.

Professor G. MEEKS:

Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I had not intended to comment, but I wish to speak in response to the previous speaker, who questioned several aspects of this proposal.

First of all, the academic case for this position. The Report begins that finance is a core discipline of any leading business school. Our leading competitors overseas have embraced finance for many years - Harvard Business School did so over a hundred years ago, and it is now a jewel in Harvard's academic crown. Finance academics have earned a series of Nobel Prizes, and even in Cambridge our own Professor Sir Richard Stone, in an area close to this one, earned a Nobel Prize and great credit for the University. The academic case is overwhelming.

There is a second suggestion in the previous speaker's comments that this is an opportunistic move. 'Why now?', asks the speaker. 'This looks like a vanity benefaction'. Actually, as the Report makes clear, the need for a Finance Chair was set as a high academic priority in a general review of the Business School's needs in 2005, supported by the Faculty Board, the Council of the School, and the General Board, long before this particular benefaction came along. This is a core need and we are very grateful indeed to the Eranda Foundation for helping us to fill it.

In relation to Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, I should say that he has long been a very great supporter of the Business School. His distinguished career and experience as a financier, and his commitment to the University, have made him an invaluable member of the Judge Business School Advisory Board. He has made a substantial contribution to the rise of the School. We are delighted that his sustained contribution is being recognized in the title of this prestigious Chair.

Report of the General Board, dated 6 June 2007, on the organization of the Department of Other Languages (p. 760)

Professor D. W. HOLTON (read by Dr M. R. MINDEN):

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I am the present, and in all probability the last, Head of the Department of Other Languages. My current appointment to the position dates from January 2004, and I previously served as Head from 1992 to 1999. The proposed closure of the Department is a logical step, in view of its small size, but it will be a matter of regret to the many who have served the Department in various capacities over the years. I would like today to make a few remarks, first, on the effect of these proposals and, secondly, on the long - and not undistinguished - history of the Department.

The proposals are the result of extensive and prolonged discussions, in which I have been fully involved, regarding future administrative arrangements for the relevant languages. The first outcome was the transfer of Dutch to a renamed Department of German and Dutch, with effect from 1 January 2007. Two subject areas currently remain within the purview of the Department of Other Languages: Neo-Latin (that is the Latin-based literature and culture of the Renaissance and early modern period) and Modern Greek. Neo-Latin is offered in two Tripos papers which will, under these proposals, become the responsibility of the Department of Italian. They will continue to be taught by University Teaching Officers, and others, who are members of other MML Departments or other Faculties. In Modern Greek a full range of Tripos papers is available, as well as examinations for the Certificate and Diploma in Modern Languages. Although there is only one established teaching office in Modern Greek (the Lewis-Gibson Lectureship, currently held at the level of a personal Professorship), several other people are involved in teaching and research: an unestablished language teacher; two full-time Research Associates employed on a five-year AHRC-funded research project; two Affiliated Lecturers who contribute to teaching; and, from October 2007, a college Research Fellow whose work is in the field of Medieval and Modern Greek studies. With the demise of the Department of Other Languages, these colleagues will, in effect, constitute an informal Modern Greek section within the Faculty.

As the Report states, the new arrangements for Modern Greek will preserve and promote the identity of the subject within the Faculty. Direct representation on relevant committees will ensure that the arrangements for Greek will continue to be in step with those for the other languages. Separate accounts and funding allocations will provide a measure of financial independence. The Chairman of the Faculty Board will represent the interests of Modern Greek at the Board and Degree Committee and will exercise financial oversight. These sensitive arrangements will enable Modern Greek to operate, to all intents and purposes, as if it were a Department - but without the name.

The name 'Other Languages' has often attracted curiosity, sometimes mirth. One might imagine it was a hastily thought-up ad hoc solution to a short-term administrative need, which then became institutionalized. In fact the designation is as old as that of any Department. The new University Statutes of 1926 provided for formally constituted Departments within Faculties. In the case of the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages, five Departments were established: French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Other Languages. On 12 October 1926, the Special Board for Medieval and Modern Languages (antecedent of the Faculty Board) appointed P. Giles, Litt.D., Master of Emmanuel College, to be the first Head of the Department of Other Languages. But what were these languages? The languages, other than the big four, which were being taught in the Faculty in 1926 included: Dutch, Portuguese, Provençal, Rumanian, Russian, Scandinavian languages, and Swahili. The range was not new, just the formal designation of the Department that had responsibility for them. Apparently, it took the ingenuity of a law Fellow of Trinity to come up with a name for the Department. I have this on the authority of Professor D. H. Green, a distinguished and long-serving Head of the Department (1956-79), who also believes that the term had been used informally for a few years before 1926.

Until the end of the Second World War matters continued in much the same way. The Lecture-list for 1936-37, for example, mentions teaching in Dutch, Medieval Latin, Portuguese, Rumanian, Russian (and other Slavonic languages), and the Scandinavian languages, in addition to which the Department was responsible for teaching in Comparative Literature. (Although the first appointment to the Lewis-Gibson Lectureship in Modern Greek had been made in 1936, the office-holder's teaching is listed under the Faculty of Classics. The relevant Tripos was, however, MML.) Then came post-war change: a separate Department of Slavonic Studies was established from 1 January 1948, and a Department of Scandinavian Studies from 1 October 1950. It is interesting to note that the Report proposing the establishment of a Department of Slavonic Studies stated that, in consequence, the Department of Other Languages 'would revert to the original purpose for which it was constituted, namely, to be administratively responsible for those languages which are studied by too few students to warrant the constitution of separate departments' (Reporter, 13 January 1948, pp. 591-2).

