Students were left feeling frustrated and unsatisfied after Vice-Chancellor Brian Cantor’s campus tours failed to live up to expectations.
A University spokesman noted that the trips “are part of the VC’s regular fact-finding visits to colleges, academic and administrative departments. It is an opportunity for him to meet staff and students and, in turn, a chance for them to raise issues with the VC.”
Concerns were voiced when Cantor appeared reluctant to engage his attention in issues raised by members of the colleges, leaving students feeling as though they had taken part in a pointless show-and-tell display for the VC’s sake.
Particularly worrying reports came from Derwent students, who claimed that Cantor “was dismissive of suggestions and appeared to only want to mention his own agenda and not listen to the views of Rob [Aitken, the Provost], as well as others”. They said that he then quickly left.
“We didn’t get a chance to talk about our actual concerns,” remarked one attendee, who wished to remain anonymous.
Reports suggest that conversation was swayed to highlight issues closer to the Vice-Chancellor’s heart, with Cantor suggesting that accommodation blocks would be renamed after those making large monetary contributions to the University. This has been the case with the naming of buildings and accommodation blocks in recent years.
Some attendees commented to say they felt this gave the impression that “he was after more money.”
Further anxieties were raised regarding Cantor’s lack of knowledge of basic information about the college, with one Derwent student commenting that, “He didn’t even know what Eden’s Court was.
“I find it slightly disturbing that the VC was so unaware of how our college works.”
Impressions from the event were not all negative, however, with one student reflecting that “he seemed quite nice, I don’t think it’s his fault. It was just really unclear to everyone how we could ask questions”.
It would appear that this lukewarm response was not consistent across all colleges, with Vanbrugh Chair Kallum Taylor telling Vision: “The visit seemed to go well… the VC seemed pleasantly surprised by what the college was planning for the year ahead.”
So WHAT WERE the college issues he was ignoring?
Lack of Derwent portering? Other stuff? What?
The impression we got from the students who contributed comments was that they were concerned about things such as safety in the college, mainly the lack of CCTV cameras and the like (remember this was days before the break in at the JCR). Aside from this there were also worries about Derwent losing some of its identity and community spirit after the impending merge with Langwith.
Hope that was what you were after.