HONORARY GRADUATES

A selection of podcasts featuring some of this week's honorary graduates

As well as student graduations, the graduation ceremonies saw honorary degrees awarded to distinguished men and women who have made important contributions to cultural, intellectual, social, economic or political life. We have recorded a series of podcasts with some of those recipients about their life, work and what it means to be awarded an honorary degree from Warwick.
Professor Jinghai li: HON DSC

Professor Jinghai Li graduated from the, Harbin Institute of Technology in 1982, and completed his PhD in 1987 at the Institute of Process Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing. After a period of post-doctoral research in New York and Switzerland, he returned to the Institute of Process Engineering in Beijing as assistant professor, ultimately rising to become director of the Institute. His research focuses on the establishment of multi-scale methodology for multi-phase complex systems, and the application of computer simulation on scaling up chemical reactors. In 1989 and 1995 he was awarded National Science Prizes. Professor Li was elected a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999, and became Vice-President in 2004. In 2009 he was awarded an honorary fellowship of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) in recognition of his contribution to chemical engineering science and to international exchange among the chemical engineering community.

The Knowledge Centre's Dr Annette Rubery talks to Jinghai Li about his work and how it feels to be awarded an honorary degree.

His Honour Richard Cole: The Chancellor's Medal

Richard Cole was educated at Oxford and admitted as a solicitor in 1960. He was a partner in the Oxford firm of solicitors, Cole and Cole, from 1962 to 1984, when he became a circuit judge. From 1992 until his retirement in 2007, he was resident judge at Coventry Crown Court. The longest serving circuit judge in Coventry, he was appointed Honorary Recorder of the City of Coventry in 1999. He played an active part in the life of the city and the wider region: he was chairman of Burford Parish Council, 1975-79, the town’s first mayor in 1979, and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire in 2001. He helped to set up Coventry’s Good Citizen Awards and won this distinction himself in 2010. As Chair of the University’s Medical Research Fund (MRF), Richard Cole was instrumental in encouraging Warwick’s prominence in medical research. Through the MRF and its predecessor, the Medical Research Institute (set up in 1994 before the University engaged in professional fundraising), the University has collected over £6.75 million, which has been used to build and equip laboratories and latterly, under Richard Cole’s chairmanship, to appoint Arden Fellows to enable doctors, scientists and students of the highest calibre to work together on research projects.

Kate Cox talks with His Honour Richard Cole about being the recipient of the Chancellor's medal.

Professor Harriet Zuckerman: HON DLITT

Professor Harriet Zuckerman was Senior Vice-President of the Andrew W Mellon Foundation and is Professor Emerita at Columbia University. Her research has focused on the social organisation of science and scholarship. She wrote Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States and is co-editor of The Outer Circle: Women in the Scientific Community. She has also published in scholarly journals on subjects such as the reward system in science, scientific misconduct, intellectual property rights in science and scholarship, the history and operation of the refereeing in scientific journals, the emergence of scientific specialties, and the careers of men and women scientists. She has served on the editorial boards of a number of journals, including the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology and the board of reviewing editors of Science. Professor Zuckerman is currently a trustee of the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences and a member of the board of Annual Reviews Inc. She has held a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and fellowships at the Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences and the Russell Sage Foundation. She is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Emily Little Talks to Professor Harriet Zuckermen about receiving her honorary degree in Letters.

Professor Jakov Sinai: HON DSC

Yakov Sinai is Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University and a world leader in statistical mechanics. Born in Moscow to an academic family, he studied at Moscow State University, obtaining his PhD in 1960, and becoming professor there in 1971. In the same year, he was appointed a senior researcher at the Landau Institute of Theoretical Physics. He moved to Princeton in 1993and held the Thomas Jones Professorship at Princeton 1987-98. Professor Sinai works in the theory of dynamical systems, in mathematical physics and in probability theory: he applies mathematics, and particularly statistical mechanics, to problems in physics, especially the physics of dynamic systems. He has won numerous awards and honours, including, most recently, the Henri Poincaré Prize of the International Association of Mathematical Physics (2009) and the Dobrushin International Prize of the Institute of Information Transmission, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and an honorary member of the London Mathematical Society. In 2008 he was elected to the Academia Europaea and in 2009 to the Royal Society of London. He holds honorary degrees from Warsaw University, Budapest University of Science and Technology and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Podcast to follow.

