The candidates for the Chancellorship of Cambridge University have now been announced. They are Dr Ayham Ammora, Mr Ali Azeem, Mr Tony Booth, Lord (John) Browne, Dr Mohamed El-Erian, Dr Mark Mann, Mrs Gina Miller, Lord (Chris) Smith and Ms Sandi Toksvig as well as myself (Professor Wyn Evans).
They are listed here with their personal statements.
If we can put together an alliance of everyone who is left out of decision-making in our universities, we can bring about real change.
In Cambridge, those who are left out comprise > 99 % of the university.
They include early career researchers fearful that there may be no academic future for them; those on fixed-term contracts who make up about two-thirds of the university but have limited pay, conditions and promotion prospects; marginalized groups (based on race, gender, disability); overworked mid and senior faculty grappling with unresponsive central management; retired faculty and staff who often have no official place in committees or governance bodies. as well as communities surrounding the university.
In Cambridge, real power is wielded by a tiny elite; the Vice Chancellor, the pro-Vice Chancellors, the Registrary, the Academic Secretary, the HR Director, the Heads of School and the Heads of Houses. They have a chokehold on power.
We need to remove power from the centre and return it to the academics, so that Cambridge University can become again what it once was, a self-governing community of scholars.
Let us make this election into an extraordinary and laudable affirmation of the principle of academic self-governance.
As a useful byproduct, this will ensure that the University’s administrators will be induced to interact with the University’s academics less haughtily.
This statement is from Wyn Evans, a candidate for the Chancellorship of Cambridge University.
15 Comments
Blahblahblah · 29 May 2025 at 06:39
I’ve read all the personal statements. Sandi Toksvig speaks very highly of herself.
Few love stories are as enchanting as the romance between Sandi Toksvig and Sandi Toksvig.
ProfPlum · 29 May 2025 at 18:32
I agree. Toksvig’s statement is the most ridiculous.
“Too many Richards, Johns, and—God help us—Stephens. After eight centuries, clearly what this institution needs is not so much a visionary leader as a fresh first name.
Perhaps it’s time we cast off those dusty old Stephens and tried someone new. Someone bold. Someone … with 100s of hours of radio and television, 26 books, 3 colleges, and one very large ego.”
Camaeleons · 30 May 2025 at 10:47
1. “clearly what this institution needs is not so much a visionary leader as a fresh first name”
Umm not many mohameds (or ginas) either (did she bother to read the candidate list?)
2. ““Too many Richards, Johns, and—God help us—Stephens”
what does she have against stephen he’s gone for a long time now
3. “Someone with 100s of hours of television and one very large ego”
In the age of Trump comes across as amazingly tone deaf
VCsChums · 30 May 2025 at 13:34
My prediction is that Lord BP will win this rather easily
What’s yours?
Oldwinegrapevine · 30 May 2025 at 15:37
Don’t know much about the man but literally the last thing the university needs is a British establishment insider breathing fumes from oil and gas and looking for a cosy retirement sinecure where they can enjoy nice dinners, entertain friends and wear nice robes
The university is in need of urgent transformative change and that will take someone who knows this mess from the inside and able to work hands on to broker different factions and interests behind a clear vision otherwise it is truly fucked
GamblingMan · 30 May 2025 at 16:30
Betting notes:
The University candidate is clearly Lord Browne. Look at those who are nominating him. This is a cross-section of the ‘great and good’ from the establishment. We almost expect to see the names of Sir Humphrey Appleby and Sir Bernard Woolley there. The University candidate almost always wins the Chancellorship, so Lord Browne is the odds-on favourite
That said, the online voting of alumni this time may make historical precedent much less trustworthy. The alumni vote is unpredictable. But, it is quite possible that the candidate with the greatest name recognition among the alumni wins. That would seem to be Ms Sandi Toksvig. In my book, she’s next favourite.
21percent.org · 30 May 2025 at 18:51
We think Sir Humphrey and Sir Bernard were Oxford MAs.
For sure, they’d have been supporting William Hague, one of the greatest failures in the last 200 years, for the Oxford Chancellorship.
