{"id":4204,"date":"2026-08-14T09:24:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T08:24:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=4204"},"modified":"2026-08-14T11:59:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T10:59:57","slug":"a-crisis-and-an-opportunity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=4204","title":{"rendered":"A Crisis and an Opportunity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"637\" src=\"https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-14-at-09.01.30-1024x637.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-14-at-09.01.30-1024x637.png 1024w, https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-14-at-09.01.30-300x187.png 300w, https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-14-at-09.01.30-768x478.png 768w, https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-14-at-09.01.30-1536x956.png 1536w, https:\/\/21percent.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-14-at-09.01.30.png 1976w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>There are good articles in The Telegraph<a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2026\/08\/13\/university-cambridge-review-all-hr-procedures-jason-arday\/\" title=\" here \"> here <\/a>and the Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/uk\/education\/article\/cambridge-boss-in-turmoil-as-second-inquiry-is-announced-fdr6xmzmp\" title=\"here \">here <\/a> today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 21 Group has some sympathy for the Vice Chancellor over the Jason Arday fiasco because the appointment happened before she arrived (though she still has questions to answer about the cover-up).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the Vice Chancellor is personally implicated in misconduct in &#8216;Cambridge Whistleblowing&#8217; scandal, as the newspaper articles make clear. It is much more dangerous for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Deborah Prentice can claim she was misled by the Human Resources and Legal divisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps that is true, in which case it is natural to expect the immediate suspension of key individuals in those divisions, whilst an independent and external review is carried out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The present statement from the Vice Chancellor (her email of 13 August 2026) is too vague to place much faith in what is promised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Deborah Prentice has a crisis &#8230; but an opportunity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She can still be a great reforming Vice Chancellor. She now needs to take bold and immediate action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are good articles in The Telegraph here and the Times here today. The 21 Group has some sympathy for the Vice Chancellor over the Jason Arday fiasco because the appointment happened before she arrived (though she still has questions to answer about the cover-up). However, the Vice Chancellor is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4204"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4209,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4204\/revisions\/4209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}