“As academic staff suffer and ever more power is granted to donors, one slice of university staff seem to be doing very well. It took Oxford 40 years to catch up with Cambridge in appointing a woman vice-chancellor, but Louise Richardson is to take over from the chemist Andrew Hamilton. He is leaving early to head New York University for an eye-watering £950,000 a year. His successor will inherit a more modest but still whopping £442,000 a year. That’s what happens when a university is run like a biggish corporation — the head is paid like a chief executive. Chief of the problems Richardson has to get to grips with is the extent to which the real business of the university — teaching and research — is being subordinated to its bureaucracy.” “How come our cash-strapped universities can afford so many administrators?” by Melanie McDonagh.