Not every member of staff has accepted Birmingham University's invitation to help decide on the type of vice-chancellor they would like to see in place in 2009.
One sent the following message to the consultation: "Given that the university employs 6,000 staff, it would be interesting to know exactly how you plan to incorporate such a large number of opinions, many of which will be diametrically in opposition to one another, into your search for a candidate. In all likelihood, the person appointed will be male, white, and middle-class; from a background in engineering or natural sciences, but with a rather undistinguished academic record. Any personality they might have will be invisible to all but a very small cohort of UoB staff and therefore irrelevant."