A head of college or head of house is the head or senior member of a college within a collegiate university. The title used varies between colleges, including dean, master, president, principal, provost, rector and warden. The role of the head of college varies significantly between colleges of the same university, and even more so between different universities. However, the head of college will often have responsibility for leading the governing body of the college, often acting as a chair of various college committees; for executing the decisions of the governing body through the college's organisational structure, acting as a chief executive; and for representing the college externally, both within the government of the university and further afield often in aid of fund-raising for the college. The nature of the role varies in importance depending on the nature of the central university. At a loosely federated university such as the University of London or the National University of Ireland, where each member institution is self-governing and some hold university status in their own right, the head of each institution has the same level of responsibility as the vice-chancellor of a university. At more centralised universities, the heads of colleges have less power and responsibility.

University governance

Heads of colleges will often participate in the governance of the central university. Mechanisms for this very between university and include:

Terminology

Many different titles are used for heads of colleges. These have also changed with time, in particularly the recent move away from using master by colleges at Durham, Kent (where the position of head of college was abolished), Rice and Yale universities. In the case of some older colleges whose statutes are in Latin, the titles used in the modern era are English translations of those found in the statutes, e.g. "provost" for praepositus, and "warden" for custos.