Head of university to step down over health concerns

Yakub Qureshi

February 02, 2010

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Alan Gilbert President and Vice Chancellor Manchester UniversityPic by Steve Allen

THE head of Manchester University has announced plans to step down - sparking an international hunt to find a successor.

Prof Alan Gilbert,who underwent heart by-pass surgery last year, will step down in the summer.

During his six-years as president of the university - formed by the merger between Umist and Victoria University – it has soared up league tables and is now one of the largest in the UK and ranked 26th best in the world.

But the institution has also undergone painful restructuring with hundreds of teaching and support jobs axed.

Prof Gilbert has said Manchester was now among the world's elite institutions.

He said: “As many of my colleagues know, I have had niggling health problems over the past couple of years, culminating in heart bypass surgery last September.

“I am feeling well enough and energetic enough to be confident about the next few months, but it would have been irresponsible for me to give the same assurances to university and its board of governors about a further extended period of office."

The 65-year-old Australian historian was formerly in charge of Melbourne University before being recruited to Manchester following the 2004 merger.

The university boss will step down in June and his deputy - respected biologist Dame Nancy Rothwell - will act as an interim head until a successor is appointed.

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Mad Welsh Scotsman, Cadishead (03/02/2010 at 08:44)

Are there not enough professors in this country to find one to replace him. Why search internationally for a successor.

Voter (03/02/2010 at 08:45)

Please can we have a scholar and a gentleman (or a lady) and not a public-relations whizz-kid as has been appointed elsewhere? By the way any organisation that has to say it is among the world's élite is obviously not. The vice-chancellors of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale do not need to make any claims. As a Boltoner, I am not in the least a fan of Manchester United: but it does not need to make a statement saying it is one of the world's élite football clubs. Manchester Grammar School does not need to state that it is one of the world's élite schools.

Michael P (03/02/2010 at 22:50)

I finished studying at the University of Manchester last year. In the four years that I was there, teaching hours were cut and there was a massive increase in student numbers - particularly those coming from outside the EU, attractive to bosses as they bring in much higher student fees. The geography library was closed and there was a general feeling that the University´s status as a research institution was far more important than its teaching duties. Yet at the same time student fees increased from £1,250 a year to £3,000. Where was all that money going? The article omitted to mention that in 2008 there was a massive movement at the University by its own students against Gilbert and his policies of ´painful restructuring´ - in other words slash and burn cuts. Sadly this is just an illustration of international trend of educational institutions being transformed into businesses, which care less and less about the quality of the holistic learning and personal experience of University, as it is cannot be readily turned into economic data.

Mat Mines straight down the middle (19/02/2010 at 18:42)

Could I suggest that the university could do a lot worse than appointing the former VC of MMU, a leader of great ability and universally acclaimed throughout UK universities.

Bertie McGrew , Northern Countryside (12/03/2010 at 12:41)

My son is studying at UofM now and complains daily of the lack of facilities, the lack of available book in the library, the constant problems with the computer systems and the lack of eductaional supplements. My son doesn't live in, and works hard towards his studies rather than the usual image of hard drinking hard playing students.

I have no gripe with this particular gentleman, but I do wonder at the wisdom of the Governments committment to turning the educational establishments of this country into, as Michael P put, businesses rather than the educational institution that they are supposed to be. Student welfare seems to play a poor second to profit.

Public School Pimms Lout (12/03/2010 at 13:47)

Bertie and Michael P. Interesting observations.

I possibly think going down this route of 'super universities' covering a large number of different campuses and huge numbers of students isn’t a very good one. The points you raise are possible symptoms of it?

I went to the ‘old Umist’ for my first degree back in the day and the facilities were second to none, relatively small group sizes and more than enough tutors to go around.

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