Other 'other' languages came and went in the following decades. By the early 1980s the list, which seemed to have reached a certain stability, comprised: Dutch, Hungarian, Medieval Latin, Modern Greek, and Portuguese. Responsibility for the last was assumed by a renamed Department of Spanish and Portuguese, in a rescue operation that followed the retirement of the Lecturer in 1988. The non-refilling of vacancies as a result of retirement also led to the loss of Medieval Latin and Hungarian in 2001. New papers in Neo-Latin preserved a post-classical Latin presence in the Tripos, but in terms of established posts the Department was reduced to two, one in Dutch and one in Modern Greek. That, in brief, is how we have arrived at the present situation. Almost sixty years after the successful spin-off of Russian and Slavonic Studies, the Faculty has come to the view that there are now too few 'other' languages to warrant the constitution of a separate Department to be responsible for them.

Dutch and Portuguese have been re-homed in alliances that reflect the respective RAE units of assessment. Modern Greek is squeezed by the HEFCE Procrustes into the same RAE unit as Classics, Ancient History, and Byzantine Studies. Given the historic - and still important - association of Modern Greek with the Faculty of Classics, we are able to enjoy a cordial and beneficial relationship. I am, however, pleased and grateful that the proposals in the Report before us will enable Modern Greek to continue to be taught in its appropriate academic context, alongside other modern European languages; and that the new administrative arrangements will ensure that the subject remains a visible and vital (in two senses, I hope) part of the Faculty's teaching and research activities.

Dr M. R. MINDEN:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, might I, as the current Chairman of the Faculty Board of Modern and Medieval Languages, add a few brief remarks to the statement I have just read out on behalf of Professor Holton (which I wholeheartedly endorse).

I think we all share a sense of regret at the passing of a familiar and engagingly named institution from our midst, on the grounds, now, not that there are too few students, but too few (other) languages to warrant the constitution of a separate Department.

The closure of the Department of Other Languages must not, however, be misunderstood, or misrepresented, as reflecting a lack of commitment on our part to less-studied languages.

On the contrary, the re-assignment of the remaining other languages is taking place with the aim of halting the erosion of smaller languages described by Professor Holton.

He has said enough about Modern Greek to establish its current robustness. One might add that under the proposed arrangement the profile of Modern Greek on the MML website will be higher than when it was one of several languages within the Department of Other Languages.

Neo-Latin, through its roots in the Italian Renaissance, has a natural home in the Italian Department, where it is expected to grow. A new Part II paper in the subject has been announced for next year, and fund-raising is under way to secure the establishment of a joint post in Italian and Neo-Latin literature.

At the beginning of this year Dutch became part of a new Department of German and Dutch. In the new environment the range of Dutch provision from next year has been thoroughly revised by our colleagues in Dutch, and a new Dutch 'taster' paper, on the model of the highly successful Portuguese PG3, introduced, by means of which we expect Dutch to benefit from the synergy between cognate languages.

Portuguese itself is now the subject of concerted fund-raising efforts, with the aim of establishing a second full-time post in Portuguese. Meanwhile, as a result of extremely hard work by colleagues in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and in the Faculty at large, a new model of provision in the language has been designed to enable the Faculty to sustain Portuguese as a full Tripos subject for the foreseeable future.

The other approach to smaller languages is to introduce or re-introduce them into our teaching on a relatively modest level while always looking for possibilities for expansion. It is in this spirit that the Department of Slavonic Studies has, over the past couple of years, found funds and means to support classes in Polish and Ukrainian (a language never before offered in MML), and there is also some hope for Czech.

These measures, as indeed the closure of the Department of Other Languages and the re-assignment of its components, are signs of the active attention we are paying to the preservation and growth of less-studied languages.

Dr D. R. DE LACEY:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, in a Report of 8 January the General Board say they 'do not agree ... that the Faculty Board have adopted a 'piecemeal' approach to the future of the languages offered within the Department of Other Languages' (Reporter, 6059), a view which they attribute to me though it was actually voiced by Professor Evans. Yet the first meaning of 'piecemeal' given by the OED is 'One part or piece at a time' and here we have a Report which appears to deal with the other part of the Department. Appears to. In the Discussion on the reallocation of Dutch (Reporter, 6057) both Professor Evans and I lamented the lack of a coherent plan. It is distressing that we seem to be no nearer to that goal. All this Report does is to move the pieces around on the chess board while assuring us that this is 'the most appropriate means of expressing the Faculty's commitment to Modern Greek', with 'proposals for promoting the identity of Modern Greek as a distinct subject area within the Faculty'. Should those proposals not be laid before the Regent House before we make the decision? Why so coy? At present all we have is the vague statement about 'the Faculty's commitment to Modern Greek' (which we must hope is greater than its recent demonstration of commitment to Portuguese) and bland assurances that nothing will change. Is that really enough to support these recommendations?

Report of the Council, dated 18 June 2007, on the construction of a new building for the Kavli Institute of Cosmology (p. 795)

No comments were made on this Report.

Joint Report of the Council and the General Board, dated 18 June and 6 June 2007, on the introduction of a part-time route to the degree of Master of Philosophy (p. 797)

Professor Sir ANTHONY BOTTOMS (read by Dr M. P. EISNER):

Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, the Institute of Criminology is a Department that has been involved in part-time graduate teaching for over a decade. I was the Director of the Institute when we began this type of work, and I have been personally involved in it continuously since then. Having discussed this important Report with some of my colleagues - including the Director, Professor Friedrich Lösel - we would like to make a few observations.

We warmly welcome the proposal to introduce a part-time M.Phil. Degree. The Strathern Review Committee was surely right to enunciate the principle that programmes which have similar content and means of assessment should lead to the same qualification, irrespective of residential requirements. Our experience in the Institute of Criminology has been that of teaching an M.Phil. in Criminology for full-time students, and an M.St. in Applied Criminology for part-time police, prison, and probation professionals. Both degrees have been examined to the same standard, but our experience is that most Applied Criminology students would, other things being equal, have strongly preferred to receive the M.Phil. qualification.

Given this background, the Institute will certainly wish to consider carefully the possibility - set out in paragraph 4 of the Report - of applying to have our M.St. courses redesignated as part-time M.Phils.

However, for Departments such as ourselves that are debating this possibility, there are a few matters which remain unclear in this Report.

First, paragraph 7 of the Report states that the duration of the part-time M.Phil. would be 'six terms', and the proposed General Regulations also use the language of 'terms' (for example, in paragraphs 4 and 5). However, it is not entirely clear how a 'term' is to be defined for this purpose. Our existing M.St. teaching takes place when College accommodation is most readily available for part-time students; that is, in the vacations. Working with mature professionals from all over the UK, and beyond, learning together (and from each other) in residential blocks has significant educational advantages. However, Colleges will not normally be able to provide such accommodation within Full Term, and very often not within Term. Within the framework of the proposed part-time M.Phil., could part-time teaching periods in vacations be allowed within the meaning of 'terms'?

Secondly, the Report states that 'the part-time route to the M.Phil. Degree would be identical to full-time provision in terms of admissions standards and requirements' (para 6).

A decade of experience with M.St. programmes has confirmed that, in the criminal justice professions, there are significant numbers of persons in management positions who do not have the formal entry qualifications that would normally admit them for full-time M.Phil. entry, but who nevertheless are able to perform very well on a relevant postgraduate course because of the learning and skills that they have acquired during their professional careers. Within the M.St. structure, ways have been found to assess the readiness of such candidates for advanced academic work - such assessments are based on recent employment history, references, and the scrutiny of management reports written by candidates as part of their employment. As a failsafe mechanism, registration for the Master's degree can also in effect be made on a provisional basis, to be confirmed after the candidate has been assessed for some elements of the course. The creation of similar procedures for the part-time M.Phil. Degree would seem to be an appropriate and fair way forward. It would also be in keeping with one of the aims of the proposed part-time M.Phil. provision, namely to widen access to postgraduate study.

Thirdly, there is a fundamental issue about the financial infrastructure of these proposals which deserves to be made more explicit. Existing M.St. courses, when developed by internal Departments of the University, are expected to operate on a stand-alone, self-funding basis, outside the standard arrangements for financing Departments from the University Chest. However, the proposed structure for the part-time M.Phil. assumes that such courses will be provided within the normal departmental funding arrangements, as for full-time M.Phils. Departments considering applying to redesignate an existing M.St. course as a part-time M.Phil. are therefore facing a significant alteration in the underpinning financial regime. It is not clear to me whether this issue has been fully considered by the Council, the General Board, and the Councils of the Schools. Looking at the situation from the point of view of a Department already running M.St. courses, it is currently by no means obvious whether a switch from M.St. to part-time M.Phil. could be made in a manner that is, under the proposed (or assumed) financial structures, financially viable. But if a decision is made by a Department not to apply for the redesignation of an existing M.St. simply because of the altered financial regime, might this not lead to a situation that would be in conflict with the Strathern Review Committee's view that programmes with similar content and means of assessment should lead to the same qualification?

Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, none of the points that I have raised is intended to be obstructive to the main purposes of this Report. On the contrary, my colleagues and I warmly endorse the central principles that underpin the Report. My comments are rather aimed at some of the practicalities, to ensure - if possible - that those of us who are enthusiastic about this Report will be able to implement it in appropriately constructive ways in our respective Departments.

Professor G. R. EVANS:

Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, there seems to be an assumption that 'part-time' implies the removal of the traditional residence requirement. Does this necessarily follow logically? The new 'expectations' ( and they are no more) are vague in the extreme:

'7. … Whilst there would be no formal residential requirement, candidates would be required to attend the University for formal instruction and other approved or prescribed academic activity … sufficient to ensure that students are suitably exposed in person to Cambridge's teaching and learning resources and to the benefits of College membership.'

