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• 27 July 2012
• • English professor meets his ‘maker’ at gold medal ceremony
  • Sussex rounds off a golden year at graduation
  • Leverhulme-funded project will explore asexuality
  • Sussex intellectual historian elected Fellow of the British Academy
  • Sussex invests £5m in new global research scholarships
  • Sussex appoints new PVC for Research
  • Graduation reflections
  • UniTV claims second prize in national competition
  • World première for Sussex grad at BBC Proms
  • Sussex up to highest-ever position in national sports ranking
  • Ultimate Frisbee star’s world champion bid
  • Sussex staff member carries the Olympic torch
  • Summer Graduation 2012: Becky’s eye view of what’s on our minds
  • Summer Graduation 2012: Higgs boson moment rounds off a great time at Sussex
  • Summer Graduation 2012: National encore for Glyndebourne opera
  • Summer Graduation 2012: Talented musician with a love of nature
  • Summer Graduation 2012: Adding to the body of knowledge in international education research
  • Summer Graduation 2012: Posthumous degree for popular psychology student
  • Plans approved for Northfield phase three
  • Name for new academic building marks golden jubilee
  • Broadcast

Graduation reflections

The graduation ceremonies last week were the biggest ever held at Sussex – and, to my mind, some of the best in which I have been involved.

Professor Michael Farthing, Vice-Chancellor

My heartfelt thanks go to everyone who helps to make these such a success. The parents, family and friends I met over the week were full of praise for Sussex and especially for our Chancellor, Sanjeev Bhaskar, who makes the celebrations come alive each day.

In thinking about my speech for the ceremonies, I was able to reflect on how much has been achieved at Sussex in 2011-12, and how much still lies ahead.

We started the year with NSS (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 confirmed our world top-100 position, alongside being shortlisted as University of the Year.

Those for me have all been further welcome signs that the sustained improvements we have all been putting in place over recent years are delivering positive outcomes.

This has of course also been our 50^th anniversary year, and we have celebrated that in style – with exhibitions, art works, films and books.

Most recently we have also awarded gold medals to some world-leading alumni and former staff, such as Asa Briggs, Jeremy Dellar, Ian McEwan and Festus Mogae. In September we will award 50 Anniversary Fellowships to Sussex alumni and associates, exemplifying just how much Sussex has contributed to our wider society.

But perhaps above all it has been the six Sussex Conversations 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 50^th lives on of course through new connections we have made, and also through some of the funds raised as part of our £50m ‘Making the Future’ campaign, which we launched this year and which continues through to 2015.

That 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 50^th 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 jubilee plaza, will add to the experience for all our students at Sussex.

We have also seen significant academic achievements this year – whether in the work by our physicists within the CERN term tracking down the Higgs boson, a new Fellow of the British Academy (announced last week) or the major million-pound grants won by some of the UK’s “brightest minds” in Life Sciences. 

Finally, we will also say a fond farewell to Bob Allison, who has contributed so much Sussex as our PVC Research and 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 ACCA refurbishment, 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 the autumn. 

And in 2012-13 we will be giving final shape to a new strategic plan, building on some excellent cross-University discussion on Size, Shape, Quality and Distinctiveness. That will look forward to 2020 and beyond – a decade that marks the start of our next 50 years.