A new Graduate school has been set up this week in the school of Arts and Humanities, which will amalgamate the support systems available for post-graduate students in these subjects.

Previously, academic issues such as the allocation of supervisors, training and research grants, and potential career paths were handled by smaller ‘Degree Committees,’ which were specific to certain groups of subjects within the school of Arts and Humanities.

Now all queries related to the department will be handled by a larger umbrella organisation, the aforementioned Graduate School, which is to be made up of senior members of the Arts and Humanities Department. It is hoped that this greater centralisation will improve efficiency and access to resources and personnel; it will also create a more effective School-wide capacity to respond to changes and challenges.

The move is not a replacement of the Degree committees, which will continue to work on a closer oversight of graduates on a subject-by-subject basis. However their duties will now be restricted to examinations and overseeing the efficient running of courses and admissions.

The school of Arts and Humanities is one of six wider administrative groupings within the University, which encompasses around twenty institutions including subjects such as the Faculties of Architecture and History of Art, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Classics, Divinity, English, Modern and Medieval Languages, Music, and Philosophy. It includes all the Departments that fall within the scope of these Faculty Boards.

It is hoped that the creation of this new graduate school will endow the Arts and Humanities with more authority at graduate level, when consulting with external bodies like the Research Councils or the Government on matters relating to postgraduate education.

Professor Philip Ford, Chair of the School's Graduate Education Committee and Professor of French and Neo-Latin Literature at Clare College, commented: “The new School will allow us to coordinate our policies on postgraduate education, give us a stronger voice in representing our distinctive interests in this important but at times not very well understood research area, and allow us to share best practice through the various meetings of the key members of the various Faculties involved in postgraduate education.”