Deputy Vice Chancellor retires after 40 years in higher education

The Deputy Vice Chancellor of York St John University, Professor David Maughan Brown, will retire from the University this week.

Professor Maughan Brown (68) joined the University in 2002 as Deputy to the Principal and subsequently as Deputy Vice Chancellor. David has been a key driver of the University’s internationalisation policy which has been significant in building the University’s strong international profile and recruitment.

David’s retirement at the end of the calendar year - rather than academic year - has been timed to follow the November deadline for submissions to the Research Excellence Framework, which will determine universities’ research funding for six years. David has been responsible for overseeing York St John’s submission, as he was for the 2008 equivalent which saw a 500% increase in the University’s funding for research.

Professor David Fleming, York St John University’s Vice Chancellor said: “David has helped to steer the University through the many changes that have transformed it into the excellent learning and working environment it is today. I thank him hugely for his dedication to making the University such an open and forward thinking Higher Education establishment that embraces difference and challenges prejudice. Naturally, we are very sorry to see him leave but know his legacy will live on for many years to come.”

Cape Town-born Professor David Maughan Brown was brought up in East Africa and educated in South Africa and at the Universities of Cambridge and Sussex.  He spent over 30 years of his time in Higher Education in South Africa with 21 of them in the English Department at the University of Natal under apartheid, followed by 11 as its Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor negotiating the transformation of the University under post-apartheid democracy. This vast experience in what was a most turbulent time for education in South Africa has shaped David’s perception of what good universities should be about.

At a recent ‘Go York’ public lecture, titled ‘Higher Education and Politics’, David spoke about his career in Higher Education and outlined his views.  He argued that, in the face of an increasingly instrumentalist government, discourse about Higher Education universities needed to act collectively in challenging government policy, asserting  their wider purposes and resisting the idea that their sole function is to ‘oil the cogs of economic development’.

Says Professor Maughan Brown about working at York St John University: “I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at the University and being part of what is an enormously supportive, interesting and dedicated community which the students are at the heart of.

“York St John is a very special place to work. I am confident that the current leadership will continue to navigate the choppy political waters successfully, ensure a high quality student experience and continue its commitment to provide excellent and widely-accessible educational opportunities.”