Furious dispute in the ivory towers

Trouble is brewing at Oxford. The serenity of the dreaming spires has been spectacularly disturbed by infighting over the future of the university. This term, dons take the decisive vote on whether to approve reforms put forward by Dr John Hood, the vice-chancellor appointed in 2004. After three defeats at the hands of rebels, Hood could be forgiven for being nervous.

At the heart of all this is the future of Council, the university's governing body. In June, the university published its long-awaited white paper on governance. The paper calls for Council to be scrapped and replaced with two bodies: an academic council that will make and assess academic proposals; and an institutional council that will oversee the academic council and decide on university strategy.

Controversially for a university that prizes its centuries-old democratic processes, the institutional body is to be dominated by outsiders. Seven of its members will be Oxford academics, while the other half plus the chairman, university chancellor Chris Patten, will have been appointed from outside.

It troubles some dons that academic decisions will no longer be at the heart of university strategy. "In an academic institution, academic issues need to drive strategy," says Susan Cooper, a physics professor and a leading rebel.

But what really has dons worried is the majority of lay or external appointees on the new institutional governing body. "To scrutinise things, you need to understand them," Cooper says. "How will they be able to decide wisely about anything? Their advice is valued, but we don't want them to have overall control."

Cooper and other critics of the white paper point to the experience at other universities, and in business, where external appointees are, they say, often simply yes-men to the executive.

"Despite the nice rhetoric, this is part of a process of increasing the power of the executive," says Nicholas Bamforth, a law fellow at Queen's College. "External members won't have much time to devote to the job. The Council will cease being an effective check. It could easily turn into a rubber stamp."

The danger in all this, the the rebels say, is that a lack of proper checks and balances can end in disaster. They say that recent problems with Osiris, a new accounting system, and Isodore, a new student admin system, arose because they were forced through by the executive without proper assessment.

Advocates of the reforms insist that the rebels have got it all wrong. "There's not that much expertise about governance at the university," says Dr Liona Lazarus, who wrote the white paper. "People see change and lay membership as outsiders telling them what to do."

Lazarus insists that more external appointments will pose no threat to what she calls the "non-negotiable sovereignty of Congregation". Congregation, the dons' parliament, will both set the guidelines for who is eligible to be appointed and vote on each individual external appointment. They will not, she insists, be yes-men. "They should be strong and intelligent people with minds of their own."

And, Lazarus adds, the outsiders will only ever have a limited role in academic affairs, assessing the academic body's proposals rather than formulating academic policy.

The focus of the new governing body will be on broader institutional policy. Most dons agree that decision-making processes are, at present, intolerably inefficient. Because a lot of day-to-day business comes before Council, important strategic decisions don't get made, insiders say.

But splitting the Council will free up the institutional body to make those decisions, say the reformers. And, they add, an organisation with a £450m annual turnover needs input from people with experience of working on similar budgets, whether that be other universities, NGOs or business. "The aim is to try to ventilate the university," Lazarus says. "We hope there'll be a more diverse range of perspectives. It's a way to create discussion with the outside world."

External appointees are an increasingly familiar feature on the governing bodies and boards of many institutions. "The aim is to put the university in line with the majority of other institutions," Lazarus says. "This will put Oxford on a platform for the 21st century."

Some rebels are contemptuous of the argument that everybody is doing this these days. And the insistence on the need for a majority of outsiders on the governing body has left the rebels scratching their heads; they say that the information on which the assessment is based has not been made available.

"There isn't a good reason for having these external appointees," says Robin Briggs, a history fellow at All Souls. "No case has been made for what they would bring." In fact, Briggs argues, the proposed reforms could undermine Oxford's academic primacy. Oxford manages to punch above its weight, compared with much richer universities in the US because of the ethos fostered by its democratic structure, he says. "People feel very committed to the institution; they feel that it's theirs. Damaging that could have catastrophic effects on overall performance," he says. "See how unhappy academics at other universities are with how their universities are run. It becomes 'them and us', and that's very damaging."

Given Council's failings, is there any alternative to Hood's proposals? Cooper, Bamforth and Briggs published another proposal, called "A Democratic Approach to Oxford's Future", to counter the white paper.

A couple of pages long, it is considerably less detailed than the university's 72-page white paper, but the argument boils down to a call for reform rather than revolution. Cooper says: "You need to make improvements, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

Cooper, who sits on Council, believes that much could be done simply by streamlining the agenda to focus more on the big strategic questions the new governing body will deal with. And the rebels welcome outsiders' input, but as advisers rather than as majority decision-makers.

Both sides will be trying to win hearts and minds before the decisive vote at Congregation this term. The rebels expect hundreds of dons to reject the proposals. At best, they say, the university can expect a narrow majority in favour of reform, which they argue will not be sufficient to carry through such a radical change in the way the university is run.

One option for the university is to allow a vote on the reforms one by one, which will allow most an easy passage. The rebels say there is room for compromise, but not on the question of external appointees. Both sides want to persuade dons such as David Clary, head of Magdalen College. Professor Clary is one of many who are not rebels, but are not totally convinced by the proposals.

Dons vote in Congregation as individuals, and Clary is at pains to stress that his views do not represent those of his college. He admits that, with a business as big as Oxford, external advice might be useful. But the stumbling block for him, as for many, is the majority of external appointments on the new governing body. "It might make decisions that might not be in the university's academic best interests. If there was a majority of internals on Council, it would go through fairly easily. It depends on that issue."

It remains to be seen whether the administration can persuade dons to accept outsiders at Oxford's helm. No one has invested more in this fight than the vice-chancellor. The first outsider appointed to the top job at Oxford in 800 years may yet be toppled by the dons' refusal to let others share the running of the university.

Dons and the Hood; questions at the heart of an unscholarly dispute

What's at stake?

The heart of decision-making at Oxford - Council - which decides on everything from whether to take on more undergraduates to which new buildings are going up.

Why the controversy?

The administration, particularly the vice-chancellor, want to bring in more outsiders to help with the running of the university. Dons, jealous of their autonomy, refuse.

Is this a new idea?

Hardly. Outsiders have taken an increasingly prominent role in UK universities. Opponents of the reform say that is no reason to go the same way. They want proof that external managers will make a positive difference.

Why change at all?

The system is not working. The university's finances are parlous, and many see Oxford's byzantine administration as a major obstacle to bringing in necessary reforms and raising money.

Who'll win the argument?

We will know this term. The administration, hoping to undermine support for the rebels, has made several concessions, including allowing Congregation (the dons' parliament) to elect outsiders from a list of nominees. NJ