President's weekly update
12 September 2019
We hosted the second Global Universities Engagement Summit following the inaugural meeting in Melbourne in 2017. I welcomed delegates from around the world at a reception at Manchester Museum where the Lord Mayor of the City of Manchester, Councillor Abid Latif Chohan, and our Chancellor, Lemn Sissay, spoke. Lemn, typically, abandoned his speech and gave an inspirational presentation which included two passionately delivered poems! I can highly recommend Lemn’s book ‘My Name Is Why’ which shot to the top of The Times bestseller list as soon as it was released. All attendees were presented with a ‘Manchester bee’ pin badge. I explained the significance of the bee (recorded back to 1842) to represent the workers of Manchester although it became much more prominent after the tragedy of the Manchester Arena bomb as a symbol of solidarity.
The main part of the summit was held in our Whitworth Hall and included presentations from our own Professor Brian Cox, Lord Bob Kerslake, who led the Civic Universities Commission which referenced our University quite strongly, the author David Goodhart (I also recommend his excellent and quite challenging book ‘The Road to Somewhere’) and several Vice-Chancellors of international universities and other senior university representatives. Topics covered included public and civic engagement, community perspectives, ‘left behind’ communities and how universities address the quality of engagement.
The Engagement Summit overlapped with the World 100 Conference, the theme of which was ‘A Reputation for Relevance - Universities Engaging with Society’. I gave a welcome speech at their dinner in The Whitworth, then the next day spoke about the breadth and depth of partnerships and collaborations between our University and the Greater Manchester City region.
There are many staff who made these conferences a great success, far too many for me to name all, but particular thanks to Julian Skyrme, Director of Social Responsibility, Rosie Haynes, International Project Officer, Alan Ferns, Associate Vice-President for External Relations and Reputation and Sally Sykes, Director of Communications and Marketing and her team.
The summit and conference provided me with an opportunity to meet with some of our collaborators, including Professors Rocky Tuan, President of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Meric Gertler, President of the University of Toronto, and Sudarshan Suchi who leads the Reliance Foundation in India. All are keen to extend our very successful collaborations.
We have just heard the very good news that the automatic, two-year post-study work visa for international students has been reinstated. When this was removed the number of students from several countries, most notably India, declined dramatically. You may also have seen that the Universities Minister, Jo Johnson, has resigned and he is replaced by his predecessor, Chris Skidmore.
We have just launched the search for a partner in our Innovation District Manchester (ID Manchester) on North Campus.
I met Ann Coffey, MP for Stockport, who is particularly interested in views about, and actions to address, sexual harassment of staff and students. Alan Ferns and I told her about the ‘We Get It’ campaign that we run jointly with our Students’ Union and the new dedicated students’ mental health service which is about to open.
Several senior colleagues and I spoke at the annual induction for new officers of The University of Manchester Students’ Union. We discussed the responsibilities that come with their posts, the many committees they will sit on, partnership working with senior staff and the challenges of representing such a large and diverse student body.
I officially opened Unsworth Park, our new students’ residences in Fallowfield, next to Chancellors (which will become a student hub) and our main sports facilities. The residences, which are fabulous, will open to students next week. The whole project looked to be in jeopardy early in 2018 when the construction company, Carillion, went bankrupt. However thanks to amazing work by Vinci, which stepped in to build the residences, and our Estates and Facilities and Student Experience teams, more than 700 rooms open this week and nearly 400 more will open in early December.
There are many students on campus for pre-sessional teaching, but most will arrive next week for Welcome Week. I hope you will help them to settle in and give them a warm Manchester welcome.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor