Everything about Brian Lang totally explained
Brian Andrew Lang,
FRSE, is
Principal and
Vice-Chancellor of the
University of St Andrews.
Lang was born on
2 December 1945 in
Edinburgh and educated at the
Royal High School of Edinburgh and the
University of Edinburgh where he studied
social anthropology, graduating
MA in
1968, and
PhD in
1974. Following a period in
Kenya studying and living among the
Kamba people, he lectured in social anthropology for some years at
Aarhus University,
Denmark. Returning to the
United Kingdom, he joined the scientific staff of the
Social Science Research Council, where he was latterly Principal Scientific Officer.
In
1979 and
1980 he was head of the Historic Buildings Branch of the Scottish Development Department, and from
1980 to
1987, was Director of the
National Heritage Memorial Fund, based in
London.
After this, he spent four years as Director of Public Affairs for the
National Trust, before his appointment as
Chief Executive and Deputy
Chairman of the
British Library serving from
1991 until
2000. He was thus in charge of the delayed and over-budget move of the British Library into its large new building at St Pancras, but was fully exonerated of responsibility for the delay in a subsequent inquiry.
Lang is a Trustee of the
Heritage Lottery Fund and a member of the Cultural Commission.
At St Andrews
Lang succeeded
Struther Arnott as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews in January 2001. Later that year, Lang was accused of
sexual harassment by a member of the University's administrative staff. Shortly before the start of the resulting
employment tribunal, the university made an out-of-court settlement.
At an unrelated employment tribunal in 2004, Lang drew on his background in social anthropology to compare an academic department at St Andrews to the
Ik tribe of
Uganda, who, he said, were noted for their "dishonesty, lying and cheating". He was ridiculed for this remark in St Andrews when it was pointed out that
refuting this view of the Ik, due to
Colin Turnbull, is an essay topic for first-year social anthropology students.
(External Link
)
Lang inspired further controversy in 2006 during the graduation ceremonies when he indicated that students sided with management over the lecturers' pay dispute. Polls suggested this wasn't the case, and that the majority of students supported the lecturers' plight.
His
contract of employment has been extended until
31 December 2008 by the
University Court. On 9th March 2006 it was announced that he was to be inducted as a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Lang has recently been accused of
hypocrisy by the St Andrews student newspaper
The Saint for promoting the University's environmental policy by asking other employees not to commute to work by car, while continuing to use his official
Jaguar to make the journey to his office.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Brian Lang'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://brian_lang.totallyexplained.com">Brian Lang Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
