Although Brian Cantor claims he is constantly chatting to students, most wouldn’t even recognise him. On a salary of over £200,000, the elusive Vice Chancellor is the man behind the overall running of the University and the official face of the institution.
Cantor has been running the place since 2002, but he worries that York’s biggest challenges may be just around the corner. He insists that campus is financially secure for the time being, but predicts that, after the impending general election, the government will slash higher education funding.
“My assumption is that there will be further cuts coming,” he admits. “We will have to go back to the drawing board and see how we cope with those.”
Privately, Cantor has strong views on the politics of education: “the government should right now be pumping money into universities, because they are the motor for the economy of the future in the UK.”
But when push comes to shove, will he fight politicians to protect York students and the university? Probably not actually – although he is the political figurehead of the University, he brands government lobbying a “waste of time”.
In fact, Cantor accepts, “with great regret,” that the future is gloomy for students, saying that a hike in tuition fees is very likely. “I think the pressure on government finance is now so high that it’ll be hard to resist fees going up,” he explains.
In a wide-ranging interview with Vision, it is hard for Cantor to get away from the depressing reality of cutbacks. The impacts of the recession have already been felt on campus, most notably with the controversial changes to the portering service. However, Cantor stubbornly denies that the scrapping of 24 hour porters in several colleges is a cut back at all, instead calling it a redistribution.
“Obviously we work within a very constrained financial position,” Cantor says. But he believes the changes “will not be to the detriment of the security of the students.”
Porter cuts have raised fears over insecurity at the University and Cantor readily admits that students no longer feel safe on campus. “There has certainly been at the perception level amongst students, feelings of deterioration and concerns about security,” he says. “Derwent is a place where there’s a feeling that there’s been a deterioration locally.”
But despite these fears, the Vice Chancellor appears to consider the cutbacks a permanent measure. YUSU’s ‘Save Our Porters’ campaign centres on proving that the change to the service will damage security. However, Cantor refuses to set a limit on how bad crime on campus would have to get before he would consider reinstating the porters.
He even dismisses the campaigns as counter-productive, claiming that it, “is more or less advertising,” low security to potential thieves. “That’s not helpful,” he adds dryly.
Porters themselves have largely been damning of Heslington Hall’s handling of the situation. One porter commented: “Heslington Hall have no idea what it’s like for us. They’re very distant.” The Vice Chancellor, though, has a somewhat different take on their relationship: “I know porters probably better, as a whole group, probably better than most.”
“I meet all the porters – they all know me and they all say “Hi” to me. We chat regularly!”
Porters aren’t the only ones who Brian is saying “hi” to. The talkative boss reckons he is meeting and greeting students all the time on his regular rambles around the lake.
Nevertheless, criticism of disengagement with students has plagued Cantor’s time in office. He is eager to hit back at such claims, saying: “I try to be as engaged as I possibly can be, and I think I am quite well engaged.”
However, many colleagues have privately said that he is not involved enough with the day-to-day running of campus. One anonymous colleague said: “Brian is totally out of touch with the students.”
Cantor explains: “nine times out of ten, the best method of getting something sorted is to talk to… not me!” He says that consulting him is “not normally the most effective method to achieve things.” It’s hard to tell if he’s joking or not.
He only meets with YUSU once a term, which is infrequent compared to other universities, where vice chancellors meet students’ unions once or even twice a week. He visits departments and colleges just once a year, proudly claiming: “I specifically ask to meet a variety of students as part of that.”
The rarity of Cantor’s interaction with students is highlighted by the nature of his communication with the student press. He hardly ever grants lengthy interviews and almost never passes personal comment otherwise. Press officer David Garner sits in on Vision’s interview with the VC, recording every word. He even turns on the scare tactics before the interview starts, advising ominously that the tone should “not to be confrontational”.
Cantor is an intimidating man, which makes his insistence that he runs an “open door” policy for student representatives questionable. That said, it can’t be easy balancing the tough decisions that he has to make every day with the pressure to present a friendly face to students. However, given Cantor’s authoritative leadership, it should be tempered by a real understanding of what it is like to be a student.
He claims that a video recently made for the University Council provided just that. Earlier this term, Vision revealed that the video, which supposedly presented the views of “real students”, was both censored and scripted at the request of a Hes Hall official. But bizarrely, Cantor refuses to acknowledge that this happened at all and flatly denies any censorship.
“I don’t accept the premise of censoring. It wasn’t censoring,” he insists.”I don’t think students are suffering from anything misleading at council level.” It’s hard to know how to react to his refusal to accept the facts.
Brian Cantor holds the power to shape of future of the University and is the man we rely on to battle with the government. But can we count on him to steer us through the challenging months ahead? Only time will tell.