Kent Bulletin - University of Kent

A year on
THE VICE-CHANCELLOR WITH JACQUES MEYER, FORMER
PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITE DE REIMS, AT THE JULY
2002 CONGREGATIONS
HM THE QUEEN VISITS THE UNIVERSITY OF KENT AT MEDWAY LAUNCH
One year on and the multiversity concept spelt out by David
Melville shortly after he arrived at Kent is gaining widespread
recognition. ‘This multiversity idea seems to have caught on,’ he
says. ‘People are using it nationally and associating it with Kent.’
If that means a university being a multiplicity of things, forging
links with all sectors of the community in and beyond traditional
boundaries, and engaging with commerce to increase revenue,
then that is the Melville University of Kent.
He set himself three main goals, involving
the University much more in its
region, developing the Medway campus,
and increasing income sources. He
believes he has made a good start in all
three areas, but there’s a lot more to do.
‘In all our initiatives, we’ve engaged with
the business community in a much
bigger way than we had in the past. In
the last year, we’ve raised the profile of
UKC, with a number of new developments,
but the big one is Medway. That
has caught the imagination nationally
with ministers and I get invitations from
all over the country to speak about it.’
UKC has forged pioneering relationships
with the University of Greenwich and
Mid-Kent College to create the University
of Kent at Medway. A joint School of
Pharmacy on the Medway Chatham
Maritime campus will be one of its early
major achievements. The first students
will enter in 2003, and the first undergraduate
medical students in 2004. That
will be ‘very much part of improving
medical health in Kent,’ he says.
The Medway partnership was honoured
by a visit by the Queen in her
Golden Jubilee year. Professor Melville
says both events were the highlights of
his busy first year. Also he has fostered
close links with Canterbury Christ
Church University College and Kent
Institute of Art and Design. Medical
education is moving ahead through links
with Guys Hospital, Kings, St Thomas’s
and Canterbury Christ Church. And
UKC is also looking to mainland Europe
as it makes progress with plans for a
Transmanche University with Lille and
Littoral. Developments such as the
planned Innovation Centre on the
Canterbury campus aim to generate
income. In these cash-strapped times for
higher education, the University is always
seeking new ways of boosting revenue.
It has forged close links with business,
with benefits if local education standards
rise. It recently unveiled plans for a 200-
bed four-star hotel and 1,000-delegate
conference centre close to Keynes College,
a proposal the Vice-Chancellor says
has the backing of the city council. A
telephone fundraising campaign to
alumni, parents of current students and
members of Council has just raised over
£100,000 in pledged donations to help
support student-centred projects.
Professor Melville finds it hard to
recall a lowlight, but when pushed pointed
to the lousy transport infrastructure
that makes a journey to London ‘much
more difficult than I ever imagined.’ He
does not mention it, but a possible
lowlight was UKC’s 68th position in a
league table that assesses teaching quality.
Professor Melville dismissed the table
as ‘dubious and misleading’, saying that
in all other polls, the University is around
40th. That’s still not quite good enough,
but a lot better than 68th.
That rogue poll, being abandoned
from this year, has not hit recruitment,
which this year brought the highest
number of students ever.
Professor Melville, 58, left the Further
Education Funding Council to take
the Canterbury job. Previously he was
Vice-Chancellor of Middlesex University.
So far so good. Professor Melville says
Canterbury and the University have
‘surpassed our expectations in many
ways. We’ve found it a very friendly place
to work. I’ve found the enthusiasm for
the kind of ideas and proposals I’ve
brought to be very encouraging.’
This article was adapted from an interview
by Trevor Sturgess that first appeared in
Medway Today
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