Professor Juanito Camilleri has officially taken over as the new Rector with effect from yesterday. Professor Roger Ellul Micallef kept the flag flying high until the last few hours of office by continuing to serve the University by carrying out the several duties pertaining to the office. This included meeting external examiners.

Professor Camilleri has already nominated three new Pro-Rectors, reportedly assigning specific areas to each of them for their specific attention. The three new Pro-Rectors are Professor Alfred Vella, Dean of the Faculty of Science and Head of the Department of Chemistry, Professor Richard Muscat, a member of Faculty of Medicine and Surgery working mainly on the main campus at the Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, and Dr Maryanne Lauri, who comes from the Psychology Department at the Faculty of Education. Conspicuously missing is someone closer to the Arts side.

Noel Grima, writing in The Malta Independent on Sunday last week, harshly criticised both the new team and the old. He says that the new team faces a number of problems (presumably meaning created or left unsolved by the previous administration). But, even worse, he claims that according to government sources the University has become an ungovernable institution and that EU funds in particular have been squandered with nothing to show, little accountability and fewer results.

These are very serious accusations. Although Mr Grima quotes government sources saying it is a pity that we do not know how reliable they are. Some say that the sources are possibly not "government sources" at all but are coming from those who were happy to see the old team being sacked but were likewise not pleased with the new team especially since they themselves were not included in it.

So how should the new team react to this situation? The answer should be very simple: it must not act as a triumvirate. The whole University should work as a team. The new team has to serve as a co-ordinator for the whole University: students, academic and administrative staff.

This has to be achieved in an orderly fashion. To try to proceed with such order the new Rector is said to have assigned these jobs to the new Pro-Rectors: Professor Vella is to work close to the registrar and his team, following closely the rules and regulations, Professor Muscat will work on aspects of research and relations with industry, while Dr Lauri will need to form a close alliance with the University students.

Presumably Professor Camilleri, aided by the able director of finance, will work carefully at pressing problems, such as the miserable budget allocated to our University at a time when the country can hardly afford to tax the citizen further.

The problems facing the new team mentioned by Mr Grima did raise an eyebrow or two. These included lack of credibility, backlog of tasks required to reach the Lisbon Agenda targets, independence and autonomy, a clear vision, absenteeism in faculties, textbook rather than research-based teaching, need for stimulation of research and creativity, the Junior College's role in tertiary education, the role of institutes and centres, the excessive control by administration, lack of rights of academics, and the restrictions and humiliations imposed on academics.

In his first few months the new Rector will have to tackle an amount of unfinished work. Two areas requiring immediate attention are problems between the MUT and UMASA, which are causing irreparable damage at the University, and the unacceptable delay for the completion of the promotion exercise of highly deserving academic staff to the position of professors.

Although no doubt the discussion on the credibility or otherwise of the new team will go on for some time on campus, the proof of the pudding will be in its eating. Professor Camilleri and his team really face a "daunting task" as Mr Grima stated. Yet the success of carrying out this task does not depend only on Professor Camilleri and his team's ability to consult and to lead. It also lies squarely on the shoulders of all staff - academic, technical and administrative - and all students. It is not Professor Camilleri and his team that make the University. It is all the staff and students.

Yes, true, we have a daunting task in front of us. Let us all work hard and as one team to make a success of it. We have been successful in the past. Let us all unite, old and new, young and not so young, students and staff, Pro-Rectors or simply assistant lecturers - all of us at the University are important to make a success story of our University as has been done in the past.