Under the proposed revised Statute, a student will be able to: 'count towards his or her course of research as a candidate for the Ph.D. Degree, or for the M.Sc. or M.Litt. Degree, such terms as the Board may determine in accordance with the regulations for the Ph.D., M.Sc., and M.Litt. Degrees.'

When we discussed the introduction of part-time doctorates some years ago (Reporter, 2001-02, p. 762), concerns were calmed by assurances that no Faculty or Department would be forced to go down this route. That assurance is still on offer but the protection of the residence requirement is further imperilled.

The question posed (and it is an important one) is what the University's duty to society is. Here assertions are made which rest on a very partial view of the evidence. First, it is argued in the Report that part-time 'provision would widen access to postgraduate study to those in employment, and other groups, for whom full-time study is difficult'. Will the gradual abandonment of the expectation that Cambridge graduates will have studied in the local and physical University improve social inclusion? No-one knows.

A second issue is the dwindling of the proportion of UK postgraduates, which I am sure we have all noticed. The 'various reasons' for this are tantalizingly not spelt out, but they must surely include the burden of student debt and the unenticing prospects for career research scientists and young prospective academics. Will the gradual abandonment of the expectation that Cambridge graduates will have studied in the local and physical University reverse this trend?

Thirdly, we read the assertion that 'evidence across the HE sector suggests that demand for part-time masters level programmes, particularly in professional and vocational areas, is strong and likely to remain so'. But is this Report - and its wider implications - directed towards vocational and professional qualifications? Cambridge is not attempting the same excellent job here as a number of the post-1992 HEIs. If it is planning to do so, the Regent House should be allowed to discuss this significant change of policy, surely?

Finally, and this lurks behind what is expressly said in the Report, there is the question of overseas and EU students and the encouragement of student mobility, in a period of global experimentation with what is essential to the gaining of a higher education qualification and what can be modified or dispensed with. The world is your oyster, part-time student. Pass through briefly and get your Cambridge stamp.

Remote learning is touched on. 'The Board would expect to scrutinize carefully any element of a course to be delivered through electronic means.' Nothing is said about the proportion of a course which it would be acceptable to deliver in this way. A weekend in Cambridge and the rest of your time in front of a screen is a virtual experience which may not be quite so exactly comparable with the ordinary student experience as the Strathern Report optimistically assumes. The Strathern principle is that 'Programmes which have the same curriculum and means of assessment should lead to the same qualification, irrespective of residential requirements'. Surely the same learning experience is also important?

Hastings Rashdall, author of an ambitious history of the earliest universities, published in the last decade of the nineteenth century, but also a regular and much appreciated speaker in contemporary debates about university expansion, could already see the problems we now face:

'It would be a delusion, and a mischievous delusion, to suppose that evening lectures [the equivalent of a modern part-time course], however excellent, and however much supplemented by self-education, can be the same thing as the student-leisure of many years. … Examinations, too, are an excellent thing in their proper place; but it is a mistake to suppose that an examining board can discharge any but the very lowest of a university's real functions. The two most essential functions which a true university has to perform … are to make possible the life of study, whether for a few years or during a whole career, and to bring together during that period, face to face in living intercourse, teacher and teacher, teacher and student, student and student. It would be a fatal error to imagine that either the multiplication of books or the increased facilities of communication can ever remove the need of institutions which permit of such personal intercourse … if it embraces colleges in different places, you have virtually two or more universities and not one.'1

I just wonder whether these fundamental questions should not be discussed before the part-time trend goes much further.

1 Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1895), Vol. III, revised Powicke and Emden (Oxford, 1936), pp. 462-3.

Dr D. R. DE LACEY:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, paragraph 7 states that 'there would be no formal residential requirement' but 'the Board would expect the attendance requirement to be sufficient to ensure that students are suitably exposed in person to Cambridge's teaching and learning resources and to the benefits of College membership'. To have said that, the Board must have had in mind some criteria by which to judge the adequacy of that exposure. It would have helped to settle doubts or fears about this departure if those criteria had been included: may we know what they are, please?

Further, 'the Board would expect to scrutinize carefully any element of a course to be delivered through electronic means'. What will they be looking for?

Joint Report of the Council and the General Board, dated 18 June and 6 June 2007, on the supervision of the University's information strategy and information communication and technology services and systems (p. 803)

Mr R. J. DOWLING:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I am Bob Dowling, member of staff of the University Computing Service and a member of Council who did not sign this Report.

I think the formation of a single body to take on the duties of the Information Technology Syndicate and the more recent Information Strategy Syndicate is an excellent idea. But I don't think this Report is the right way to do it.

It is telling that this Report refers to auditors' reports on administrative systems only and does not mention learning, teaching, or research anywhere. Is computing's application to these fields not worth even a mention?

The imbalance can also be found in the proposed composition of the ISSS. The Colleges are essential contributors to the computing landscape of the University. They were integral parts of two successful networks: the telephone network and the data network. They need to be properly represented on the body that will oversee both telecomms and computing. They get two places, courtesy of Council, in this Report.

The General Board gets four slots. There are six Schools, so let's guess who will lose out: The School of Arts and Humanities and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, almost certainly.

