Manchester poet Lemn Sissay MBE is our new Chancellor

14 Oct 2015

WATCH our beautiful new film to mark the occasion

Manchester poet Lemn Sissay MBE has been installed as the University’s new Chancellor.

Lemn, whose ambition as Chancellor is to “inspire and be inspired”, was installed on the University’s Foundation Day, which celebrates bringing together the Victoria University of Manchester and UMIST in 2004.

To mark the occasion, the Division of Communications and Marketing have created a beautiful new film:

 

Lemn Sissay is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. He is associate artist at the Southbank Centre, patron of the Letterbox Club and the Reader Organisation, and ambassador for the Children’s Reading Fund. He is also a fellow of the Foundling Museum and was official poet of the London 2012 Olympics. His public-art Landmark Poems are installed throughout Manchester and London, with Gilt of Cain unveiled by Bishop Desmond Tutu.

The Foundation Day celebrations – screened live on the University’s website - also sees President and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell give the prestigious Foundation Day Address: ‘The University of Manchester: spirit of revolution’.

This is followed by the launch of the refresh of Manchester 2020, the University’s strategic plan to become one of the top 25 universities by 2020.

And Foundation Day Honorary Degrees are being given to journalist, television presenter and Labour Party Peer the Rt Hon the Baroness Bakewell, leading British physicist Professor Dame Athene Donald, theatre and film director Sir Nicholas Hytner and the former High Court judge who oversaw the Shipman Inquiry, Dame Janet Smith.