Nonetheless your post shows a great deal of solid insight into how this country really works. We can expect Lord Oilslick as the next Chancellor
Cynic · 31 May 2025 at 13:09
How will academic self-governance improve things ?
21percent.org · 31 May 2025 at 19:50
When decisions are made collectively rather than imposed top-down, it increases transparency and reduces the risk of mismanagement or corruption.
Academic self-governance acts as a counterweight to administrative power, ensuring decisions are aligned with educational and research missions rather than financial or bureaucratic goals.
Cynic · 31 May 2025 at 20:46
Bullshit. All you get is a different form of bullying than from top-down managers, but bullying nonetheless.
Power diffuses among informal networks, which are based on hierarchies, reputations, and connections to funders. The same problems with top-down bullying: no rocking of boats, corruption, nepotism, codes of silence.
21percent.org · 1 June 2025 at 06:35
Of course. Hierarchies of power are always there.
Over the last 20 years, universities have shifted from being faculty-run institutions focused on education and scholarship to being dominated by professional administrators whose priorities often centre on growth, image, and bureaucracy rather than academic quality or student learning.
The dominance of administrators undermines the core mission of universities —- teaching, research, and intellectual inquiry.
Anon · 1 June 2025 at 11:44
Bullying would not be eradicated if more power was returned to the whole of the academic community of a university, since some of the worst bullies are among that community. But tackling the bullying would be improved.
What undermines the good functioning of a university are systems and practices put in place by senior management which are diametrically opposed to academic practice in terms of their reliance on logic, intellectual rigour, truthfulness, evidence and absence of conflict of interest, systems and practices which no longer serve an institution’s mission statement.
As Lord Smith puts it in his statement “We live in a dangerous world of misinformation and “fake news”. Universities are the places where facts are researched and honoured, where information is discovered and tested and debated. It is why a genuine commitment to freedom of speech is so important.”
Lord Smith probably doesn’t realise that the dangerous world he describes is what any member of staff who complains or raises an issue formally will encounter under the current regime, including the typical formal communication associated with it: misleading, illogical, lawyerlike prose, often signed by academics, sometimes even by Heads of School or Pro-VCs.
Voicing discontent or disagreement comes with a reminder about appropriate conduct and respect, about the pitfalls of making unsubstantiated claims, particularly about those in positions of power – a reminder that “a genuine commitment to freedom of speech [which] is so important” has become all but lip service and that the old days of “disagree[ment] without rancour” as mentioned by Lord Browne have long gone.
If you behave like an academic and communicate outside of those systems, policies and processes your misgivings about them – with the relevant evidence that they are not adhered to, or misused, or undermined by conflict of interest – you will receive from the aforementioned fellow academics in positions of power, the authoritative view that your matter cannot be considered outside of the relevant policies and processes.
It is hard to understand why these senior academics have forgotten all about basic academic practice, and why the overall aim seems to be to disregard and disable it. By all accounts, those in power don’t rule because they know, they have given themselves the privilege to “know” because they rule.
As Lord Smith puts it “It is no accident that the first target of autocrats everywhere is education; tyrants do not want people to have and acquire knowledge.”
Regaining some sort of academic self-governance, regaining (rather than sustaining) “our long-held values particularly of free speech, intellectual freedom, and fact-based analysis” will have a significant impact on disabling the tyrants within.
Maybe that ought to take precedence over the assumption, made by the majority of the candidates, that Cambridge is in a position to tell the world how to solve its problems.
Puzzled · 31 May 2025 at 19:33
I feel like the bigger concern with this election is the legitimacy of the process – I mean, if you have 10 candidates and no intuition about who are the leading 2-3 contenders, it seems likely no-one gets a majority? The logical solution would be to have multiple rounds of voting but they aren’t doing that right?
21percent.org · 31 May 2025 at 19:47
The election is being run on Single Transferable Vote principles
https://www.governance.cam.ac.uk/ballots/rh/Pages/STV-explained.aspx
That said, there is still much to question about the legitimacy of the process.
Tony Tiger · 15 June 2025 at 19:34
(Former external examiner.) Disturbing how so many of the candidates highlight an identity aspect. In many was that’s a focus that needs correcting throughout the universities. As at least some economists will tell you, based on evidenced research, you always pay a price for prejudice.