Northumbria University honours outstanding achievement

Scientists, professional leaders, accomplished sportsmen and women, actors, musicians and entrepreneurs have all been awarded honorary doctorate degrees in recognition of their personal achievement and their strong ties with the research-engaged, business-focussed University.

Past recipients have included HRH The Duchess of Kent: HRH Queen Sonja of Norway; Rt Hon Tony Blair; the footballers Jack Charlton and Alan Shearer; Olympic athletes Jonathan Edwards, Steve Cram, Brendan Foster, Victoria Pendleton and Stephen Miller; Apple iPod designer Jonathan Ive; business leaders Graham Wylie, Paul Polman and Sir Stelios Haji-Iannou; and the musician Sting.

In 2010 the University’s graduates will once again celebrate their own success and academic achievement in the company of renowned visitors, who will be awarded academic honours. Receiving Honorary Doctoral degrees are:

The Lord Laming of Tewin: Baron Laming grew up on Tyneside and studied in North East England. One of the most senior figures in his chosen profession, Herbert Laming led the United Kingdom’s national association of social workers. In recent years he was appointed by government to chair high-profile inquiries following cases which had prompted acute public and political concern. These included the harrowing deaths of Victoria Climbie and Baby P.

Rt Hon Sir Alan Beith MP: Very few politicians have fought and won their seat at three General Elections in a single year. Alan Beith did so in the early 1970s and he has enjoyed a distinguished parliamentary career ever since. A former Deputy Leader of his party, and Select Committee chair in the House of Commons, he also enjoys the unusual distinction of holding high office within a club in the Scottish Football League – Berwick Rangers FC - whilst representing its home town not in the Scottish Parliament, but at Westminster.

His Most Eminent Highness The 79th Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta: As the elected leader of the Order of Malta, one of the oldest institutions of Western and Christian civilisation, Brother Matthew Festing leads humanitarian work across the globe. Based in the Magistral Palace in Rome, the Grand Master has the equivalent rank of Cardinal in the Holy Catholic Church and is accorded the formalities of Head of State in the nations with whom the Order has diplomatic relations. Brother Matthew served in the British Army and worked in the commercial art world before taking solemn religious vows in 1991. He served as a Deputy Lieutenant of Northumberland, his home county.

Andrew Festing, whose brother also receives an Honorary Doctoral degree, is one of the United Kingdom’s most distinguished portrait painters, and a Fellow and former President of the Royal  Society of Portrait Painters.  His style was described in The Telegraph as “strong and accurate, keeping flattery to a minimum”, and his well-chronicled popularity with his subjects earned him a sitting with the Queen at Sandringham. “Her Majesty, as is well known, is not the best sitter, as she moves rather a lot,” said Festing, “but she is a brilliant mimic who really can make you laugh.” He has painted many members of the Royal family and previous Speakers of the House of Commons. He lives in Northumberland.

Dr Maggie Atkinson is the Children’s Commissioner for England and was previously Group Director for Children and Learning at the Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead. A leading and long-standing advocate of closer working between all of the professional teams who work for children, she was formerly a teacher, then advisor, and later an inspector. Recently Dr Atkinson served as the first sole president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. As Children’s Commissioner she says her role is to “make sure that people in charge listen to what children and young people have to say, and to speak up for children who are often not listened to like disabled children, asylum seekers, children with mental health problems and those who get into trouble with the law.”

Professor Kel Fidler FREng led Northumbria University as its Vice-Chancellor from 2001 until 2008. An Engineer of worldwide renown, he is Chairman of the UK Engineering Council and has undertaken internationally recognised and commercially applied research across a forty-year career. Professor Fidler enjoyed a highly successful career in academic leadership and management, holding senior positions at Essex University, The Open University and York University before his appointment as Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive Officer at Northumbria. Across his period in office, the University’s operations were greatly strengthened and its campuses physically transformed. Landmark projects include the eye-catching City Campus East scheme. Northumbria also enjoyed a sustained rise in academic quality and profile, with a substantial increase in applications and enrolments from students worldwide.

The Lord Bishop of Durham, Dr NT Wright is one of the country’s leading theologians and scholars, who this summer retires as one of the Church of England’s most senior leaders. Born in Northumberland, he was educated at Oxford, where he enjoyed a distinguished academic career until his appointment as Dean of Lichfield Cathedral and later as Canon Theologian at Westminster Abbey. He was enthroned Lord Bishop of Durham in 2003, in an historic ceremony at Durham Cathedral. The author of more than 30 books, for both academic and general audiences, he broadcasts regularly on radio and television. From September he will return to work on campus, as Research Professor in New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews.