Cambridge music job advert strikes discordant note in academia

The candidate invited the Cambridge Department of Music to create a post for him because he was in receipt of a very large research grant. Had he not had such a grant, he would have been ignored. His treatment of his own university is despicable.

At least Cambridge chose to advertise, even if in a way which made it clear that this job had been created for a specific person. Sadly the Higher refuses to list those people who are appointed to unadvertised posts. King's College London has an outstanding record of such appointments, but there are many others, and the UCU is cravenly silent.

I cannot comment on the candidate or his department. I would not underestimate, however, the poverty of the whole system of the humanities in the English-speaking world. Except for very well remunerated professors, the sums are light. Departments have long--presumably always in the modern era--accepted funding from outside sources for faculty positions. The example of a faculty candidate already funded and otherwise suitable seems to me to differ from the practice I mention in no way at all.

Philopoetis has not understood the situation, the University of Cambridge is allocating between £ 52,219 and £55, 389 per annum to fund this post, presumably because the person for whom it has been advertised is a crony of the Professor, and their skill in obtaining research awards and prizes is thought an asset to the Department. Whether that makes the candidate not only 'suitable' but preferable to any other musicologist is not entirely clear, what is clear is that no other Cambridge Humanities Department would have behaved in this way.

This sums up what's happening all over British academia. We are back to patronage and the old friends' network where people get jobs because of who they know, not how good they are.