Azhir Mahmood  🚀 🤖 🧬 🧠 🪐

Wow, the governing council of Imperial College has 1 member representing academic staff, 1 member representing students, and 21 others seemingly all from finance, etc. The chair of our council is also the chair of Tescos. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/secretariat/college-governance/governance-structure/council/about-council/composition/ …

That's normal? Governing body of a university is meant to be independent of its staff, and indeed of the sector, to provide oversight while minimising CoIs. They appoint the VC, and hold them accountable (in principle).

Trying to come up with a reason why a bunch of people from finance should have ultimate say about how a university is run. Drawing a blank here I'm afraid.

I guess the alternative model is Oxford. I’m not sure it makes for better decisions or any less argybargy though. And Imperial at least is highly reactive and tends to wipe out bad decisions fairly quickly. There is previous, but I think it was before your time.

I agree with Simon here. Governing bodies should be independent & I would say it’s preferable they’re from industry. Universities are corporations, so I would expect people in finance to manage assets well and make decisions fast. Oxbridge model is very slow and bureaucratic.

Depends what you mean by corporation. They're certainly not for profit businesses with shareholders, etc. And they shouldn't be anything like that.