| Description | This section comprises records of the academic governing body of Mason College, called the Academic Board from 1881 to 1890 and the Senate from 1890 to 1900. It consists of private and official minutes of the Academic Board, official minutes of the Senate, and minutes of the professors' meetings from which the Academic Board was constituted. Other records of the Academic Board and Senate consist of attendance books, agendas for the period 1882 to 1889, and correspondence and notes relating to the business of the board which date from the 1880s. There are also minutes of the boards of studies established by the Senate in 1892, which reported to the Senate and were responsible for the organisation of teaching within the academic departments and faculties.
Records of Mason College Senate and Boards of Studies provide information about the management of the educational work of the college by the academic staff, particularly relating to the regulation of courses and examinations, and the award of scholarships. They also contain evidence about the expansion of the college through new academic appointments and the establishment of new courses, and show that the college was responding to local needs by providing classes directed at those working in local industry, and at elementary school teachers even before the establishment of the Day Training College in Birmingham. Information about the syllabus of the college can be found in the printed Calendars described at UB/MC/H/1
Additional insight into the views and opinions of the academic staff is also offered by evidence in the private minutes of the Academic Board for the period 1881-1891 and in the minutes of the professors' meetings from 1881-1885. As a whole, these records reveal the gradual increase in the influence of the academic staff in the management of the college, and in decisions about its future, seen in their efforts to reconstitute the Academic Board as the Senate and to effect the appointment of a Principal, and to establish boards of studies. The role played by members of the academic staff in the eventual founding of the University of Birmingham can also be seen from references in the minutes from the mid 1890s onwards which suggest that some members were concerned about the college's position and reputation, and wanted to improve its academic standing by seeking university status
Papers of the Mason College Principal, Robert Heath, described at UB/MC/E, complement the official minutes of the Academic Board and Senate and provide another source of information about the range of activities managed by the body |