PROFESSORIAL APPOINTMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 18053, 22 August 1922, Page 8

PROFESSORIAL APPOINTMENTS

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—l was glad to notice Air CalfaiTs remarks on professorial appointments in your issue of Saturday. Two questions arose in my mind on reading “Representative’s ” letter— (1) Had he read tho recommendations of the Professorial Board, or even tho report of them appearing in your issue of the 16th? (2) Was his letter written in the interests of education or of private individuals? The state of affairs on the University. Council is unfortunately only too well known, and as long as matters of public concern are used for the exploiting of private and personal grievances so long will the University and everything connected with it suffer. To use tho members’ own language, this is not what they are “employed” for.—l am, etc.. Inquirer. August 21. TO THE EDITOR. ■Sir.—-Tho Dean oi the Faculty of Law complains that I have “misrepresented” the suggestions made by the Professorial Board in the council. I admit that I had not quit© grasped the position, and -accept correction- in all humility. I fully believe that my letter did not express the dean’s own views;. but I cannot see even now that ray letter seriously misrepresented tho board. Rather have I come to regard it as a legitimate and deserved caricature, for among the somewhat lengthy exposition of the board there occurs a short phrase—“ .Members of the board to be eligible ” to act as expert advisers to the council in re appointments. Naturally, if eligible, they will act. Now, some, it not all, of the mistakes of the council in making appointments have been duo to certain professorial influences. It is just hero where the influence of persona! friendship and personal enmity has at times exercised its malign influence on the University. The trouble has been- that the- biased local experts have had too much influence in determining appointments. Now when reform is imminent they make use of tho board, as a ca-tspaw to ask for more. So much for matter; now for manner and method. The word “ employee ” was used in- its technical sense- for a technical purpose which the occasion demanded. To have avoided it would have been to drop “ professorial language ” and to court ambiguity. No offence was. I am sure, intended, nor could it reasonably be taken. As a result of dissatisfaction with some of the decisions of the council in the past, the personnel of that body has been gradually changing. Recent discussions in tho council have foreshadowed a- reconsideration by it of the method of making appointments. If at all, then at this stage, when a new council has just been elected, was the board wise in presenting its memorandum? Why did not the board privately instruct those professors wdio act on the council as its representatives to raise the matter in their capacity as councillors? Had this course been adopted tho board would not have laid itself open to an inevitable rebuff, and the professors on the council would not have -appeared responsible for placing the council in an awkward predicament. —I am, etc., Representative. August 21.