Former Vice-Chancellor Brian Cantor bowed out by splurging £7,000 on a wining and dining extravaganza, Vision can reveal.
The party of 64, comprised mostly of university donors and benefactors, nibbled on £576 worth of canapés as they listened to a student jazz trio.
They then went on to guzzle a three course meal that costed a huge £3808, or £59.50 per person, and drink their way through £1828.50 of wine.
The party was held at the five star luxury Cedar Court Grand Hotel in York last term to say farewell to York’s notorious Vice Chancellor before he left for the University of Bradford.
York Vision acquired the details through a Freedom of Information Act which requested the financial details of Brian Cantor’s leaving party.
In their response, the University pointed out that the reception and dinner “was an opportunity to thank the outgoing Vice-Chancellor for 11 years of service to the University of York, and to build stronger relationships with key donors and benefactors.”
They added, “The total cost of the evening was a fraction of the amount donated by Brian Cantor to the University every year for the last four years, and a small fraction of the total donations of all the benefactors who attended the event.”
Ursula Wild, a third year English and Related Literature Student commented, “For that amount of people, that’s an extravagant amount of money! There are so many better things it could be spent on – helping us out with the cost of books each term for a start!”
It is not the first time that Brian Cantor has found himself under financial scrutiny, after a York Vision investigation in 2010 revealed that the VC had claimed £135,000 in expenses between 2007-2010, including a £141 limo transfer to Heslington East campus.
THE STATS
* CANAPÉS: £576
* 3 COURSE MEAL: £3808
* WINE: £1828.50
* MINERAL WATER: £45
* ROOM SETUP: £264
* MIC, PA AND MUSIC: £424
* TOTAL: £6945.50
Bitter, much?
I don’t want to hear his name anymore. He has left, can we keep him in the past please.
“Blew 7k”? How was it “blown”? Sounds like an absolute corker of a party…
So he throws a £7k party (not all that much for a proper corporate function), to a bunch of investors, all of whom will have contributed considerably more than that, most likely garnering further donations, after a career of having successfully fundraised for a Russell Group university. Precisely how is this newsworthy? Why is every financial article about the university written as if it runs on a student budget? £7k in the corporate world, and compared to the university budget, is a tiny sum of money.
The most offensive part of this non-news story is that they had a jazz band. I always thought Big Brian was better than that; more of a dupstep man.