I would have thought a 'three threes' approach would have made much more sense. Three from Council to handle the University's administrative needs, one from each of the Bursars', Senior Tutors', and Colleges' Committees, and three from the General Board split to have one from Technology or Physical Sciences, one from Biological Sciences or Clinical Medicine, and one from Arts and Humanities or Humanities and Social Sciences. Balance needs to be built in to the rules, not trusted to the good graces of whoever gets to interpret the rules later.

The current ITS maintains adherence to the rules because it has achieved consensus. We tinker with that at our peril.

On the subject of what is built into the rules, as opposed to being decided later, let us consider the Chair and the Secretary. These are two of the most important posts on any committee and on a Syndicate responsible for IT wouldn't it at least be sensible to require that the Secretary be drawn from the IT officers of the University? The current ITS has the Director of the UCS as secretary ex officio. We should require similar constraints in the rules for the ISSS, and not be content with consultations to pick a Secretary.

The Director of the UCS has been relegated to mere attendance. Technical input into this committee is essential. And it must have bite, that is a vote.

There are currently members of the UCS staff on the ITS because they are our management committee. We report to the Director, and he reports to the Chair of the ITS. Now we have a committee that takes responsibility for operations both within the UCS and MISD and has a single staff post drawn from both the UCS and MISD. Who does MISD report to? At the moment it is the Registrary. Under this scheme, is it the Registrary or is it the ISSS? Or, worse still, will MISD have to serve two masters? Or is MISD not managed at all by the ISSS? In which case why are their staff represented on it?

Given this University's track record with the management of large IT projects do we really want to muddy the waters still further?

Strangely for a Report that leaves so much to be decided on the fly, there is a requirement for the ISSS to have two sub-syndicates. The remits for these sub-syndicates while part of the Report do not form part of the proposed Ordinances. What are they doing in the Report? I suspect they would have been in the Ordinance if they hadn't been so badly written. I want to reserve my harshest comment for these remits. They are the most ineptly written I have seen. Students of Computer Science might care to ponder whether anything done on a computer isn't covered by the definition in the Services Sub-syndicate: 'an application or set of software tools running on a defined hardware platform'? If anybody can find out where the line should be drawn between the two sub-syndicates would they make themselves know to the management? Because I can't work it out and I do this for a living.

These remits are amateurish. This whole Report suffers from this cargo-cult draftsmanship. It was written by an IT-illiterate who has seen the words but doesn't know what they mean. Is that the person you want writing an Ordinance?

Why must a Syndicate be told what sub-syndicates it must form anyway? It's for the Syndicate to decide what it wants to do. You either trust them or you don't.

The balance of the Syndicate is wrong, the technical expertise of the committee is not guaranteed, the management chains are confused, the imposition of a sub-committee structure is inappropriate, and the technical content of the Report is complete garbage. This Report does not deserve our support.

Professor G. R. EVANS:

Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor,

'2. The Internal Audit Review concluded that: The Information Strategy Group has a prominent role within the University, yet is not enshrined in the University's Ordinances' and it pointed to a 'risk' that what it decides or proposes 'will not be afforded sufficient weight to ensure that they are adopted effectively'.

This is surely not the point? This is not about clout. The question is which activities and how organized should fall under the umbrella of the Unified Administrative Service and which should be under the direct control of the Regent House so that Reports, Discussions, and Graces are required in order to create the domestic legislation under which they operate.

The UAS is itself subject to the Statutes and Ordinances but the detailed organization of its activities does not require Gracing at every point. In short, which of the activities of the University are matters of governance and which are mere questions of administration or 'management'?

In which category should Information Strategy lie? That is the important question before us.

The vocabulary of the Report, lumping governance and administration together, suggests a worrying degree of unclarity:

'3. Since the first meeting of the Information Strategy Group (ISG) in June 2001, there have been considerable developments in the University in the governance of information technology systems, the management of services, and the deployment of major administrative systems, notably the Cambridge University Finance System (CUFS) and the new Student Information System (CamSIS).'

And:

'The University has instituted numerous groups to oversee various aspects of the IS and IT framework. While we consider such groups to be essential to the oversight and management in this area, there is a significant risk that the governance framework may become fragmented and ineffective, especially in areas where management by committee is in place.'

I think I am in favour of tidying all this up properly (though how often has one regretted a cheery cry of 'Go ahead'?). Bob Dowling's comments, just expressed, heighten my uncertainty. But I am sure that the line between governance and administration (UAS) needs to be clearer. This is of no small importance if jurisdiction over Colleges is to be included without asking their express consent.

The Syndicate is to 'advise' the Council and the General Board (governance). But it is to be 'supported by such Sub-syndicates, project management and functional policy boards, and other task forces as the Syndicate deem to be useful for the execution of its responsibilities'. Some of that sounds like UAS territory to me. A good deal of it is 'operational', but there is also talk of 'functional policy boards', and forming policy surely engages governance questions? It is very important to be clear exactly what it will fall to the Regent House to oversee directly in future if the Syndicate can, on its own authority, deem whatever it likes to be useful.

Mr N. M. MACLAREN:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, this Report makes very sad reading. Nobody can argue against sorting out the organizational mess where an ad hoc committee is superior to one established by Ordinance, but that is not all this Report proposes. I have two main points: one on the role of the Computing Service and the other on the duty of the Syndicate.

