Skip to main contentCambridge University Reporter

No 6477

Wednesday 27 September 2017

Vol cxlviii No 1

pp. 1–15

Notices

Calendar

1 October, Sunday. Michaelmas Term begins.

2 October, Monday. Congregations of the Regent House at 9.30 a.m.: admission of the Vice-Chancellor; election and admission of the Proctors; addresses by the Vice-Chancellor Emeritus and the Vice-Chancellor.

3 October, Tuesday. Full Term begins.

15 October, Sunday. Preacher before the University at 11.15 a.m., Ms Janet Morley, of Murray Edwards College and Wesley House, writer and liturgist, formerly a Director of Christian Aid and sometime Secretary for Adult Learning in the Methodist Church.

20 October, Friday. End of first quarter of Michaelmas Term.

Discussions (at 2 p.m.)

Congregations

10 October (cancelled, see below)

2 October, Monday at 9.30 a.m.

24 October

21 October, Saturday at 11 a.m.

7 November

25 November, Saturday at 2 p.m.

21 November

5 December

Discussion on Tuesday, 10 October 2017: Cancellation

The Vice-Chancellor gives notice that the Discussion announced for Tuesday, 10 October 2017 will not take place as there are no Reports ready for discussion.

Report of the Council on the provisions concerning the initiation of Graces and of amendments to submitted Graces by members of the Regent House: Notice in response to Discussion remarks

25 September 2017

The Council has received the remarks made at the Discussion on 13 June 2017 (Reporter, 6470, 2016–17, p. 683) concerning the above Report (Reporter, 6466, 2016–17, p. 542).

The Council notes Dr Reid’s concern about the scenario in which a Grace is initiated by members of the Regent House that, if approved as submitted, would result in an Ordinance, Order, or action by the University which would be unlawful. It has considered his recommendation that provision should be made to avoid such a situation, or to provide a course of action to enable a review of such a Grace. The Council is aware that the current provisions in Special Ordinance A (i) 7 do not afford any means for preventing the submission of an initiated Grace in the scenario Dr Reid describes. However, it does not believe that the Regent House would support the extension of the Council’s authority in the manner proposed. As Dr Reid notes, there are mechanisms in place that would enable a Statute, Ordinance, or Order resulting from such a Grace to be challenged and overturned. Further, and in any event, no University body would be obliged to comply with an internal enactment which purported to require it to carry out any act which was unlawful or in contravention of the University’s Statutes.

The Council has also noted Professor Edwards’s comments and has considered his suggestion that the wording used to describe the Council’s act in putting an initiated Grace to the Regent House should be amended, replacing ‘authorization’ with ‘sanction’. The current wording of Statute A VIII (c) (Statutes and Ordinances, 2016, p. 10) affirms that ‘All Graces require the authorization of the Council’ and the Report which is the subject of these remarks proposes that it is amended to read as follows:

All Graces submitted require the authorization of the Council; the Council may withhold that authorization in circumstances as prescribed by Special Ordinance;

The word ‘sanction’, as Professor Edwards notes, carries the sense of rendering an act legally authoritative or binding, but it can also imply approval of the act. The Council does not necessarily, in submitting an initiated Grace, support the proposal as put forward in the Grace and may, for example, call a ballot on the Grace. Further (subject to the issue of lawfulness which Dr Reid has raised), the Grace is only legally authoritative and binding if the Regent House approves it and does not call a ballot or submit an amendment to the Grace; the Council’s act in authorizing the submission of the Grace does not of itself render it binding. It therefore is more appropriate for the word ‘authorization’ to be retained.

Professor Evans, in her remarks, draws attention to the difficulty of identifying the rules governing the exercise of the powers of the Regent House. The Council has some sympathy with this view but notes that the relevant provisions are split between Statute, Special Ordinance, and Ordinance in accordance with the granularity of the information they contain and the approval required for their amendment. It also notes that the governance site (https://www.governance.cam.ac.uk/) is intended to address this difficulty, by providing an informal guide to the University’s complex governance arrangements, with links to the relevant parts of the Statutes and Ordinances.

The Council is submitting a Grace (Grace 1, p. 14) for the approval of the recommendations of this Report.

