Don's Diary

FRIDAY to SATURDAY. A seat just in front of 14 rows of dedicated smokers is preparation for the air in Mexico City where we arrive in time for the weekend diaspora. The eight kilometres to the hotel takes more than an hour.

On our arrival Popacatapetl is just visible in outline through the smog: the only time it was.

The highlights of a tourist day were the dancers - so reminiscent of Morris men - and the benders in Plaza de la Constituci"n where delegations of villagers from round the country were demonstrating for justice and democracy and a re-run of the presidential election.

One of the main boulevards commemorates a previous uprising and direction signs on routes to the city suggest that the fast lane is reserved for insurgentes.

SUNDAY. Leave at 6.45am for Taxco with other members of the team (two Britons, a Mexican, a Brazilian and a Spaniard) for a programme for Latin American rectors on leadership and strategic change in universities. The programme is sponsored by the Commission for Racial Equality Columbus programme.

It is to be held mainly in a hacienda, built by stout Cortes himself, now with swimming pool added. It is just below the villa where J.F.K. got together with Marilyn Monroe, and features a very modern ghost of the late previous owner, seen using a cellular phone, trying to get the Mexican government to honour the terms of his bequest to the nation.

Service and support are wonderful: documents are translated and typed quickly and reproduced instantly; coffee, nuts, cakes and tequila are constantly available in five different locations, including all the small group rooms. The sun shines.

TUESDAY. The group of 16 is now well-bonded. They have explored the role of the rector - please can we get back to academic leadership not resource management?

They have been pushed to explore the changing environment: some were reluctant, believing their job is internally focused and that they can exercise little influence on the outside world. The minority view is conservative, reactive, pragmatic; others want to be more entrepreneurially proactive.

One main difference from the United Kingdom is the place of universities in national life: pre-Colombian culture is being used to re-assert national identities (like pre-Cook colonial cultures in Australia and New Zealand) and universities are instruments of cultural transmission (echoes of the Robbins report). In most countries, too, universities dominate research activity: in Colombia over 90 per cent of all national research and development is done in universities.

We are taken on a "trip" to a "recreational park" in the mountains, strewn with litter. The driver of the 25-seater coach reminds me of my father: show him a sign saying "road unsuitable for motor vehicles" and he turns down it to test, and disprove, the claim. Mexican machismo. The sun still shines.

FRIDAY. Two days of institutional case studies and problem solving culminate in a report to senior staff of the National Autonomous University of Mexico which has featured as a major base of enquiry and problem interrogation during the week. My colleague, John Davies, talks about power, gently, logically and irresistibly demonstrating that their claims to developing federal structures cannot be sustained and that their organisation model is flawed.

The report is taken under advisement but the policy advisor to the rector (sitting next to me) confirms its validity. She also agrees with some points we had considered but had not included in the final report: for example, that a major drive behind devolution to campus level (there are five with a total of 150,000 students) was to promote internal competition and challenge some complacent areas in the main campus.

The group bonding produces a draft constitution, typed and ready for signature, to establish a "Taxco Network" to continue the week's work and the commitment it has generated. Where does such a performance indicator fit with the Higher Education Funding Council for England guidelines?

SATURDAY-MONDAY. The sun still shines with welcome predictability, unlike other events. I am busy getting breakfast when the earthquake occurs - a high five on the Richter scale: enough to cause panic, prayers and nerves about a follow-up, and to shake the hotel's eight floors. We visit the anthropological museum (marvellous!) and fly home. Again, initially, we have the row in front of the smokers until a protest provokes a relocation. The Zapatistas declare a new civil war. The peso collapses.

Ian McNay

Head of the centre for higher education management at Anglia Polytechnic University.