There are certain things you expect when you move to St Andrews: medieval buildings, red gowns, academic families. What you don’t necessarily expect is Kevin Malone from The Office running to represent you at one of Scotland’s oldest universities.
And yet, here we are.
Brian Baumgartner, best known for playing Kevin in the American sitcom, was one of six candidates in this year’s Rector election. Yes, the same Kevin who famously spilled an entire pot of chilli across the office floor was potentially going to preside over the University Court.
But the most interesting part isn’t that he ran. It’s that he didn’t win. On 17 October, the University announced that Dr Arthur Bernhoff, a St Andrews alumnus with a background in international affairs, had been elected Rector. He received 3,135 votes in the final round, compared with Baumgartner’s 1,553. Overall, 5,425 students voted, representing a turnout of 43.2%, almost double that of the previous Rector election in 2023.
For a university so often defined by its traditions and supposedly insular social culture, those numbers are worth looking at. Not because they prove every student is politically engaged, or because voting for a celebrity would necessarily suggest otherwise. But because they offer a different perspective on a student community that is often discussed through a rather narrow set of stereotypes.
And I think it’s worth asking what this election actually says about St Andrews.
When Kevin Malone Comes to Town
I’ll admit, my first reaction to Baumgartner’s candidacy wasn’t excitement. It was confusion. Why was Kevin from The Office running for Rector of St Andrews? Not because actors shouldn’t be involved in university governance. St Andrews has a history of electing public figures, including John Cleese, who served as Rector in the 1970s.
But Baumgartner’s candidacy felt particularly unexpected.
He had visited St Andrews during the summer and spoken about falling in love with its history and culture. According to an interview with The Courier, students he met during his visits encouraged him to consider running. It’s a nice story. St Andrews is beautiful, and I can understand why someone might visit and immediately feel attached to it. But loving St Andrews as a visitor and understanding it as a university community are two different things.
His campaign emphasized his communication skills, public profile and ability to amplify student voices. Those are potentially valuable qualities, particularly in a role that involves representing students and drawing attention to their concerns. Still, I couldn’t help wondering whether his celebrity was doing much of the work. After all, fame creates a strange kind of familiarity. We recognize actors, know their characters and associate them with years of entertainment. Sometimes, that familiarity can make us feel as though we know someone personally.
But knowing Kevin Malone isn’t the same as knowing Brian Baumgartner. And neither necessarily tells us what kind of Rector he would be. Baumgartner did offer an argument for his candidacy. He spoke about listening to students and using his experience as a communicator to help their voices reach a wider audience. Yet his relatively recent connection to the University left me with questions about how that representation would work in practice.
What would it mean to represent students whose daily experiences of St Andrews might be very different from those of someone visiting the town? And how much should a candidate’s existing relationship with the University matter?
Those questions aren’t unique to Baumgartner. They’re worth asking of anyone seeking the position.
Beyond the St Andrews Stereotype
If you’ve read enough articles about St Andrews, you’ve probably noticed a pattern.
We’re often portrayed through the same familiar images: extravagant traditions, exclusive social circles and a university experience that supposedly exists in its own little world. It’s an entertaining narrative, I’ll give it that. But it’s also one I’ve never particularly agreed with. Of course, St Andrews has its traditions, its quirks and its fair share of privilege. Those things are worth discussing, and criticizing. But reducing an entire student community to those characteristics overlooks the people who actually make up this university.
St Andrews is home to students from different countries, backgrounds and experiences, many of whom are actively involved in societies, volunteering, advocacy and discussions about issues that extend far beyond the town’s three main streets. And while the media might find our academic families and red gowns more interesting than our everyday concerns, those traditions aren’t the whole story.
This is why I found the Rector election particularly interesting.
At first glance, it had all the ingredients for another headline about how unusual St Andrews is. An American sitcom actor running for a centuries-old university position? It’s almost too perfect.But beyond the novelty, thousands of students participated in an election to decide who would represent them within the University’s governance.That doesn’t mean every student is politically engaged, or that we can explain individual voting decisions from the result alone. But it does challenge the assumption that St Andrews students are too preoccupied with their social lives to take an interest in their university’s future. I think there’s an important difference between enjoying the traditions that make St Andrews unique and being defined entirely by them.
We can appreciate the unusual parts of university life without being indifferent to the serious ones.
Fame Gets Attention. Representation Requires Something Else.
The contrast between Baumgartner and Bernhoff is what makes this election particularly interesting to me.
On one side was an internationally recognizable actor whose connection to St Andrews appeared relatively recent. On the other was someone who had studied here, completed a PhD in International Relations and developed a professional career involving diplomacy, international monitoring and security. Bernhoff also lives locally.
None of these things automatically makes someone a better representative. Being an alumnus doesn’t guarantee that you understand the experiences of current students, just as being an outsider doesn’t mean you can’t bring valuable ideas.But there is something meaningful about the difference between knowing a university through its reputation and knowing it through personal experience.
Bernhoff’s campaign emphasized being accessible, listening to students and taking their concerns seriously. Following his election, he promised to be a “present, listening, and effective” Rector. It’s a straightforward commitment, but an important one.
The Rector isn’t simply a symbolic figurehead. The position dates back to the nineteenth century and involves presiding over the University Court, the University’s governing body. The Court oversees major institutional decisions, including strategy, finances and the management of university resources. The Rector’s role is therefore connected to decisions that can have real consequences for students. And while a celebrity might be able to attract international attention to those concerns, attention alone doesn’t necessarily translate into effective representation.
This is where I think Baumgartner’s campaign faced a challenge.
His fame made him instantly recognizable, but it didn’t automatically establish the connection to St Andrews that voters might expect from someone seeking to represent them.And while we can’t know exactly why students voted as they did, the outcome suggests that name recognition alone wasn’t enough.Perhaps students weren’t simply looking for someone they recognized. Perhaps they wanted someone who recognized their concerns.
What I find particularly important is how this challenges the way St Andrews students are sometimes portrayed. I’ve never really agreed with the idea that we’re so caught up in university life that we don’t care about anything beyond our social circles. I think there’s an important difference between enjoying the traditions that make St Andrews unique and being defined entirely by them. Red gowns and academic families are part of what makes studying here so special, but they don’t tell you everything about the people who take part in them. The same students who enjoy these traditions can also care about how their university is run. I don’t see why one should make the other any less meaningful.
That’s why I think the turnout matters.
It doesn’t prove that every student is politically engaged, and I wouldn’t argue that an election result can tell us what an entire student body believes. But it does give us a reason to question the assumption that St Andrews students are indifferent to their university’s future. I also hope that the interest surrounding this election continues once Bernhoff takes office. Choosing a representative is only part of the process, and his commitment to listening to students will matter most when we see how he puts it into practice over the next three years.
This election brought thousands of students into a decision about their university’s future, and that deserves to be part of the story too. We talk so often about the St Andrews bubble that we forget it can be a way of seeing us as well as a way of living here. For once, the world was looking in, and students made a hole in the bubble big enough for their voices to reach beyond it.