Professorial Pay Review, 2017

25 September 2017

This Notice gives information about the awards made following a review of professorial pay as at 1 October 2016, conducted in accordance with Annex 7 of the Second Joint Report of the Council and General Board on a New Pay and Grading Structure for Non-Clinical Staff (Reporter, 6002, 2004–05, p. 745) and Schedule 2 of the Joint Report of the Council and the General Board on amendments to the pay and grading scheme for non-clinical staff implemented following that Report (Reporter, 6302, 2012–13, p. 423). With the assistance of an Advisory Committee chaired by Sir Graeme Davies, the Vice-Chancellor carried out an assessment of applications for a review of professorial pay received from eligible Professors. The Advisory Committee was assisted by School-level Committees which undertook the initial assessment of applications in Bands 1 and 2 (the membership of those Committees is noted below). 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. The Vice-Chancellor has informed all applicants of the outcome of this review.

The following table summarizes the original distribution of Professorships across the Schools, and within each band, as at 1 October 2016.

School

Band 1

Band 2

Band 3

Band 4

Total

F   

M   

F   

M   

F   

M   

F   

M   

F   

M   

Arts and Humanities    

10   

28   

6   

17   

1   

9   

–   

1   

17   

55   

Biological Sciences    

16   

34   

6   

19   

1   

8   

1   

6   

24   

67   

Clinical Medicine    

6   

13   

2   

3   

4   

3   

1   

6   

13   

25   

Humanities and Social Sciences    

13   

43   

5   

20   

2   

12   

1   

–    

21   

75   

Physical Sciences    

10   

84   

4   

27   

–   

15   

1   

4   

15   

130   

Technology   

5   

50   

2   

24   

1   

12   

1   

1   

9   

87   

TOTAL   

60   

252   

25   

110   

9   

59   

5   

18   

99   

439   

% of Total1

61%

57%

25%

25%

9%

13%

5%

4%

538

Footnotes

  • 1Percentage in each band as a proportion of the Total column: e.g. 25% of male Professors are in Band 2; 9% of female Professors are in Band 3.


Awards

The number of awards made as a result of this exercise is shown in the table below. Where any individuals were placed in a higher band as a result of the review, the table reflects their new banding.

School

Eligible

Applied

Band 1

Band 2

Band 3

Band 4

Total

F

M

F

M

F

M

F

M

F

M

F

M

F

M

Arts and Humanities

17

55

10

16

6

7

4

5

10

12

Biological Sciences

24

67

15

18

11

8

2

3

1

2

13

14

Clinical Medicine

13

25

3

7

1

3

1

1

2

1

1

3

7

Humanities and Social Sciences

21

75

9

18

5

9

3

3

1

9

12

Physical Sciences

15

130

8

53

3

27

3

10

2

6

39

Technology

9

87

3

43

3

24

12

4

1

3

41

TOTAL

99

439

48

155

29

78

11

34

2

9

1

4

44

125

Membership of the Advisory Committee

Sir Graeme Davies (Chair; Vice-Chancellor Emeritus of the University of London and Honorary Fellow, St Catharine’s College)

Professor Sir Jonathan Bate (Provost, Worcester College, University of Oxford)

Professor Sir Brian Heap (Honorary Fellow, St Edmund’s College)

Professor Martin Daunton (Emeritus Professor of Economic History (1928))

Professor Sir David Wallace (Emeritus N. M. Rothschild & Sons Professor of Mathematical Sciences (2001))

Professor Peter Wells (Distinguished Research Professor, University of Cardiff)

Membership of the School-level Committees

Arts and Humanities: Professor Martin Millett, Head of School (Chair); Professor Nicholas Cook, Faculty of Music; Professor Simon Franklin, Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages; Professor Ian McFarland, Faculty of Divinity; Professor Rae Langton, Faculty of Philosophy; Professor Sir Jonathan Bate (VC’s Advisory Committee).

Biological Sciences: Professor Abigail Fowden, Head of School (Chair); Professor Michael Akam, Department of Zoology; Professor Andrea Brand, Department of Physiology, Development, and Neuroscience; Professor Gerard Evan, Department of Biochemistry; Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, Sainsbury Laboratory; Professor Sir Brian Heap (shared with Clinical Medicine) (VC’s Advisory Committee).

Clinical Medicine: Professor Patrick Maxwell, Head of School (Chair); Professor John Danesh, Department of Public Health and Primary Care; Professor Sue Gathercole, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit; Professor Paul Luzio, Cambridge Institute for Medical Research; Professor Sylvia Richardson, Institute of Public Health; Professor Sir Brian Heap (shared with Biological Sciences) (VC’s Advisory Committee).

Humanities and Social Sciences: Professor Phil Allmendinger, Head of School (Chair); Professor Sanjeev Goyal, Faculty of Economics; Professor Geoffrey Hayward, Faculty of Education; Professor Joel Robbins, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology; Professor Sarah Worthington, Faculty of Law; Professor Martin Daunton (VC’s Advisory Committee).

Physical Sciences: Professor Lindsay Greer, Head of School (Chair); Professor Ashit Amin, Department of Geography; Professor Dame Athene Donald, Department of Physics; Professor John Pyle, Department of Chemistry; Professor Mihalis Dafermos, Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics; Professor Sir David Wallace (VC’s Advisory Committee).

Technology: Professor Dame Ann Dowling, Department of Engineering; Professor Lynn Gladden, Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology; Professor Andrew Hopper, Computer Laboratory; Professor Christoph Loch, Judge Business School; Professor Peter Wells (VC’s Advisory Committee).

Discipline Committee

The Discipline Committee met on 13 June 2017 to consider two separate cases where charges were brought by the University Advocate against student members of the University. The Committee consisted of: Dr L. A. Merrett, T (Chair); Dr A. T. Winter, CHR; Professor E. F. Wilson, CC; Dr Stephen Siklos, JE; and Professor I. M. Hutchings, JN. Ms d’Ambrumenil acted as Secretary to the Committee, with Ms Parker assisting. On the application of the charged persons, the Committee consisted of senior members only, and sat in private.

In each case, the charged person was charged with one count contrary to Regulation 7 of the General Regulations for Discipline, namely use of unfair means in an essay submitted for assessment as part of an examination for a postgraduate course. In each case, the charged person submitted a guilty plea, the University Advocate outlined the circumstances of the case, and the charged person’s representative presented the charged person’s case and addressed the Committee on mitigation in relation to penalty. In Case one, the charged person made a statement; in Case two, both the charged person and the College Tutor made a statement.

Case one

The Committee considered all of the information provided. The Committee noted the substantial percentage of plagiarized material, as well as the student’s remorse, their significant personal circumstances and the inclusion of the plagiarized documents within the bibliography. The nature of the course and the small part of the degree affected by the breach was also acknowledged.

Taking all factors into account, the Committee determined, in accordance with Statute D II 3, that: the Charged Person have their mark for the relevant examination paper reduced to zero; and that they provide formal written apologies to the Chair of Examiners and to the authors of the plagiarized material.

Case two

The Committee considered all the information provided. The Committee noted the significant percentage of plagiarized material, as well as the student’s remorse and personal circumstances, acknowledging the nature of the course and the small part of the degree affected by the breach of the Regulations.

Taking all factors into account, the Committee determined, in accordance with Statute D II 3, that: the Charged Person have their mark for the relevant examination paper reduced to zero; and that they provide a formal written apology addressed to the Chair of Examiners and inclusive of a re-submission of the assignment in question

Capella building: Naming approved

4 August 2017

The Advisory Committee on Benefactions and External and Legal Affairs has approved the naming of the new laboratory for the Schools of the Biological Sciences and Clinical Medicine on the Addenbrooke’s site1 as the Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre, in recognition of a donation from Mr Jeffrey Cheah.

Footnotes

  • 1The laboratory was known as the Capella building during its development and construction. The recommendations of a second-stage Report concerning the laboratory were approved by Grace 4 of 15 July 2015.


Naming of buildings on the North West Cambridge site

18 September 2017

In accordance with the principles for the naming of roads, neighbourhoods, and buildings on the West and North West Cambridge sites (Reporter, 6350, 2013–14, p. 610), the Council, on the recommendation of the West and North West Cambridge Estates Board, has approved the following names for buildings on the site:

Eddington Health Centre

Eddington Nursery

Annual Reports

The following Annual Reports have been received by the Council and are available as indicated:

Cambridge University Press Annual Report and Financial Statements for year ended 30 April 2017

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/documents/cup/cup-annual-report-2017.pdf

Careers Service Annual Report 2016–17

http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/documents/careers-service/careers-service-annual-report-2017.pdf