Whenever the problems of universities are discussed, the conversation tends to move along familiar lines: financial distress, administrative weakness, declining academic standards, poor research output, faculty protests, delayed payments, inconsistent policies, over-centralization and the chronic shortage of resources. All of these are legitimate concerns, and in many institutions, they are serious enough to affect teaching, research and morale. Yet beneath these visible difficulties lies another institutional disorder that is less frequently acknowledged because it is difficult to quantify and even more difficult to document. It does not usually appear in audit reports, university statutes or strategic plans. No committee is formally constituted to investigate it, and no budgetary allocation can easily cure it. It is the culture of favourites i.e., the familiar “blue-eyed boys” culture, in which proximity to authority, personal loyalty, informal access and usefulness to those in power gradually become currencies of institutional influence.
Every organisation contains relationships of trust, and there is nothing inherently wrong with administrators consulting colleagues whom they know, respect and consider dependable. Leadership cannot function in a social vacuum. Problems arise, however, when trust turns into patronage, consultation becomes exclusivity, professional confidence becomes personal loyalty, and access to authority begins to substitute for academic credibility. At that point, the formal university continues to operate through statutes, committees, boards and regulations, but alongside it emerges another institution governed by unwritten rules. This parallel university has its own logic: who can enter which office without an appointment, whose telephone call is returned promptly, whose file moves faster, whose recommendation is treated seriously, and who seems to know what the administration intends before the administration itself has formally decided.
This is where the blue-eyed boys flourish. Their power is rarely declared. It does not necessarily come with a formal designation, an impressive title or a clearly defined administrative role. In fact, informal influence can be more effective precisely because it remains undefined. The individual may not chair a statutory body, may not possess an extraordinary scholarly record and may not hold an office proportionate to his visibility, yet he remains present where decisions are discussed, consulted where influence matters and heard where others struggle even to gain access. He becomes an interpreter of authority, a carrier of messages, a supplier of impressions and sometimes an unofficial spokesman for what “the administration thinks.” One occasionally wonders whether even the administration is as well informed about its own thinking as some of these unofficial interpreters appear to be.
The danger of such a culture is not that merit disappears completely. That would be too obvious and therefore easier to challenge. Something more subtle happens: merit becomes insufficient. A good research record still matters, but it matters more if accompanied by the right relationships. Integrity remains admirable, provided that it does not become inconvenient. Independent thinking is celebrated in speeches, provided the independent thinker understands when silence is institutionally preferable. Academic freedom remains a cherished phrase in official documents, while those who exercise it too enthusiastically may discover that freedom, like many institutional privileges, has practical limits. The university therefore develops its own unofficial vocabulary: the person closest to power becomes “reliable,” the person useful to power becomes “cooperative,” and the person willing to question power becomes “difficult.”
In an ordinary bureaucracy, this would already be troubling. In a university, it is intellectually embarrassing. Universities are supposed to be communities of reason. They teach students to question assumptions, examine evidence, distinguish arguments from assertions, challenge established knowledge and resist intellectual conformity. Scientific training requires skepticism, social sciences demand critical examination, and the humanities thrive on interpretation and disagreement. Yet the same institution can become uncomfortable when its own faculty applies those principles to administrative decisions. Critical thinking is highly valued when directed at a textbook, a theory or a historical event; when directed at university governance, its reception can become noticeably less enthusiastic. We celebrate dissent in principle and sometimes find it inconvenient in practice.
This contradiction is not merely rhetorical. It reshapes institutional behaviour. A university cannot credibly teach merit while practising favouritism, celebrate evidence while rewarding proximity, or encourage students to think independently while expecting faculty members to remain conveniently silent. When such contradictions become normalized, faculty members quickly learn that formal qualifications and professional achievement are only part of the real system of advancement. The other part is relational: who knows whom, who can reach whom, who is privately consulted, who is routinely present in the right places and who has mastered the ancient administrative art of being visible when visibility is useful.
Faculty grouping itself is neither unusual nor necessarily unhealthy. Academics have legitimate collective interests and may organise around salaries, pensions, research facilities, service structures, academic freedom, working conditions, delayed dues or questions of governance. Teachers' associations can perform an important function by articulating collective concerns and holding administrations accountable. Disagreement, organisation and even protest are not necessarily signs of institutional failure; sometimes they demonstrate that an academic community is still capable of collective action. The distinction that matters is between principled organisation and personalized proximity to power.
One group may oppose an administrative policy because it believes the policy is unfair or institutionally damaging. Another may support the same policy because its members genuinely consider it beneficial. Both positions can be legitimate if they are based on principle, evidence and a consistent understanding of institutional interest. The difficulty arises with those whose position changes not with the substance of the issue but with the identity of the office-holder. Yesterday's decision was excellent because yesterday's authority made it; today's opposite decision is equally excellent because today's authority has made it. The policy changes, the justification changes and occasionally even the language of principle changes, but the enthusiasm remains impressively constant. Such ideological flexibility would be admirable if it were not so revealing.
