Some had been called in for discussions and received letters saying that if they didn’t improve they could be fired.”In the event that your performance does not reach a satisfactory standard, there may be no option but for the situation to be considered under the university’s formal disciplinary procedures… “There is no doubt that we could blow all our resources on producing the very best research if you think that is what a university is for,” he says. “But it is for other things as well.”We would argue for a balance of the different functions. Oxford has always taken the teaching of undergraduates and postgraduates very seriously, and people are concerned that the strategy might move us more towards the American model, where teaching is less emphasised.” The rebels denied that they were engaged in a power battle with the vice-chancellor, arguing that it was a battle of ideas about what the nature of a modern university should be.Behind the debate about appraising academics’ work lay a real fear, based on what had been happening to academics who were considered to have been underperforming in medicine, the sciences and maths.

“If radical measures are not taken, Oxford’s standing will decline,” said the Green Paper. One of the simplest ways to fill university coffers is to ensure that academics do as well as possible in the research assessment exercise. The opposition believes that Hood’s desire to retain Oxford’s position as a great research university is laudable but that it should not come at the expense of teaching students Nor should it damage Oxford’s culture, says Dr Goldman. “It might have been used to bully people,” said Dr Lawrence Goldman, a fellow of St Peter’s College and editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. “Hitherto, appraisal has been a positive experience that has assisted us. What we were seeing is a wind of change that might be used as a way of putting pressure on people.”In his strategy Green Paper, the vice-chancellor based his plans on the notion that Oxford needed to increase its income to compete internationally.

A report is to be drawn up about Oxford’s libraries, and governance will be discussed in November this year.That left the most contentious idea to be sorted out: the review of academics’ work. The vice-chancellor’s first Green Paper, published in January 2005, outlined regular, joint university-college reviews of academics’ work “with scope to enhance financial rewards, rebalance academic duties, and address underperformance”.The dons say that they do not object to having their work appraised. What concerned them was Hood’s form of appraisal linked to pay. Talk of cutting the university’s libraries from 45 to 10 or 12 – and turning half of the Bodleian over to other uses, including using its Radcliffe Camera reading rooms as a public relations display space – are not popular. The university administration, however, denies that either of these more radical proposals are on the table.Mindful of having hit so many raw nerves, the authorities have postponed the governance and library proposals for now.

“You stick a businessman in charge of a university and it’s all a complete cock-up. He doesn’t know what the job is about and he doesn’t know what the place is for. His first act is always to get into a fight and piss everyone off.”Hood has been trying to drive through change at breakneck speed. This is fortunate, as practical skills are what future employers will be looking for.. Lord Dearing: Author of the 1997 higher education report that paved the way for the introduction of tuition fees

Lord Dearing: Author of the 1997 higher education report that paved the way for the introduction of tuition fees
I don’t think this is a good idea. Plans for mandatory reviews of dons’ work fell into the latter category.Moreover, Hood is overseeing a rationalisation of Oxford’s libraries, which include iconic buildings like the Bodleian.