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Court and Council - lay membership

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THE NOMINATIONS COMMITTEE of the University Council, set up earlier this year, is responsible for making recommendations on the appointment of Council-coopted members of the Council and Council-appointed members of the Court and for making nominations to the Court for the election of Court-appointed members of the Council and for the appointment of coopted members of the Court. All these are lay (ie external to the University) members.

THE COURT, which consists of some 200 ex-officio and representative members, links the University to the community at large. It meets once a year to receive the audited accounts of the University and the Vice-Chancellor's Annual Report for the previous session. It may discuss any matter relating to the University and convey its opinions to the Council.

THE COUNCIL is the governing body of the University, responsible for the management and administration of the University's finances and property and for ensuring proper accountability. It normally meets once a term, to consider reports from its sub-committees (including the Planning and Resources Committee) and from the Vice-Chancellor. It has a membership of just over 40, about two-thirds of whom are lay members.

The Nominations Committee wishes to build up a list of potential lay members of Court and Council on which it can draw as vacancies arise, and to that end invites suggestions from members of the academic and non-academic staff of the University and from students.

Suitable candidates are likely to have achieved eminence in their chosen field which might include the professions, industry, commerce or the arts (although this list is purely illustrative and in no way exhaustive). They should have an interest in higher education and they must have the time and inclination to play a full part in the activities of whichever body they might join; in the case of the Council, members are likely to be asked to join sub-committees as well as the Council itself.

Names should be submitted to the Deputy Secretary, Mr G M Ivey, in Sussex House, for transmission to the Nominations Committee. All submissions should include a curriculum vitae of the suggested person(s).

The number of vacancies arising each year is small. To avoid raising unrealistic expectations, it would, therefore, be prudent not to inform individuals whose names are being suggested. The Nominations Committee would, of course, sound out in advance anyone whose name it wished to recommend to the Council or the Court.

All suggestions will be considered by the Nominations Committee on their merits. The Committee will not necessarily attach more weight to suggestions supported by large numbers of signatures than to those submitted by one person.

The discussion of individual names by the Nominations Committee is, for obvious reasons, confidential. All suggestions will be acknowledged but the Committee cannot enter into correspondence about, or give reasons for, its decisions on whether or not to recommend individuals for appointment.

It is with deep regret that we report the death last week of Dudley Baker. Formerly Mayor of Brighton, Dudley Baker played a prominent role in the establishment of the University and was an active and long-serving member of the University Council.

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Friday November 8th 1996