The man who saved Oxford University

Justin Cartwright

17 October 2009

As the controversial Dr Hood stands down as vice chancellor, those of us who resented his attempts to modernise should offer him our heartfelt apologies, says Justin Cartwright

Hood goes on: ‘Allow me to touch on governance. Council had mandated the review of governance to coincide with my arrival, which I thought then, and certainly think with hindsight, was unfortunate. I said at the time I would ideally have preferred to have started a year later, and, as it happens, that may also have allowed greater exposure of some of the weaknesses of governance that led to the excessive financial and other risks faced by the university in 2004.’

In other words, he would have won the argument had people been aware of just how bad things were. He was unable to be too frank at the time, he has told me, because of the damage it would do to the perception of Oxford. He goes on to say that the present structure is vulnerable and must be changed. The rotating and part-time members of council are unable to deal with the ‘array of academic, financial, commercial, control and organisational issues’. He adds that governance has not been his prime concern in the past five years. Instead he has concentrated on advancing Oxford’s ‘core research and teaching mission’, which has been a resounding success. Undergraduate applications are up 24 per cent and graduate applications 80 per cent. The campaign to raise funds has reached £770 million of the target of £1.25 billion and Oxford tops every domestic league.

This is his legacy; although he does not spell it out, nobody mistakes what he is saying. His voice is strong as he moves on to the ritual thanks and accounts. As he finishes there is a very long ovation — an insider later tells me that it is unprecedented — led by Patten. Then, with several doffings of the mortar boards, he is invited to hand over the seal, the book and the huge bunch of keys of office. At this point in the old ceremony, he would have been led from the Sheldonian, but instead he sits down to listen to his successor’s short but far more orotund speech, which includes a good joke about two men running from a bear. Then we all file out into the rain, unexpected after sitting under the cerulean ceiling.

John Hood may not have that playful and caressing wit which is said to distinguish an Oxford man, but he was unmistakably the right man for the times. I owe him an apology.

Oxford owes him both an apology and a debt of gratitude.

Justin Cartwright’s This Secret Garden, Oxford Revisited, one in the ‘Writer in the City’ series, was published by Bloomsbury in 2008.