Mr Alan Tuckett, OBE: HON DLITT

Alan Tuckett is Chief Executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE UK) – an organisation which he has led for 23 years - and President of the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE). Initially, he worked as an adult education organiser in Brighton and as a Principal in inner London. He started Adult Learners’ Week in 1992, and supported its adoption by UNESCO (which he advises on adult learning) and its spread to over 50 countries. He is a member of the government’s Skills Alliance, and was a member of the Adult Learning Committee of the Learning and Skills Council, 2000 -2007. He was Vice-Chair of the National Advisory Group for Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning 1997-9, and President of the International League for Social Commitment in Adult Education, 1986-87. He is a Special Professor in the Centre for Labour Market Studies and the Institute of Lifelong Learning at the University of Leicester, a member of the Open University’s Council and Strategy Group and of the Council of City and Guilds.He holds honorary doctorates for several UK universities, is a Fellow of City and Guilds, and was awarded the OBE in 1995.

Mr John Leighfield, CBE: HON LLD

Educated at Oxford, John Leighfield has made his career in Information Technology. Companies for which he has worked include Ford Motor Company, Plessey Telecommunications and British Leyland; in 1987 he led an employee buyout of Istel Ltd which he had established from its origins in British Leyland. John is a Director of a number of IT related companies and has been Chairman of RM plc since 1994: this is the leading provider of IT services to education and John has taken this particular aspect of IT further, having been a member of the Board of UKERNA who provide the UK’s national academic network, JANET. He was President of the Computing Services and Software Association, 1995-96, of the British Computer Society, 1994-95, and of the British Institute for Management Information Systems, 2000 -2006. He is a Freeman and Member of Court of the Company of Educators and was Master of the Worshipful Company of Information technologists, 2005-6. Despite his busy professional life, John Leighfield has found time to give long and invaluable service to the University of Warwick – as a lay member of the University Council, 1990-96 and 1997-2000 and as Pro-Chancellor since 2002, a post from which he retires this year and involves chairing the University Council. He holds honorary degrees from several Midlands universities and in 2006 was awarded the Mountbatten Medal by the Institute of Engineering and Technology in recognition of his outstanding contribution to electronics and IT and their application.

Sir Peter Moores: HON DLITT

Businessman, art collector and philanthropist, Sir Peter Moores is the son of Sir John Moores, founder of the Liverpool-based Littlewoods Football Pools, of which Sir Peter was Chairman from 1977 to 1980, and a director until 1993. Educated at Oxford and Vienna, Sir Peter worked at Glyndebourne and the Vienna State Opera and subsequently pioneered recordings of opera in English as well as rare, little performed operas. In 1964, he set up the Peter Moores Foundation – a charitable foundation to support opera, the visual arts, education, youth, health and environmental projects. Examples of such support include scholarships for promising young opera singers; the establishment in 1994 of the Transatlantic Slave Gallery in the Merseyside Maritime Museum (so successful that it has now been expanded to form the new International Slavery Museum); the establishment of the Chair of Management Studies at Oxford in 1992, and the expansion of the British Museum’s collection of Chinese bronzes. In 1993, the Foundation bought Compton Verney in Warwickshire and restored it to make a gallery that would hold a permanent collection as well as hosting international exhibitions. Sir Peter has been a governor of the BBC, a trustee of the Tate Gallery and Director of Scottish Opera, and holds honorary degrees from the University of Lancashire and the University of Wales. He was awarded the Medal of the Italian Republic in 1974, the CBE in 1991 and the German Staffer Medal in 2008. He was knighted in 2003.

Mr Patrick Spottiswoode: HON DLITT

Patrick Spottiswoode read English and Theatre Studies at Warwick from 1978-81. In 1984, he took a year off from working for his PhD to join Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, taking charge of its educational base – and has remained there ever since. In 1989, he became the Founding Director of Globe Education, and in this capacity went on to set up a huge range of educational activities, both in South London and internationally. Patrick Spottiswoode has changed the way Shakespeare is taught, establishing the concept that practical, workshop based activity is the most effective way of engaging young people with Shakespeare. Globe Education provides lectures, workshops, courses and productions for over 100,000 at the Globe every year, and for many more through outreach and distance learning. It has worked with primary schools in Southwark, run postgraduate programmes with King’s College London and collaborated in teaching and research projects from New Zealand. Since 2007, Globe Education has created annual professional productions for over 30,000 young people who get free tickets. In parallel with his education work, Patrick Spottiswoode in 1995 initiated a major project to stage readings and record all surviving plays by Shakespeare’s contemporaries. As a university with particular expertise in the study of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Warwick is proud to count Patrick Spottiswoode among its alumni.

