John Cater, the UK’s longest-serving vice-chancellor who is set to retire in January after leading what is now Edge Hill University for 31 years, insisted that he never thought of his record-breaking tenure “as a career”.
The 71-year old geographer, who began his time in academia as a lecturer at Edge Hill in 1979, is a humble figure. While he quipped that “luck” had got him where he is today, his record says otherwise. Under Dr Cater’s leadership, Edge Hill, a former teacher training college in Ormskirk, Lancashire, obtained degree-awarding powers and then university status in 2006, and was one of only five institutions granted permission to open a new medical school in 2018. It has been most-nominated contender for Times Higher Education’s University of the Year title since 2007, shortlisted five times in that period and winner of the coveted prize in 2014.
But Dr Cater leaves at a time of great unease in the sector. “You can’t be a part-time vice-chancellor,” he said as he pointed out the growing crises facing the English sector: 40 per cent of universities anticipated that they would finish the last academic year in financial deficit, and the expected additional income from next September’s rise in tuition fees to £9,535 is forecast to be wiped out by the cost of increased national insurance contributions.
Modern, teaching-focused universities are thought to be particularly at risk, especially as highly selective institutions expand their enrolment at the expense of less prestigious providers.
While Dr Cater said Edge Hill has seen times of greater difficulty – highlighting its failure to gain university status in 1992 – the same cannot be said of wider challenges. “In the job I’m doing, there have been much tougher times than today. In terms of the funding environment, it’s about as bad as it’s ever been,” he said.
However, Dr Cater was sceptical of many of the options being proposed to tackle the problems, including the suggestion that struggling universities should be steered into mergers with bigger institutions.