Camel Design for Beginners

School meals were always unpopular. The butt of jokes and, if the opportunity presented itself 'physical humour'. Though never an entirely typical schoolboy, I went along with this. I have, perhaps, too low a resistance to the chance of a cheap laugh. On one day however, served, I think beans, mash and sausages, and perhaps in more contemplative mood, I had a sudden moment of realisation. I liked school food. This, very minor epiphany, has however had major effects on my life (and inevitably my waistline). I realised that the crowd was wrong and that whatever the popular, jocular assumptions that were made, even by friends, they could be wrong. In fact, I have taken this as an article of personal faith: to question popular but casual articles of faith and to question my own tendency unthinkingly to adopt them.

And so, from personal philosophy to my subject: university committees. Certainly, the subject of humour. To mention them often raises a wry smile or quip; occasionally, a reference to the urtext of academic humour - Microcosmographia Academica ('Being A Guide to the Young Academic Politician'). The wit however masks a more pointed critique: a sink of time, the haunt of those unable or unwilling to engage in serious scholarship, a diversion from serious management, vehicles for fudge and compromise, potentially embarrassing and so on. This is, in my view, wrong and carries with it the serious potential to both inhibit the use of committees as a valuable management tool and as vehicle for open governance of universities.

A well-scheduled, well-attended, well-chaired and well-minuted committee meeting can be an extremely good way to coordinate and communicate. It can also be an effective way of establishing a consensus and of transmitting a culture or building a shared vision. Committees are excellent for ensuring broad oversight and as a means of bringing a measure of transparency to managerial decision making. Though there are an intimidating set of prerequisites, well-scheduled, well-attended, and so on, none are dark arts. For each there is a body of good practice, codified and familiar. Where committees fail, they commonly fail through forgetting their formal constitution, order and terms of reference. In other words they become just meetings, and purposeless ones at that.

At their worst, committees can be used as a means for diluting the individual capacity to take action. Everybody is responsible - so nobody is. A committee can, of course, assume 'collective responsibility' for a course of action - either in anticipation, through a shared manifesto, or retrospectively, by endorsement after the fact. It cannot ultimately substitute for the creativity and drive of an individual. If this particular pathology can be addressed, the principal weakness of committees can be alleviated.

It is not however, the functional merits, or demerits, of committees that concern me, it is their role within universities. I believe that an active, engaged, empowered management is essential for a world-class university. I attribute a good part of the global success of the UK academic system to the fact that the system provides for that management. It is also true that the best UK universities have retained a system of participatory engagement in governance through systems of boards and committees. The academic system works best when management and committee structure are brought together. I do not emphatically mean by this a constitutional system of 'checks and balances' but rather a system that is mutually supportive and reinforcing, with each playing different roles. This is difficult, but absolutely not impossible, to achieve.

It is said - in the aforementioned spirit of jocularity - that the camel is a horse designed by committee. The camel is, of course, perfect in its own unique way, suited to its environment and purposes. There is a metaphor in there struggling to get out.