Professor Michael Farthing
Vice-Chancellor
I am delighted to reflect on how much has been achieved at Sussex in this past year, and how much still lies ahead.
We started the year with National Student Survey results that gave us a top-10 rating for teaching. We achieved a top-20 place in the Sunday Times for the first time ever. And the Times Higher Education confirmed our world top-100 position, as well as shortlisting Sussex for University of the Year 2011.
These, for me, have all been further welcome signs that the sustained improvements we have been putting in place over recent years are delivering positive outcomes.
This has, of course, also been our 50th anniversary year, and we have celebrated in style – with exhibitions, art works, films and books.
Most recently we have also awarded gold medals to some of our world-leading alumni and former staff, such as Asa Briggs, Jeremy Deller, Ian McEwan and Festus Mogae. And in September we will award 50 Anniversary Fellowships to Sussex alumni and associates, who exemplify just how much Sussex has contributed to our wider society.
But perhaps above all it has been the six Sussex Conversations events that have given us a new way of showcasing Sussex to the world – and laid foundations for a type of engagement that I hope to continue in the years ahead.
The anniversary year lives on through new connections we have made, and also through some of the funds raised as part of our £50-million ‘Making the Future’ campaign, which we launched this year and which continues through to 2015.
The campaign has already supported major new research developments, such as the new Rudd Centre for Adoption Research. Andrew and Virginia Rudd were the first recipients of the new Vice-Chancellor’s medal for philanthropy, which was awarded to them at a special alumni event in San Francisco earlier in the year.
I am also pleased that we have found a fitting way, at the end of this year, to preserve that 50th jubilee spirit, as we have announced that our new academic building will now carry the jubilee name.
Much as the new Northfield accommodation, the refurbished Library and new Bramber House facilities have transformed the student experience here on campus, I hope this building, with its major new lecture theatre and open plaza, will add to the experience for all our students at Sussex.
Finally, we will also say a fond farewell to Bob Allison, who has contributed so much to Sussex as our Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and as a member of the executive team. We shall miss him greatly and wish him all the best for his Vice-Chancellorship at Loughborough.
And so there is much that now lies ahead: a new structure of the academic year, for example, which should build an even better student experience and further improve the feedback we give students; and a new mid-year assessment period.
There will be further development of the campus, including a new research building for the sciences and the refurbishment of the Attenborough Centre, to support our growing academic ambition. There will also be more student growth, with what promises to be one of our largest intakes ever in autumn 2012.
And in 2012-13 we will be giving final shape to a new strategic plan, building on some excellent cross-University discussion on the future direction of Sussex. The new plan will look forward to 2020 and beyond – marking the start of our next 50 years.