I am hoping you have, by now, all read my message announcing our new Chancellor. This is a very exciting appointment and one I am personally very proud to announce, making it a milestone in our bicentenary year.
I have known Sir Geoff throughout my time as Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University and have found his intelligence, compassion and wit both entertaining and insightful. His knowledge and personal affection for the University, his concerns for the experience students and researchers, the University values and its global operation are especially precious to him and to us. I have no doubt he will make an excellent Chancellor. As time and opportunity allows, I hope many of you have the chance to either meet him personally or be involved in the work he will be conducting throughout his tenure. His energy is most certainly infectious!
I am also confident of the positive influence Sir Geoff will have on our global stakeholders – political, entrepreneurial, industrial and community-based. With such a broad appeal, and collaborative manner, this is an obvious extension of the international closeness we have been experiencing across our campuses and the University-wide values that are so important.
In the coming days, I will be speaking with our new Chancellor and will share with you our conversations as we set the path forwards together. I am hoping the first opportunity will be at our next All Staff Executive Briefing on Wednesday 5 May. The invitation details the agenda and I hope as many of you as possible are able to join and take part in the discussion session.
From one distinguished academic to another, Panmure House is delighted to announce that the 2021 Adam Smith Lecturer is Nobel Laureate Professor Sir Angus Deaton, Senior Scholar and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, and Presidential Professor of Economics at USC. The Adam Smith Lecture Series sits at the heart of the Panmure House programme of activities, events that bring world-leading economic thinkers, practitioners, and Nobel Laureates back to the birthplace of modern economics: the house in which Adam Smith completed the final edition of The Wealth of Nations. Sir Angus will deliver an original keynote lecture on 26 May, 14-15.30 (BST) entitled ‘Technology, Inequality, and Social Esteem’. To join, please register here.
With such a bounty of good news, I, once again, wish to congratulate everyone involved in the opening of the new Dubai campus. We have received some excellent media coverage in the UAE, including this article in Gulf News and the wonderful video showing our campus in action.
Marvellous!
Professor Richard A. Williams
Principal and Vice-Chancellor