Sir Michael Tomlinson, CBE: HON DLITT

Sir Michael Tomlinson has a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Durham and a PGCE from the University of Nottingham. He spent his early career in the classroom as a science teacher in the Midlands. After 12 years’ teaching, he joined ICI in 1977 as Schools/Industrial Liaison Officer. The following year he became a member of the Inspectorate of Schools (the predecessor of Ofsted) and in this capacity helped to re-establish the education system in Kuwait following the first Gulf War. In 1989, he became Chief Inspector (Secondary) and in 2000 Chief Inspector of Schools, a post which he held until his retirement in 2002. During his time as Chief Inspector, he is credited with repairing relations between teachers and inspectors and aimed to make the whole inspection system less burdensome. Retirement saw him appointed to lead the enquiry into the controversy surrounding A-level grading; he was subsequently appointed Chair of the Working Group commissioned by the government to look into reform of the syllabus and qualifications structure for 14 to 19 years olds in England. He is a governor of the University of Hertfordshire, and a member of the board of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency and of the National Assessment Agency. From 2008 to 2009, he was Chief Adviser for London Schools. In 1997, Michael Tomlinson was awarded the CBE and was knighted in 2004.

Professor Stuart Palmer: HON DSC

Professor Stuart Palmer holds a BSc and PhD in Physics from Sheffield University, which subsequently also awarded him a DSc for his work in condensed matter and engineering physics. He joined the University of Hull’s Physics Department in 1967, and was promoted to reader in 1981. He came to Warwick in 1987 and was Head of the Physics Department, 1989-2001. His research interests have ranged from the application of ultrasound in medical and industrial problems to the use of international facilities providing synchrotron x-ray and neutron probes for the study of materials. He has been a pioneer of non-contact ultrasound, in the application of ultrasound to the diagnosis and monitoring of osteoporosis. Stuart has served the University of Warwick in a number of very important senior posts. He was the University’s first Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research (1995), and in 1999 became the Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor with additional responsibility for resources. From 2001 to 2009, he was the University’s first Deputy Vice-Chancellor: in addition to deputising for the Vice-Chancellor when necessary, he also took on responsibility for human and academic resources, the capital programme and academic accommodation. He was also heavily involved in the establishment of the University’s new School of Life Sciences, and was Interim Chair of the School from 2009 to 2010. Professor Palmer was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2000. He also has the distinction of having had an inter city train named after him – a gesture of recognition of the medical importance of his work, by the City of Hull and Hull Trains.

Baron Skidelsky of Tilton: HON DLITT

Historian Lord Robert Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick, and the author of the award-winning biography of economist John Maynard Keynes. Born in Harbin, China, Robert Skidelsky and his parents – British subjects of Russian origin – were interned in Manchuria and Japan during the Second World War. He was subsequently educated at Brighton College, Jesus College, Oxford and Nuffield College, Oxford. His subsequent academic career included positions at the School of Advanced international Studies, Johns Hopkins University, North London Polytechnic, and the University of Warwick, where he became Professor of International Studies in 1978. He remained at Warwick until his retirement in 2007, joining the Economics Department as Professor of Political Economy in 1990. His first book, Politicians and the Slump, was published in 1967, followed by a biography of Sir Oswald Mosley in 1975. His first volume of the Keynes biography appeared in 1983; this major, three volume work has won the Wolfson History Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize, the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography, the Arthur Ross Book Award and the Lionel Gelber Prize for international relations. For many years, Robert Skidelsky has been actively involved in UK politics. Originally a member of the Labour Party, he left to become one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party, remaining there until its dissolution in 1992, when he became a Conservative. He was made a life peer in 1991, and was Chief Opposition Spokesman in the Lords for Culture, then for Treasury Affairs, 1997-9. In 2001, he left the Conservative Party for the crossbenches. He was chairman of the Social Market Foundation, 1991-2001. He has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 1994.