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President's weekly update

4 September 2014

I spent a couple of days last week in New York where I attended a dinner with several senior alumni. Some of these were new members of the North American Foundation of The University of Manchester (NAFUM), two were long standing members and a few others were donors. I gave an update on recent events in the University and our plans for the future. Kate White from the Division of Development and Alumni Relations organised the dinner and had further meetings with alumni and members of the development offices at New York University (NYU) and Colombia University. The next day I met the President of NYU, Dr John Sexton and his Deputy Provost Dr Katy Fleming. We discussed collaborations between our institutions, international campuses and students and undergraduate fees. NYU has great facilities in the centre of New York City, though like many US universities, charges very high fees even to home students (their standard fee is about $40,000 per annum, though it is considerably higher at some other US universities).

The Indian High Commissioner Ranjan Mathai visited Manchester and came to the University. He had a tour of our current graphene facilities and met Dr Aravind Vijayaraghavan, an Indian national who is a lecturer in nanomaterials working on graphene and other 2D materials. He then met with me, Mike Gibbons (Director of Student Recruitment and International Development), Professor Colin Bailey (Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences) and Professor Steve Flint (Associate-Dean for International Affairs in the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences). Steve and Mike are visiting India in a few weeks’ time along with a number of other colleagues from the University.

I had telephone conversations this week with fellow Vice-Chancellors, Professor Mark Smith from Lancaster, Professor Keith Burnett from Sheffield to discuss general issues such as research collaborations, student recruitment and the higher education environment. I also sent messages of welcome to two incoming Vice-Chancellors - both female - Professor Janet Beer who will be joining Liverpool early next year and Professor Alice Gast who has just taken up the post of President at Imperial College - the number of female Vice-Chancellors of Russell Group universities is set to triple!

I met Professor James Thompson just before he formally takes on the post of Associate Vice-President for Social Responsibility and Environmental Sustainability next month. James is already very familiar with this area having served as Associate Dean in Humanities and has had many ‘hand over’ discussions with Professors Aneez Esmail and Colin Hughes - who have done a great job in taking forward social responsibility and environmental sustainability, respectively.  Key areas that James identified for early attention are equality and diversity, public engagement, environmental sustainability, partnership with the Students’ Union and relations with our local communities.

I was interviewed by a journalist from The Economist - I’m not sure why the sudden interest from such publications (recently FT, Bloomberg and Wall Street Journal as well). He wanted to hear what I thought were the major emerging discoveries in science.

I was interviewed by Demos for an article about ‘Uprising’ which aims to support young people, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, to develop their careers and their leadership skills. The interview made me reflect on what influenced my own career - of course my education, my family and friends and some great mentors (many of whom were quite tough on me). But I also learnt a lot from reading about and listening to my ‘heroes’- great scientists and great leaders.

I met senior staff at Aviva, the insurance company in London to discuss potential partnerships involving international students, particularly in South East Asia.

I gave the opening address at the Manchester Business School Prometheus event which is a course on executive leadership in the third sector, attended by about 150 delegates from voluntary organisations. I spoke briefly about the University, then talked about our activities in social responsibility - why it is important to us and the challenges we face, then about leadership in charitable and voluntary organisations.

I attended an event hosted by the Society of Biology in London - I stepped down as President a few months ago. The evening was attended by about 350 people to hear ‘A conversation with Professor Brian Cox’, who was recently made an honorary Fellow of the Society of Biology. Brian was interviewed by Sue Nelson, a journalist who edits the Society’s ‘Biologist’ magazine, and took questions. Then, as usual, Brian was surrounded by fans, autograph and photo seekers. I liked their Twitter link #ChatterCox

    

Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor

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