When I joined the Computing Service 35 years ago, and even when I was last appointed 23 years ago, the Computing Service was part of an academic Department, and was there primarily to support the University's research and researchers. It is entirely reasonable that our remit has been expanded to the support of the University's teaching and even administration, but it is less so that our remit to support research has been restricted without even a Discussion.

Traditional Computer Officers were people who could perfectly well have been lecturers at respected universities - some of us had been - but who chose the task of furthering the effectiveness of Cambridge's teaching and research. Some of us have lectured degree and other courses, and examined and supervised undergraduate and graduate students. Some of us have collaborated with researchers or helped them with problems they couldn't resolve, including research such as inventing new algorithms. Some have developed important intellectual property, both commercial and open source - I need mention just the JNT PAD, Exim, and parts of the NAG library. And we have been involved with international standardization activities, and similar peripheral work of use to the University.

This has been whittled away over the years in many ways. A recent example is the changes on conditions of contract implied by the PD33/HERA rules, which have even now not been accepted by all of us. This Report is another notch, and transfers us closer to being administrators. Does the University want a Computing Service that is a source of leading-edge computing expertise, or not? Either 'yes' or 'no' is reasonable, though I would say that the latter is a mistake, but the decision should be taken deliberately and not by the central administration gradually replacing technical experts by junior administrators.

But my second point is more directly affected by this proposal.

Duty (b) of the Syndicate includes to 'advise on developments in information technology and its implementation', duty (c) includes 'to … advise the Council and the General Board on priorities for and other matters relating to the development and application of appropriate information policies, facilities, and services in support of those requirements', and duty (d) is 'to ensure that any such information policies, facilities, and services provided are operating effectively and are fit for purpose'. For that, one needs people with considerable technical expertise and experience, and not just safe pairs of hands chosen from among the Great and the Good. In other words, one needs senior technical staff and not academic politicians.

To be blunt, the Information Technology Syndicate has given the University good advice when the Director of the Computing Service has given it good advice, and not otherwise. When the Computing Service took some idiosyncratic paths in the 1980s and 1990s, not taken by any other academic sites worldwide, which were both predicted to be and proved to be serious mistakes, the Syndicate did not raise an eyebrow. It was not pleasant admitting one worked for an organization with a international reputation for following one ludicrously inappropriate strategy after another. The harm caused by those mistakes can still be seen around the University.

Nor did the Syndicate have a useful effect during CAPSA, despite the fact that many of the very serious problems the latter caused to computing staff in Departments, and to the Departments' information technology facilities generally, were predicted years in advance by most experienced departmental Computer Officers. Its duty (b) was 'to consider the needs of Faculties and Departments and other institutions in the University for information technology facilities and services, and to advise the Council and General Board on matters relating to the provision of such facilities and services'. It failed to do that effectively.

But exactly why will reducing the status of the Director to merely one of five people with a right to attend the meetings and changing the major appointers of the Syndicate from the Schools and Colleges to the Council and General Board improve matters? Exactly who on the Syndicate will be qualified to advise the University on the major changes that are going to happen in a few years' time?

This Report is a bureaucratic response to problems caused by poor administration, without considering whether the problems were caused by the very structure that is being given more powers. It may well improve some aspects, but it will make other, more serious ones, much worse. The obvious solution is to separate the managerial and administrative aspects of the Syndicate from the technical ones concerned with advising on strategy and effectiveness.

Mr I. M. L. M. DU QUESNAY:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, what is the real problem that the new arrangements are supposed to address? If it is, at least inter alia, the need to provide a proper governance structure for the work of MISD and a mechanism for adjudicating the priorities between claims on limited resources from UCS services on the one hand and those of MISD on the other, then it is not clear to me that the proposed structures will achieve that.

The work of UCS has, for many years - after the previous speaker, I'd better say about a decade - been well overseen by the IT Syndicate. It is not clear what benefit is supposed to come from splitting its work between the two sub-syndicates. There is a real danger that what is working well will be broken without compensating benefit to the University, a real risk that the University will lose something that works well and gain nothing in return.

The ISG, a relatively new body and one which lacks the formal foundations of a traditional Syndicate, has been much less successful in gripping the work of MISD. Some of the reasons lie in mundane matters; the infrequency of its meetings, a failure to insist on detailed and timely written reports, and occasional failure to follow its own procedures (all in part signs of the immaturity of the organization). I do not mean in any way to suggest that it is for such Groups or Syndicates to micro-manage the work, and especially the technical work, of MISD. But MISD projects are very costly and have significant impact not just on the resources of the University but on the conduct of the day-to-day business of many members of the University. Proper accountability is essential to the acceptance and credibility of such projects in the wider University community.

Paragraph 1 of the Joint Report seems intended to carry the implication that both ISG and ITS support these proposals. That is not actually the case. They considered them, at least in an earlier form, when the purpose of the ISSS was rather different. They saw an argument for bringing together oversight of both UCS and MISD. But they did feel also the need for more information on the purpose(s) of the proposals and had significant concerns about the make-up and remit of the proposed ISSS and its sub-syndicates. These have not been addressed.

1. In paragraph 5 of the Joint Report, the purported convergence of MIS and UCS around the provision of services lies more in the rhetorical presentation of the fact than in the realities. The organizations are very distinct and the kinds of services they provide are very different from each other.

2. At paragraph 8, the Joint Report claims: 'The membership of the proposed Syndicate reflects its responsibilities to the University and Colleges for oversight of information strategy'. That was true in an earlier version of the proposal but is less clear now. There is no guidance to either the General Board or the Council beyond a reference to the Colleges' Committee for just two members. The proposed membership is focused on small numbers as a self-evident good in need of no rationale. The core group is eleven (with an option to co-opt two). Five officers have the right to attend only. The distinction matters only when there is a vote. Reduced to the core, it is unclear that this Syndicate will or can be representative of the full spectrum of interests in the University. At full attendance there will be 18 persons. The proposed composition rejected by the Council was about 23/24 full members. The difference between 18 and 23/24 is nugatory in terms of conducting a meeting; but the difference in representativeness is significant.

3. The interrelationship between the ISSS and its sub-syndicates is left unclear. On the original proposals they appeared to be feeder bodies replacing the Information Strategy Task Force, the Telecommunications Group, and the UCS Technical Committee. In their new form there seems likely to be a period of muddledom before the new arrangements shake down as the new sub-syndicates adjust to their new place in the hierarchy; and the division of decision making and responsibilities between the three bodies emerges. It does not seem to me that the present proposals have been thought through thoroughly enough.

Dr D. R. DE LACEY:

Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, this Report appears to put in train some very significant changes in the way our information strategy is supervised and planned. What is lacking is any clear statement explaining what this change is intended to achieve, and how it will do so. The main concern seems to be that the current Information Strategy Group cannot steamroller through its 'decisions proposals/recommendations' (sic) because it is not enshrined in Ordinances. But it remains entirely unclear how the proposed Ordinance will make the Information Strategy and Services Syndicate any more efficient here. What is clear is that a reasonably representative committee (the ITS) is being replaced by a largely appointed Syndicate: of its thirteen members precisely one will be elected, to represent the officers both of the UCS and of MISD. Given that the constitution of the syndicate was subject to a very late change, perhaps we could be told of the logic behind moving from representation to iron control? Especially since I gather the statement 'the membership of the proposed Syndicate reflects its responsibilities to the University and Colleges for oversight of information strategy' (8) was originally designed to describe the more representative Syndicate first proposed?

'8. The Council and the General Board therefore propose ... that this Syndicate should be supported by such Sub-syndicates, project management and functional policy boards, and other task forces as the Syndicate deem to be useful for the execution of its responsibilities.'

This is quite extraordinarily vague, as is the specification of the standing sub-syndicates.

Another concern is expressed in paragraph 6: 'The University has instituted numerous groups to oversee various aspects of the IS and IT framework. While we consider such groups to be essential to the oversight and management in this area, there is a significant risk that the governance framework may become fragmented and ineffective, especially in areas where management by committee is in place'. Yet the Report completely fails to address these issues: firstly because it entirely takes over the Computing Service while leaving MISD answerable to the Registrary, and second because it leaves significant IT providers out of the picture, most notably CARET, but the position of the Colleges is left unclear and that of departmental IT staff ignored. And is not the educational function of the UCS, the Computer Lab, and others part of our 'framework'?

In short this is a Report which provides no analysis of the supposed problems to be addressed, no explanation of how the solution is expected to work, and no overall supervision of the University's IT systems. Does that actually matter? The Report gives us inadequate information to decide.

Mr R. J. STIBBS:

Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, there has been a Computing Service in the University since the early 1950s when Maurice Wilkes allowed use of the EDSAC by scientists from Departments outside the Mathematical Laboratory. By the late 1960s with the development of EDSAC II and the Titan, the staff of Maths Lab were providing a service to many hundreds of users. However the Computing Service as it now exists, came into being as part of the Computer Laboratory (as the Maths Lab was renamed) in the early 1970s when a clearer demarcation between the Service and Teaching and Research was needed. Since then the University has been receiving a world-class service worthy of a world-class University. The Computing Service developed amongst many other things; Phoenix, the Granta Backbone Network, the PWF, Hermes, Jackdaw, Exim, PCRE, Raven, and Lookup. The fact that the great majority of our 25,000+ users have no idea what these things do, is a tribute to the development philosophy which allowed them to be introduced and to provide new and improved services without disruption to teaching and research.

How was this achieved? Firstly the University has been far-sighted in providing the necessary resources, secondly there has been a professional and committed staff many of whom have come from the academic community, and thirdly, there has been a robust governance model. The IT Syndicate and its predecessors have always had an IT-involved Chairman, the Secretary has been the Director of the Computing Service, and the members have been drawn from across the University as IT aware users of the facilities. The Syndicate has given the Computing Service a hard time when necessary but the partnership has been two way and constructive.

It would seem foolish to give up this successful model for these unthought-through proposals. Council should withdraw the Report and take more time to get it right.

Dr M. J. RUTTER:

Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I must start by congratulating those responsible for scheduling this Discussion of a matter of such importance to the University during the Long Vacation. I regret that my Statutory obligation to refrain from taking my holidays during Term has meant that I have had less time than I would have liked to consider the Report.

