From The Chronicle:
The vice chancellor of the University of Cambridge courted controversy in a speech today by criticizing the British government for “meddling” and for pressuring top institutions like hers to admit more graduates of public high schools.
“As institutions charged with education, research, and training, our purpose is not to be construed as that of handmaidens of industry, implementers of the skills agenda, or indeed engines for promoting social justice,” Alison Richard told her fellow vice chancellors, who are meeting this week in Cambridge for the annual conference of their representative organization, Universities UK.
Ms. Richard, a former Yale provost, went on to tell her colleagues that “we need the independence and autonomy to chart our individual institutional courses, and to experiment.”
