I spent some time this morning at both the Senate Nominations Committee (which I chair) and the Council Nominations Committee.  These are the groups that ultimately make recommendations on the most appropriate composition of a wide variety of university committees and panels - within the parameters laid down for each such body.  One of the difficulties lies in achieving a balance between experience and opportunity.  Clearly many deliberative bodies within the University work much better if they have those with wisdom and a knowledge of precedent as key contributors.  But committee work also provides a wonderful opportunity for more junior colleagues to start to grasp something of the organisational structure of the University, and to realise new ways in which their own career development could be enhanced as well as making a difference more widely.

During my time in the University I have witnessed a general reduction in the volume of extra-departmental committee opportunities available to younger staff. In part this is to be welcomed and has come about through the streamlining of many processes that at one time required several Faculty stages as well as further consideration at University level (often in more than one body).  But with that streamlining we have got into a position where the level of representation on (for example) Faculty committees is often now confined to Heads of Department, Directors of Teaching or Research and the like.  Within three years of my appointment to the University I was asked to sit on a Faculty Board - which met at least twice a 'term' with 3 hour meetings punctuated by a tea break after which the student representatives left so that 'reserved business' dealing with individual staff and students could be transacted.  I don't want to turn the clock back to those times.  But it did mean that I quickly developed a network of friends and connections in departments other than my own, and it also meant that I started to get an inkling of how the University worked.

Perhaps it also gave me the confidence to put my head above the parapet and write the letter to the University Newspaper that in some ways set me on track to develop a wider profile across the institution.  This letter was one of protest that the newly-opened Octagon Centre (yes: I have been here a long time) had as one of its first hirings a boxing promotion - which I felt was incompatible with the standards of civilised behaviour one should expect in a university.   It was on the basis of the profile I developed through that letter that shortly afterwards I was approached to become Sub-Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences - a position that no longer exists. That was my first taste of university administration.

I would be interested in views from others as to what we might (ought?) to do to encourage younger colleagues to start to develop a sense of the university as a whole self-governing community.  I strongly believe that such governance is not something that should simply be left to senior figures.