President's Weekly Update
12 October 2017
We celebrated the foundation of The University of Manchester in 2004 at an event attended by staff, students, alumni and external guests. The focus this year was on our social responsibility activities and, as part of this, the formal celebrations were preceded by an exhibition on our student access programmes.
For the first time our Foundation Lecture was delivered by one of our recent graduates, Gulwali Passarlay, entitled: ‘From a war zone to the lecture theatre'. Gulwali has a remarkable story, escaping from war-torn Afghanistan at the age of just 12, then after a long and tortuous journey he entered the UK as a refugee, was fostered, joined our Manchester Access Programme (MAP) and graduated in 2016 with a BA in Social Sciences (Politics).
Prior to Gulwali’s presentation, I spoke about the many successes and challenges we have faced over the past year. Professor James Thompson, Vice-President for Social Responsibility, spoke about some of our varied social responsibility activities. We also showed a film with a message from Ross Warburton, Executive Director of Warburton’s Family Bakers, who is a major donor to the University and who supported Gulwali’s scholarship.
After the lecture we showed a short film celebrating our MAP students then the University’s Chamber Choir, Ad Solem, sang Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus and our anthem Cognitio Sapientia Humanitas which was composed by Professor Camden Reeves in 2015.
As is usual on Foundation Day, we awarded honorary doctorates to highly distinguished individuals, each from very different backgrounds but all with a strong link to Manchester. This year’s recipients were Nazir Afzal, Professor Dame Janet Finch, Dr Eli Harari and Professor Cornelia Parker. Nazir responded on behalf of the honorary graduates. A record of the whole event is online at:
The day before Foundation Day we had a meeting of our Global Leadership Board (GLB), which comprises distinguished individuals who are both supporters of the University and also ‘critical friends’. I am delighted that Sir Howard Bernstein, former Chief Executive of Manchester City Council and now an honorary professor and advisor to the University, has joined the GLB. I updated the Board on the many recent, ongoing and planned activities in the University and the Chair of our Board of Governors, Edward Astle, talked about University governance, which is complicated because we have so many stakeholders. Universities are unusual because they are not public bodies (they are independent charities), but adhere to a number of the regulations that normally apply to public bodies.
I met Jim O’Neill, who also holds an honorary professorship with us, who visited the University. We discussed the next steps for the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (we are both members) and noted the positive mention in the Prime Minister’s recent speech and the reference to graphene. Jim will be visiting again to teach our students and we considered how he might further support our international activities, business links and contacts with eminent alumni.
We welcomed senior visitors from Beijing Normal University in China, which supports our Confucius Institute. I met them to consider building on our existing partnerships in student exchanges and a number of research areas. A new one is creative writing - the only Chinese Nobel Laureate in literature is on their staff and they attended our Foundation Day celebrations.
At an event on gender equality in the School of Physics and Astronomy I gave the welcome introduction and praised the School for its great progress in this area. I also spoke about my experiences and my response to the supposed ‘glass ceiling’ for women and others to succeed - which is: ‘what glass ceiling?’
We held an induction for newly-elected members of Senate where I spoke of the aims and major activities of the University and the ever-changing landscape for UK higher education.
Sean Anstee, leader of Trafford Council and a fellow member of the Greater Manchester Local Enterprise Partnership, visited to talk about the role of the University in his area. He focused on our work on widening access for students from less advantaged backgrounds, our growing engagement with local communities, links to further education colleges and our early planning for our North Campus.
I travelled to Coventry to meet the Chief Executive and Head of Human Resources for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). We are looking to build on our existing research links and grow the number of our students who take up work placements with JLR and go on to employment afterwards. We also discussed how we might partner on the major activities we both undertake with schools. They are very keen to get more students to study engineering, particularly girls, so I linked them up with Professor Danielle George, Vice-Dean for Teaching, Learning and Students in the Faculty of Science and Engineering, who has a similar passion.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor
Feedback
Please send comments to: