UK: Tarrant to head the ACU

Professor John Tarrant, former vice-chancellor of the University of Huddersfield, has been appointed secretary-general of the 500-strong Association of Commonwealth Universities. He has served as acting secretary-general since the resignation of Dr John Rowett last May.

Tarrant was educated at Marling Grammar School in Stroud, Gloucestershire, and read geography at Hull University. After two years at University College, Dublin, he became a founder staff member of the University of East Anglia in the school of environmental sciences, rising to the rank of deputy vice-chancellor before moving to Huddersfield in 1995.

His research interests in national and international food and agricultural policy and the influence of agriculture on the environment took him to work in the US, Ireland and New Zealand with organisations such as the British Council and the Ford and Rockefeller foundations.

Since May, he has travelled extensively to visit some of the 500 member institutions of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU).

"During the past few months, I have learned the importance of this network of universities held together by a common language and history," Tarrant said. "This proud record of nearly 100 years of working together is, however, not enough.

"The world of higher education is much more diverse than at the time of our foundation. We must ensure that we embrace diversity and are relevant and important, even essential, to an expanded membership."

He wants the ACU to become a voice for many of the challenges and opportunities facing its members. These include institutional autonomy, academic freedom, quality assessment of teaching and research, intellectual property, and the impact of HIV-Aids on universities.

The association is currently holding a consultation exercise on the 'big issues' in higher education, asking members to list their top five concerns and ways in which the ACU should address them and represent their views.

One of its challenges is the growing emphasis in many countries on development of higher education outside the state university system, with the emergence of private and non-university tertiary education institutions. Membership of such institutions is one issue the ACU may have to grapple with as it responds to the international higher education agenda.

The new secretary-general is known as a shrewd operator who gets the best out of people who deliver what he wants and who will focus on what is best for his organisation. Professor Brenda Gourley, vice-chancellor of the Open University and chair of the ACU council, praised his "excellent management experience".

This, according to some observers, will be needed to steer the ACU into the rapidly changing and challenging world of higher education.

But Tarrant has another weapon: he is almost an honorary Yorkshireman. Before he left Huddersfield University in 2006, he chaired the Yorkshire committee on museums, libraries and archives and he was made Deputy Lord Lieutenant of the county. Yorkshire has the reputation of producing a breed of stubborn, determined and forthright people!