| Description | Minutes and supporting papers, annual reports, and registers of the University of Birmingham Appointments Board, re-named the University of Birmingham Careers Board in 1971.
The Appointments Board was established by the University in 1920 to 'give assistance in finding suitable employment to the large number of ex-service students who had returned to the University after the Great War of 1914-1918'. Before 1914 the number of University graduates entering industry and commerce was small compared with the number in the early 1920s. The government scheme of assistance for the higher education of ex-servicemen resulted in a significant increase in student numbers and as these students completed their training and sought employment in commerce and industry businesses were face with new sources of recruitment. The first task of the Appointments Board was to create demand for University of Birmingham graduates. There are no records of the Appointments Board for the first few years of its existence, but there is a full set of annual reports, from the first report covering 1924-1925, to the final report for 1989. Most of these reports are described at UB/COM/39/2, though reports for 1986, 1988, and 1989 are missing from this sequence. Copies of the reports for these years are included with minutes of the Board, described at UB/COM/39/1
The annual reports are a useful source of information for the development and progress of the Appointments Board in the 1920s and 1930s. It appears that no reports were produced between 1940-1941 and 1945-1946. It is not certain whether Appointments Board meetings were held during the 1920s and 1930s; no minutes appear to have survived. The work of the Appointments Board lapsed during the Second World War, and the Secretary resumed work in January 1946 when the Appointments Board was reconstituted. There are surviving minutes of the Appointments Board from 3 June 1947 onwards, in an unbroken sequence until the final meeting held on 9 May 1989. The Appointments Board became the Careers Board in October 1971, and the Appointments Service became the Careers Service. The Secretary of the Appointments Board retired at this time and a successor was recruited to the post of the Director of the Careers Service.
The Careers Service Executive committee was established in 1970, as a joint committee of Senate and Council (see UB/COM/146 for minutes). It was intended that this body act with the Director of the Careers Service to ensure the provision of an effective service to provide careers advice, counselling, and to guide students into filling posts. The Careers Board was to continue to ensure the maintenance of traditional links with the world of employment, and to ensure effective links between the Careers Service and the rest of the University. Minutes of this committee survive for the period from May 1974 to May 1976 when the committee was dissolved (described at UB/COM/39/4). The records also include two volumes of registers kept by the Appointments Board between 1946 and 1960 to list the names of students who used the service, described at UB/COM/39/3
The Careers Board was disestablished in May 1989, and it was decided that the Director of the Careers Service should report to the Registrar and Secretary and that the Careers Service should become a separate budget centre in its own right. Its work would continue to be reported annually through a report prepared by the Director which was presented to Senate and Council, and the Director was to be invited to attend meetings of Senate and to improve and supplement senior Careers Service staff contacts with academic departments and schools. It was also proposed that the Director should attend meetings of Faculty Boards and that a 'careers liaison group' should be formed, consisting of senior Careers Service staff and representatives from the Faculties and the student body. The Director was also to maintain the Careers Board's links with industry.
Taken together, the surviving records of the Appointments Board/Careers Board form a useful source for the study of the University's efforts to support graduate employment from 1924 to 1989. The annual reports in particular provide a comprehensive overview, and minutes of the Appointments Board/Careers Board for the 1947 to 1989 period provide worthwhile information about the range of activities the service offered and how these activities developed over time |