The Joint Report of the Council and the General Board on the supervision of the University's IT systems has much to commend it. It is, however, inevitably couched in the restrained, diplomatic language expected of such a Report, and concentrates on solutions without fully describing the problem.

The creation of a single body responsible for the oversight of all aspects of IT should indeed provide greater coherence, and should reduce the spectacle of committees playing 'pass the parcel' with awkward projects. The reduction in the size of the committee is also welcome: large committees rarely work effectively.

However, it is unclear whether the Report identifies and addresses all of the failings of the current Information Technology Syndicate, in which I have less faith than some who have spoken this afternoon.

My attention was first drawn to the failings of the ITS at the meeting in 2001 of departmental Computer Officers held to discuss the CAPSA review of Professors Shattock and Finklestein. There were about fifty present, and a clear hostility to the ITS was shown, a hostility which surprised me given that the ITS notionally existed in part to protect those present from any unreasonable actions which the UCS might have been contemplating. The minutes of the meeting record that 'an overwhelming majority of those present felt that the IT Syndicate, as currently composed, does not provide an appropriate framework for the governance and/or management of IT in the University'.

At the time I had no experience to determine whether that view was reasonable. When the ITS decided to ignore that meeting, of which it was well aware, and to make no response whatsoever to the concerns of the University's Computer Officers, I began to suspect.

When a few months later the Joint Report of the Council and the General Board on Guidelines for the Acceptable Use of Computers (Reporter, 2001-02, pp. 865-68) appeared to trespass on the ITS's territory, and, indeed, to contradict its own rules on acceptable use, some concluded that it was not just Computer Officers who had doubts about the ITS. I know that some members of the ITS were furious about that Report, but nothing was done about the inconsistency.

I should not have been surprised, therefore, when a fairly senior member of the UCS described the ITS to me as being 'strangely irrelevant'. Strange indeed that a member of the organization that the ITS was intended to oversee should find it irrelevant.

How had this situation arisen? It was said that many members of the ITS had been appointed due to their level of technical expertise: that is, their low level of technical expertise. The ITS appeared to require a standing subcommittee to advise it on general technical matters. The result was predictable.

One wonders whether, if asked to produce a committee tasked with translating from French to English, anyone would propose a monoglot English committee advised by an entirely Francophone subcommittee? Yet the idea that each individual member of the ITS should be fluent in both technical matters and matters relating to academic needs appeared to have been lost. Lost too was their contact to their constituents. Most IT staff, and certainly most academics, had no idea who their Faculty (or similar) representative on the ITS was.

As I checked the ITS's own website whilst preparing this, I noticed that three of its members are listed as being appointed until the end of the year 2006. Surely an IT committee should set a better example?

Finally, this University has many officers appointed with specific responsibilities for IT issues. The most senior of these is the Director of the Computing Service, who is not a member of this proposed Information Strategy and Services Syndicate. The other officers with those responsibilities are mostly the University's Computer Officers. Only one of the dozen seats on the ISSS is reserved for such a person, and that drawn from those outside of the University's academic Departments. One would hope that the Council and General Board would address this when they make their nominations, but one fears that they might not. I would therefore suggest that this Report be significantly revised to address these concerns.

Mr M. L. ROWLEY:

Mr Deputy Vice-Chancellor, for those that do not know me, I am Martin Rowley. I am currently the holder of the office of University Telecommunications Manager. I have held this office for the last 22 years.

Amongst other points this Report before the University appears to merely recommend the rescinding of the ordinances for this office without any clear proposals for the subsequent arrangements for the holder of the office or the staff of the Telecomms Office.

As the Telecommunications Manager, I would have hoped that this matter had been clearer and that the rescinding of the office would have been postponed until the expiry of the current holder's tenure.

Professor J.-P. HANSEN (read by Dr I. J. LEWIS):

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, as Chairman of the IT Syndicate I would like the relevant minute from the last meeting of the Syndicate held on 5 June 2007 read into this Discussion:

'Whilst the Syndicate was wholly supportive of the principal of the proposed governance changes, it expressed its concern that a number of issues it has raised concerning the details of previous drafts of the proposal had not been adequately addressed in the new draft. In particular, the vaguely defined sub-syndicates, their poorly defined relationship to the parent body and their undefined composition were all causes for concern. There was a worry that the day-to-day regulatory and policy work of the IT Syndicate, which ensures the efficient and orderly operation of information systems across the University, could easily be lost in the new governance structure unless more explicitly legislated for.

There was concern at the undue haste with which the new arrangements appeared to be being finalized, and it was noted that two of the principal officers involved, the Registrary and the Head of MISD were about to retire and their successors should be involved in helping to determine the framework within which they would operate.'

Dr I. J. LEWIS:

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, I am Dr Ian Lewis, Director of the University Computing Service. Discussions have been held since Lent 2006 with the aim to improve the operating efficiency of the University by removing potential overlap in the effective spheres of influence of the Information Strategy Group and the IT Syndicate. While that laudable aim should give each of us a natural inclination to support this initiative, radical last-minute changes have been rushed into this proposal which is now deeply flawed in ways that my colleagues have described.

The IT Syndicate is a well run and successful body and I would express caution that a replacement Syndicate is being rushed into existence without a full understanding of what is needed to make an IT oversight committee successful for an academic Computing Service.