ABERYSTWYTH University describes itself as a “multi-million-pound business”. So, as the reign of vice-chancellor April McMahon draws uncertainly to a close, it will expect to be scrutinised as such.

Uncertainly? Well, as so often with this university, it’s far from clear what’s going on. In this case, about who exactly will be running this troubled show between now and next July, when Prof McMahon’s five-year contract runs out, she having announced, essentially without explanation, that she will not be seeking a new contract.

It’s a puzzle. Which is in line with the habitual evasion that, over the last five years, has become a hallmark of the university’s public communications output. One interpretation to be drawn from official statements about McMahon’s departure is that, from 1 February, she will be only half a vice-chancellor. Because, from that date, according to the chancellor, the retired diplomat Emyr Jones Parry (his term of office, by the way, runs out in December 2017), there will be in post someone of equal seniority - an “acting vice-chancellor”.

Prof McMahon, we’re told, will be “concentrating on fulfilling external commitments, national and internationally”. While the acting vc will over-see all the important core “in-ternal work” - you know, such as… students. And teaching staff. And undergraduate applications. This then, for six months, will be a place with a unique claim to fame - a university with two vice-chancellors. Interestingly, however, McMahon makes no mention in her statement of this nearly - but actually not - job-share. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, be-cause it will be the acting vc, not the vice-chancellor, who will have the crucial role. Ever so politely, Prof McMahon has been relieved of her core function - the day to day running of the firm. Could this be something to do with what she herself, in her official quote, describes as “the difficulties we have had to confront”, within which she may include the 1,000-signature online petition alleging a “culture of fear” among staff and demanding her resignation? Or with the university’s devastating decline in league-tables (in The Guardian’s 2015 it slid 18 slots to six places from the bottom), or the fall of nearly a quarter in the student intake between 2011 and 2014? Or the claim by the University and College Union that the institution was being run like a “dictatorship”?

The new arrangement is something of a nonsense. An acting vc can be seen only as a stand-in, temporary vc, meaning that the vc in question was absent or had left. But here that’s not the case. It’s also extravagant, because pay for both will presumably be about the same. This university is already operating on a basis of budget deficits. Last week, in the latest repercussion of the multi-billion banks bail-out, the Welsh Government an-nounced a 32 per cent, £41m, 2016-17 draft budget funding cut for higher education. Prof McMahon’ salary is about £219,000. Appointing an acting vc for six months will presumably cost more than £100,000. This is profligacy, and it opens up a can worms about Aberystwyth University Corp, our “multimillion-pound business”. How has the current regime survived? The short answer is the vulnerable structure of the governing body - the university council - which, though headed by a non-executive chancellor, includes five members of the execu-tive, including an executive vice-chancellor (two now). A governing body needs to be independent of the persuasive influence of executives. That, or the numerically stronger non-executives must be tough enough to hold sway. This university council, despite ripples of discontent, has shown itself to be malleable and weak.

Between 2011 - the year of Prof McMahon’s arrival - and 2012, and 2013-14, Aberyst-wyth’s student intake fell from 3,285 to 2,325, or nearly a quarter. That decline equated to lost income totalling about £8,680,000. Peter Curran, then director of finance, now at Sport Wales, warned: “The financial implications of under-recruitment have never been so significant.”In any normal business, that kind of loss would mean one or more resignations at the top. But not at Aber Uni Corp, where, amazingly, the chief executive - April McMahon - survives. There followed the equivalent of a shareholder revolt - the online petition. The anguish of students, staff, those whose livelihoods depend on the university and the heirs of the poor who in the late 1800s rummaged for pennies to get this university established - all those voices went unheeded.

Members of the university council who have acted like puppets must urgently assert themselves - or get out.