Then comes the most fascinating group of all: those who somehow survive every administration. Vice chancellors come and go, deans complete their terms, registrars change, directors are replaced, governments shift and administrative philosophies rise and disappear, yet a familiar cluster of individuals continues to occupy the vicinity of power. They were close to the previous vice chancellor, they are useful to the present one and, with remarkable foresight, they often begin establishing cordial relations with whoever is expected to arrive next. These are the permanent courtiers, the most durable version of the blue-eyed boy.
Their loyalty is rarely to one individual in any permanent sense, because permanent personal loyalty can become professionally dangerous when administrations change. Nor is their loyalty necessarily to a coherent academic ideology, because ideologies have the inconvenient habit of becoming awkward when power moves in another direction. Their real loyalty is to proximity itself. Power may change addresses; they simply update the route. One might describe this as a peculiar form of institutional Darwinism: survival of the nearest to power.
The university therefore develops its own unofficial vocabulary: the person closest to power becomes ‘reliable,’ the person useful to power becomes ‘cooperative,’ and the person willing to question power becomes ‘difficult.
What makes the permanent courtier so effective is not merely access but adaptability. He knows when to praise continuity and when to demand change, when to defend an administration and when to discover its failures, when to speak of stability and when to invoke reform. His principles possess a remarkable sensitivity to administrative weather. Yesterday's leadership may have been described as visionary while it was in office, structurally flawed immediately after departure and historically unfortunate once a new regime requires justification. The same people who defended an old system can become the most eloquent critics of it as soon as criticism becomes useful.
The arrival of a new administration therefore produces one of the most interesting rituals in university life. Suddenly, familiar figures rediscover reform. They explain with impressive seriousness everything that was wrong with the previous leadership. They speak of transparency, consultation, inclusion, faculty empowerment and institutional renewal with the confidence of people who apparently spent the previous several years in principled exile rather than in the offices they visited almost daily. They produce analyses of past failures and prescriptions for the future, omitting only the minor historical detail that they were often enthusiastic participants in the very arrangements they now condemn.
A few months pass, and the vocabulary changes again. Reform becomes stability, questions become disruption, criticism becomes impatience and the new leadership, we are told, must be given time. Those who demanded immediate accountability yesterday suddenly discover the philosophical virtues of patience. When the next transition appears on the horizon, however, the language of change quietly returns. One must admire the consistency of the inconsistency.
The deeper institutional damage becomes visible in the behaviour of younger academics. A new lecturer may enter university service believing that academic life follows a recognisable professional path: teach well, conduct research, publish, supervise students, contribute to committees, develop expertise and gradually acquire institutional responsibility. With sufficient observational ability, however, the lecturer soon encounters an unofficial curriculum never mentioned in the appointment letter. Scholarship builds reputation, but proximity builds access. Research earns professional recognition, but relationships often produce opportunity. Rules determine what should happen, while influence can determine how quickly it happens.
A curriculum vitae contains qualifications, publications, conferences, awards and professional achievements, but curiously there is no section titled “Strategic Proximity to Authority.” Most faculty members eventually discover that the missing section can nevertheless matter a great deal.
This is how patronage reshapes academic culture. When faculty repeatedly observe that visibility, nominations, administrative assignments, committee memberships or institutional opportunities seem influenced by informal circles, they adapt. Some continue doing good work despite the system. Others retreat into their classrooms, laboratories or personal research, concluding that institutional participation is not worth the frustration. Still others learn the unofficial rules and join the game. The first group becomes exhausted, the second becomes disengaged and the third reproduces the culture.
Over time, the institution risks rewarding not necessarily its strongest scholars or most capable administrators, but those most skilled at navigating networks of influence. The university develops an unusual hierarchy in which intellectual distinction and institutional visibility need not correspond. Some of its most accomplished researchers may remain almost invisible administratively, while individuals of modest academic standing acquire extraordinary prominence because they possess the correct relationships.
The blue-eyed boys culture also has another important function: it does not merely create opportunities for insiders; it can quietly restrict space for outsiders. Independent and competent faculty members can be threatening precisely because they do not require sponsorship. An academic with a strong research profile, professional standing or intellectual confidence may be less easily incorporated into a patronage network. Such a person need not oppose authority, and that is precisely the difficulty. He or she simply does not depend upon it for identity.
New ideas coming from such people can therefore encounter an impressive vocabulary of administrative hesitation. The proposal is “interesting but premature.” The timing is “not appropriate.” Further consultation is required. More clarification would be helpful. Another committee should examine the issue. Perhaps the matter should first be referred elsewhere. Nothing is formally rejected. The idea simply acquires immortality in the administrative process. Universities have, after all, developed a remarkably sophisticated capacity to kill ideas without leaving fingerprints.
This is particularly damaging because universities constantly speak the language of innovation. They encourage faculty members to think creatively, attract research funding, develop new programs and respond to emerging intellectual challenges. Yet genuine innovation is disruptive by nature. It questions established arrangements and creates uncertainty. If the safest professional strategy is to remain agreeable, visible and close to authority, innovation eventually becomes ceremonial. It survives in strategic plans and conference speeches, while conformity survives in daily practice.
There is also a danger for university leadership itself. Patronage is often discussed as though administrators deliberately construct circles of loyalists. Sometimes they do. But leaders can also become prisoners of those circles. A newly appointed vice chancellor enters a complex institution and naturally requires information. He or she depends initially on people who appear knowledgeable, experienced and cooperative. The problem begins when the same small group starts interpreting the entire university. Who is trustworthy? Who is troublesome? Which faculty group is unhappy? Who should be included in an important committee? Who has a political motive? Which department is “difficult”? Who supposedly represents the real sentiment of teachers? Gradually, a narrow group becomes the filter through which leadership sees the institution.
Courtiers therefore do not simply gain access to power; they can become intermediaries between power and reality. This is dangerous because authority naturally prefers reassurance. Few administrators enjoy being told repeatedly that policies are failing, faculty morale is low or decisions have produced unintended consequences. Permanent courtiers are particularly skilled suppliers of reassurance. The campus is calm. Only a few people are unhappy. Criticism is politically motivated. Most faculty supposedly support the administration.
Silence is then interpreted as satisfaction. But silence may signify resignation. A faculty member who has stopped speaking may not have become supportive. He may simply have concluded that speaking is useless. That distinction determines whether leadership understands the university it governs or merely governs an increasingly polished version of it. This is precisely why universities require institutionalized disagreement. Academic governance should allow faculty members to challenge policies without having to challenge personalities. An objection should be assessed on the strength of evidence rather than on the identity, group or perceived loyalty of the person raising it. Administrators should be able to reject a faculty proposal without humiliating its proposer, while faculty members should be able to criticise administrators without converting every disagreement into a personal war. A mature university should be able to say: you are wrong, but you still belong here.
When institutions lose that capacity, academics begin to censor themselves. Meetings become rituals instead of spaces for deliberation. People endorse proposals rather than examine them. Silence becomes professionally safer than argument. Administrators may then mistake the absence of dissent for the presence of consensus, until an institution filled with intelligent people becomes remarkably poor at telling itself uncomfortable truths.
No university can completely eliminate informal networks. Human institutions are inevitably built around relationships, trust and personal interaction. The objective should not be to create an artificial world in which administrators know nobody personally and every conversation requires formal approval. The objective is far more realistic: informal relationships must never become powerful enough to override formal rules.
Responsibilities should have clear criteria. Committee memberships should rotate. Nominations should be explainable. Opportunities should be communicated as transparently as practicable. Conflicts of interest should be recognized rather than conveniently ignored. Significant decisions should leave an institutional record. Authority should be distributed so that access to one office does not determine the entire professional life of the institution.
Most importantly, leadership must deliberately listen beyond its familiar circle. A vice chancellor who hears only supporters eventually knows very little about the university he governs. One useful question for every academic administrator would be: when was the last time someone who regularly disagrees with me was invited into the room? If the answer requires considerable thought, there may already be too many blue-eyed boys around the table.
Faculty members themselves are not innocent in this culture. It is easy to condemn favouritism when one is excluded from the favoured group; the real test comes when entry is offered. Principles reveal their actual strength when they become personally expensive. Academics cannot demand transparent governance in public while privately asking administrators to bypass procedures in their own cases. They cannot condemn personal influence while seeking personal exemptions.
Courtiers do not simply gain access to power; they can become intermediaries between power and reality.
Reform therefore demands both administrative restraint and academic self-respect. A university is not a royal court. A vice chancellor is not a monarch. Deans are not provincial governors. Professors are not nobles, and faculty members should not require the skills of palace attendance to function professionally. Universities derive legitimacy from knowledge, evidence, fairness, intellectual independence and collective academic responsibility. Their rules must matter more than relationships, their procedures must survive personalities and their institutional memory must be stronger than private networks.
Otherwise, every leadership transition becomes theatrical rather than transformative. A new vice chancellor arrives, the office acquires a new occupant, new photographs are displayed, new priorities are announced, new promises are made and new phrases enter official speeches. Yet after a few months, familiar individuals begin appearing around familiar tables, interpreting the new leadership just as confidently as they interpreted the old one. If this happens repeatedly, perhaps the problem was never merely the previous vice chancellor. Perhaps the real problem was the architecture of patronage that every vice chancellor inherited and eventually learned to use.
Until universities recognize the culture of blue-eyed boys as an institutional problem rather than an amusing feature of academic politics, each new administration will risk reproducing the same old arrangements in slightly altered form. The names will change, the faces will change, the slogans will change and the photographs on the walls will certainly change. The architecture, however, may remain exactly where it was. And then, despite all the declarations of a new beginning, the university will once again discover that the cover is new, the preface is new, but the book remains the same.