A TOP-ranking official at the North’s leading university has been placed on special leave, The Northern Echo understands.

Carolyn Fowler is the registrar and secretary at Durham University – secretary to the university’s governing council and senate, a member of he senior management team and executive committee and directly under only the vicechancellor, Professor Chris Higgins.

A university spokesman said it was not university policy to comment on individual members of staff, but sources said Ms Fowler had been placed on special leave last month and continues to be so.

The reasons for the move remain unclear.

Ms Fowler, who is in her early 40s, became the first female registrar in the university’s 180-year history when she was appointed in April 2009.

She had been acting registrar since the departure of Lee Sanders for Birmingham University in October 2008; and previously served as academic registrar from 2005.

Ms Fowler courted controversy recently when she compared the relationship between a registrar and vice-chancellor to that of Kermit and Miss Piggy, from the Muppets.

In a post on her durhamregistrar blog, she reportedly wrote: “Piggy, secure in her stardom and suffering not a moment of self-doubt, performs with single-minded determination regardless of whatever chaos might be going on around her.

“Meanwhile the registrar – Kermit desperately tries to keep Piggy and everyone else happy at the same time, his only fixed point of knowledge that the show must go on.”

On Twitter, Paul Greatrix, Nottingham University registrar, tweeted: “Blimey! That’s a bold post!”

In reply, Ms Fowler tweeted: “The boss thought it was funny.”

The post has now been removed.

A university spokesman said Ms Fowler’s blog was a personal one and it did not know why the post had been taken down. Originally from Kent, Ms Fowler was one of the first women to attend Durham’s University College, housed in Durham Castle. She graduated in 1990 with an honours degree in history.

She returned to the university in 1998 as an administrative officer in the school of education, before becoming head of the undergraduate section in the registrar’s division and then deputy director of the strategic planning and change unit in 2004.