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50 years

August 1994 - July 1995

  • The RAE represents a threat to Sussex's interdisciplinary tradition because it is discipline-based. Nonetheless the University does well in the 1992 exercise
  • Ten new professors are appointed; six internal and four external
  • Twelve new Research Centres are set up across the University to improve PG teaching and research
  • Quentin and Ann Olivier Bell are awarded honorary degrees in recognition for their work on Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group
  • The Sussex Centre for Neuroscience is inaugurated by the Duke of Kent
  • Newscaster Julia Somerville (Sussex alumna) is awarded an Honorary Fellowship at the launch of a new club to promote social and professional relations among former students living in the area
  • Harry Kroto with Donald Huffman, Wolfgang Kratschmer and Richard Smalley are awarded the Hewlett Packard Europhysics Prize for discovering new molecular forms of carbon
  • The Alumni office organises a reunion of nearly 200 Sussex who graduated in 1964-5. They are joined by 23 original lecturers and former VC Asa Briggs
  • Members of Sussex African Students Association plant a tree in front of the Meeting House to commemorate the first multi-racial elections in South Africa
  • In May the Students' Union run the largest student event in the UK, the Sussex Carnival, lasting three days
  • Two summer graduations take place for over 1,400 students at the Brighton Centre. Among the graduands are mother and daughter Frances Barry and Rachel Gold – both achieve first-class degrees
  • Sir Harrison Birtwhistle is awarded an honorary doctorate at Glyndebourne
  • The University has a raft of development plans, including the refurbishment of Essex House; a new student development in Kings Road, Brighton; long-term plans for an extra 800 study bedrooms; an extension to the Library; the refurbishment of Falmer House, the Agricultural and Food Research Council (AFRC) refurbished and adapted for academic purposes; and the building of the Sussex Innovation Centre
A Government freeze on full-time student numbers means that Sussex will focus on increasing part-time student numbers. Links with local colleges as providers of Access courses and foundation degrees is crucial in this work