No 6394
Wednesday 15 July 2015
Vol cxlv No 38
pp. 742–784
18 July, Saturday. Congregation of the Regent House at 10 a.m (see p. 779).
1 October, Thursday. Michaelmas Term begins. Congregation of the Regent House at 9.30 a.m.: Vice-Chancellor’s address, and election and admission of the Proctors.
6 October, Tuesday. Full Term begins.
The last ordinary issue of the Reporter for the 2014–15 academical year will be published on 29 July 2015. The first issue of the 2015–16 academical year will be published on 23 September 2015.
The Vice-Chancellor invites those qualified under the regulations for Discussions (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 111) to attend a Discussion in the Senate-House, on Tuesday, 13 October 2015, at 2 p.m. for the discussion of:
1. Report of the General Board, dated 8 July 2015, on the establishment of certain Professorships (p. 762).
2. Report of the General Board, dated 10 July 2015, on examination arrangements for the degree of Master of Philosophy (p. 762).
3. Twentieth Report of the Board of Scrutiny, dated 23 June 2015 (p. 770).
The Vice-Chancellor gives notice that he has accepted with gratitude the following benefactions, of which both the capital and the income may be used:
(i)a benefaction of £5,000,000 from the Monument Trust, payable over two years, towards the redevelopment of the Cambridge Judge Business School and the construction of the Simon Sainsbury Centre (Reporter, 6379, 2014–15, p. 424);
(ii)a benefaction of £585,000 from Microsoft Research Ltd, payable over three years, to support the research of Professor Zoubin Ghahramani, Department of Engineering;
(iii)a benefaction of US$924,000 from Cambridge in America, following a donation from Drs Dennis and Mireille Gillings, to support two postdoctoral fellowships, one in emerging infectious diseases and one in neuroscience, to be known as the Dennis and Mireille Gillings Global Public Health Fellowships, the holders of which will undertake collaborative research with the Institut Pasteur;
(iv)a benefaction of £350,000 from YouGov plc, payable over four years, to support a YouGov Centre for Public Opinion and Policy Research within the Department of Politics and International Studies. The benefaction will support teaching and research in the Department, provide bursaries to candidates for the examination in Public Policy for the M.Phil. Degree, and contribute to the University and College fees, maintenance, and research costs of one Ph.D. student conducting public opinion research beginning in 2016–17;
(v)a benefaction of £250,000 from the Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust towards the extension of the Addenbrooke’s Clinical Research Centre at Addenbrooke’s Hospital (Reporter, 6377, 2014–15, p. 400);
(vi)a benefaction of £247,000 from Slaughter and May, payable over three years, to support a fixed-term Lectureship over the same period, which shall be known as the Slaughter and May Lectureship in Corporate Law;
(vii)a benefaction of £150,000 from the Hauser-Raspe Foundation, payable over three years, to support a series of workshops and a visiting expert programme in the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, within the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities.
(viii)a benefaction of £149,386 from Dame Janet Wolfson de Botton DBE to support the digitization of Michel de Montaigne’s personal library at the University Library.
The Council, in consultation with the General Board, has considered the remarks made at the Discussion on 7 July 2015 (p. 780) about the above Report (Reporter, 6390, 2014–15, p. 619).
Professor Evans has commented on the first sentence in Regulation 1 of the proposed procedure for determining fitness to study, noting that it covers behaviour or health issues which have the potential to cause disruption, as well as those for which there is evidence that they have already done so. Regulation 4 gives examples of circumstances in which a student’s fitness to study may be brought into question, covering scenarios in which the University will wish to consider taking action where there is evidence that the health or behaviour of a student has the potential to cause disruption. The Council notes Professor Virgo’s expectation that the procedure will be used rarely and is content that the Panel tasked with considering a case will heed Regulation 17 and ‘make such decisions in respect of a student’s fitness to study as it considers necessary and proportionate’ to protect the best interests of the student, and other members of the University.
In response to Professor Evans’s comment about the location of the new procedure, if approved it will form part of Ordinances, Chapter II, alongside the procedures to determine fitness to practise, which require the approval of a Grace for amendment.
The Council is submitting a Grace (Grace 1, p. 778) for the approval of the recommendations of this Report.
The Council, in consultation with the General Board, has considered the remarks made at the Discussion on 7 July 2015 (p. 782) about the above Report (Reporter, 6392, 2014–15, p. 666).
The Council notes the supportive comments of Professor Virgo and Ms Horgan, who both stress the importance of having a provision covering harassment.
Professor Evans raises a concern about the workability of the provision relating to the staying of disciplinary proceedings where a complaint has arisen on the same facts. The provision allows for a discretion to stay proceedings, rather than, as Professor Evans appears to suggest, an obligation to do so. Accordingly, the Chair of the Discipline Committee will take full account of all relevant circumstances, including the length of time that a complaint might take to be concluded, before deciding whether that discretion should be exercised.
Paragraph 7(b) of the Report notes that the Review Committee considered whether the student should always be accompanied by a legal representative at investigative meetings and concluded that this was not necessary; the student’s right to be accompanied is unchanged.
The points Professor Evans makes about the design of the current framework echo the discussions of the Review Committee, which will consider in the second stage of the review how best to rework that framework, including the use of mediation and more informal procedures where appropriate.
The Council is submitting a Grace (Grace 6, p. 778) for the approval of the recommendations of this Report.
The General Board have considered the remarks made by Professor Evans at the Discussion on 7 July 2015 (p. 781) about the above Report (Reporter, 6391, 2014–15, p. 644).
The General Board have endorsed the recommendations of its Review Committee and believe that the proposals presented in the Report will bring together within UIS a development team who can continue to provide innovative design to support teaching and learning, whilst offering greater resilience in the support of the operational services that CARET currently delivers.
The Council is submitting a Grace (Grace 5, p. 778) for the approval of the recommendations of this Report.
The Council, on the recommendation of the Finance Committee, who have been advised by the Inter-Collegiate Committee on College Accounts, has agreed to propose revisions to the Recommended Cambridge College Accounts, to ensure compliance with Financial Reporting Standards and the revised Further and Higher Education Statement of Recommended Practice to be adopted in 2016.
The Council is therefore submitting a Grace (Grace 11, p. 779) to the Regent House for the approval of the amendment to the Schedule to the regulations for College Accounts (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 1052) as set out in the Appendix below.
The amended Schedule to the Regulations for College Accounts is available online at: http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2014-15/weekly/6394/RCCA-Schedule.pdf.
The following Annual Reports have been received by the Council and/or the General Board during the Easter Term 2015, and are available on the websites indicated:
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Institute of Continuing Education, Annual Report, 2013–14 |
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University Botanic Garden, Annual Report, 2013–14 |
http://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/ (from the ‘About us’ tab) |
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Health and Safety Executive Committee, Annual Report, 2014 |