The Hindu : Woman V-C for Cambridge

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 28, 2002

International

International

Woman V-C for Cambridge

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON NOV. 27. In what is being hailed as a "historic'' development, Cambridge University is to have a first full-fledged woman Vice-Chancellor in 800 years leaving Oxford behind as the last bastion of male domination.

The choice of Alison Richard, currently provost of the America's ivy league Yale University, is seen as a sign of changing times at Cambridge which is still struggling to get over the gender gap in senior positions. A Cambridge graduate herself, Prof. Richard is credited with an ambitious campaign to recruit more women at Yale.

``Her record at Yale speaks for itself, and there is genuine hope in Cambridge that this will prompt significant institutional changes ...and recruitment of academics from under-represented minority groups,'' a students' spokesman said.

Prof. Richard is expected to take over when the present Cambridge V-C, Sir Alec Broers, retires at the end of this academic year. The only other woman who headed the university was Dame Rosemary Murray but that was when the V-C was only a figurehead and had little executive powers. Prof. Richard would be the first hands-on V-C.

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