Law / Business Merger Update

It’s time for an update team! Coming to you from a source in the staff, we’ve got some results about the Senate meeting held on Monday 24th February. A vote was put forward on the proposal to combine the Law and Business schools under one Faculty, with the results being 121 to 51 votes against the proposal - a 70% majority! The next step, based on the Constitution of the University, is that the advice of the Senate will be taken into consideration by the University Council who will make the final decision at a meeting set for Monday 17th March, the day this story is released to you.

The Senate is made up of mainly university professors from various schools of discipline across the university, along with some senior academic roles. The purpose of the Senate is to represent the academic values of the University on matters involving study, training, awards, or other academic interests. A comment made by the Vice Chancellor at the beginning of the meeting was that it was the largest turnout for an in-person Senate meeting that the University had ever had. The position of the Senate, according to our source, sits consistently with the majority of those who sent in submissions about the proposal, the majority of which also sat against the proposal. The Committee that was selected by the University to assess all submissions provided the recommendation to the Council that the proposal should not go ahead. The Council of the University is the main governing body that determines the policies of the university, undertakes planning of the university’s long-term strategy, and seeks out funding. The Council is made up of elected staff, students, alumnus, and external appointees.

Our source states that,

We hope that the proposal is not brought to Council, when it has been clearly rejected by the academic community.

Our source and their team also provided some supplementary research into how previous proposals taken to the Senate impacted the final decision by the Council. At this point they are not aware of any instances where the Council has gone against a vote from the Senate. This would be considered a very serious move and, as far as our source understands, an unprecedented move in the last 30 years. Due to the proposal being one that is a matter of academia, and the Senate is the highest academic body in the university, it was common for the Council to follow the advice of the Senate.

With the Senate’s overwhelming rejection of the merger, we turn our attention to the Council’s upcoming decision. If the past provides any indication, then we may see Council follow Senate’s recommendations - but whether they will remains uncertain.

To read about the merger, see our previous