History of the General Council
Article written for 'Alumnus Chronicle 2008' by Miss Kathleen Patrick
A significant date for St Andrews and the other ancient Scottish universities of Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow was 2 August 1858. On that date the Royal Assent was given to the Universities (Scotland) Act 1858 which reformed the governance arrangements within each university and laid the foundations of the system which operates today.
The legislation provided for the creation of the University Court and the General Council and also restructured the Senatus Academicus. It also vested in the General Council the right to elect the Chancellor of the University, and in the students the right to elect the Rector as chairman of the new University Court.
The Act had its origins in the report and recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Scottish universities of 1826-1830. The universities themselves had welcomed the setting up of the Commission which was thorough in its investigations of property, education and administration. Action to give effect to its recommendations was slower, especially in relation to the administration.
In St Andrews, prior to the enactment of the statute, governance was entrenched within the academic community and presided over by the Rector, a senior academic elected by a restricted group of his peers and senior students. The creation of the University Court, chaired by the Rector, introduced external unpaid governors for the first time. Moreover the Act stipulated that the Rector must no longer be a member of the academic staff and could be elected only by the students of the University, a right which has been zealously guarded by the students ever since.
The General Council was an innovation which gave graduates and certain categories of academic staff a formal lifelong association with the University. Members of the General Council were given the right to elect the University's Chancellor, previously vested within the Senatus, and to elect one of their number to be an assessor on the University Court, along with other lay assessors appointed by the Rector and the Chancellor.
The Senatus was reformed to retain responsibility for academic matters. Its Presidency was either the Principal of St Mary's or the Principal of the United College of St Salvator and St Leonard whichever was the senior until the office of Principal of the University was created in 1890.
150 years later the students still elect the Rector every three years and the Rector continues to chair the University Court. The Court itself has expanded in number and responsibility and now comprises twenty three members: six members of Senatus, three students and a non-academic member of staff. The rest are lay members, including the two General Council Assessors. In 1858 there were fewer than two hundred students, all male, and the General Council was a correspondingly small body.
Today there are 6,848 full-time students plus a number studying part-time. Men and women have equal opportunities. The General Council at the end of December 2007 had 48,950 names on its Register, although a number of these are recorded as `address unknown' because they have failed to notify changes in their contact details. In addition we have a growing number of non-graduating alumni who have spent a semester or more in St Andrews and retain an enthusiastic interest in the University and its activities. Our students and staff come from more than 100 countries and our alumni live and work all round the world. As we approach the 600th anniversary of our foundation we can be glad that the work of our predecessors in the nineteenth Century created a framework which has fostered the community which we continue to develop today.