Prof Deborah Prentice asks students to ‘lead challenging conversations’ and stresses freedom of speech is fundamental to higher education
‘Disagreeing well’ is as important as agreeing, the new Cambridge University vice-chancellor has said as she leads a drive for free speech.
Prof Deborah Prentice has called for students at her university to “lead challenging conversations” and stressed that freedom of speech is “fundamental” across higher education.
In an article for the Telegraph, the university’s first American vice-chancellor also said Cambridge “must recruit the very best students from every corner of the country and from every background”.
Her comments come three months into her tenure as the 347th Cambridge vice-chancellor and less than a year after the university was embroiled in its own free speech row – when a college master described the views of a gender critical speaker as “hateful”.