University of Leicester Celebrates Achievement of Distinguished Personalities

Awards in University's 50th Anniversary Year confer distinction on 14 eminent individuals

The University of Leicester is celebrating the achievements of fourteen people who have distinguished themselves locally, nationally and internationally, at its degree congregations between 8th-11th July.

Eleven people will receive honorary degrees and three will be awarded Distinguished Honorary Fellowships, the highest accolade the University can award. The awards will be presented at the De Montfort Hall, Leicester, before graduands and their families from around the world. All Honorary Graduands are renowned in their fields, spanning the worlds of art, politics, the Church, astronomy, academia, public service, literature, health, education and business.

Distinguished Honorary Fellowships will be awarded to astronomer, broadcaster and Leicester Honorary Graduate Sir Patrick Moore, CBE, Hon FRS; author, broadcaster and creator of Adrian Mole, Sue Townsend, FRSL; and long-standing supporter of the University, Mrs Jean Humphreys.

Honorary degrees will be awarded to:

Bill Bryson (Doctor of Letters)
Author and Chancellor of Durham University;

John Sydney Carter, FRBS (Doctor of Letters)
Internationally renowned sculptor, based in Leicestershire;

Professor Antony Chapman, CPsychol, FBPsS, AcSS (Doctor of Science)

Vice-Chancellor and Principal, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, and Leicester graduate;

Nicholas Corah, OBE, DL, FRSA, Companion, Institute of Management, FIoD

(Doctor of Laws)
Industrial leader and champion of the East Midlands business community, also known through his work for the community;

Rigby Graham (Doctor of Letters)
Leicester-based artist, whose work has been exhibited internationally;

Lady Jennifer Gretton, JP (Doctor of Laws)
Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire;

Philip Hammersley, CBE, CEng, MIMechE (Doctor of Laws)
Former Chairman of the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust;

Freda Hussain, MBE (Doctor of Laws)
Former High Sheriff of Leicestershire and retired Principal of Moat Community College in Leicester;

Lord Janner of Braunstone, QC, (Doctor of Laws)
Former MP for Leicester North-West, 1970-74, and Leicester West until 1997;

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, (Doctor of Letters)
Archbishop of Birmingham (Roman Catholic), titular Bishop of Othona;

Councillor Manjula Sood, (Doctor of Laws)
Lord Mayor of Leicester, High Bailiff of Leicester and a Leicester graduate.

Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Robert Burgess commented: "We are delighted to welcome these distinguished guests to the University. In their different ways, they have all made a valuable contribution to the communities and areas in which they live and work.

"They are also inspiring role models for our graduates. Indeed, some of them are Leicester graduates themselves and all have a specific Leicester connection to celebrate this very special year of our 50th anniversary of being a university awarding its own degrees. It is a great pleasure to honour them all in this way.

"It is appropriate that graduation ceremonies, which are a time of celebration of individual achievement and merit, also provide an occasion for the University to mark its collective achievement alongside personalities who have contributed so significantly to society."

For more information on this please contact the University Press Office, 0116 252 2415, email pressoffice@le.ac.uk

Degree Ceremonies - De Montfort Hall, Leicester

Tuesday 8th July, 3pm, Faculty of Law
Councillor Manjula Sood (DL)
Archbishop Vincent Nichols (D Litt)

Wednesday 9th July, 11am, Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences
John Sydney Carter FRBS (D Litt)
Lord Janner of Braunstone, QC (DL)

Wednesday 9th July, 3pm, Faculties of Science and Social Sciences
Sir Patrick Moore, CBE, Hon FRS (DHF)
Rigby Graham (D Litt)

Thursday 10th July, 11am, Faculties of Arts and Medicine and Biological Sciences
Professor Antony Chapman, CPsychol, FBPsS, AcSS (DSc)
Mrs Jean Humphreys (DHF)

Thursday 10th July, 3pm, Faculty of Social Sciences
Lady Jennifer Gretton, JP (DL)
Sue Townsend, FRSL (DHF)

Friday 11th July, 11am, Faculty of Medicine and Biological Sciences
Bill Bryson (D Litt)
Philip Hammersley, CBE, CEng, MIMechE (DL)

Friday 11th July, 3pm, Faculty of Social Sciences
Freda Hussain, MBE (DL)
Nicholas Corah OBE, DL, FRSA, Companion, Institute of Management, FIoD (DL)

Press Contacts, Comments and Biographies:

Bill Bryson, author. (D Litt)

Press contact: Available from University of Leicester Press Office -0116 252 2415; pressoffice@le.ac.uk

Press Comment: This is a wonderful occasion for me because it is a great personal honour, but also because my son David is graduating at the same time, after spending five years at Leicester's Medical School.

Please note: Bill Bryson's son David will be graduating with a degree in Medicine at the same ceremony on Friday 11 July at ceremony starting at 11am.

Biography
Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951, but has spent much of his adult life in England.

He is the author of several popular non-fiction books, most recently a memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, and a biography of William Shakespeare. His book A Short History of Nearly Everything won the Aventis Prize and the European Union's Descartes Prize in 2005.

He is Chancellor of Durham University (in succession to the late Sir Peter Ustinov) and President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England. He is a former commissioner of English heritage and is actively involved with the Cystic Fibrosis Trust the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Woodland Trust and the Friends of Durham Cathedral.

John (Sydney) Carter, FRBS, Sculptor. (D Litt)

Press contact: Available from University of Leicester Press Office -0116 252 2415; pressoffice@le.ac.uk

Press Comment: I feel honoured and privileged to receive this distinguished award for my contribution to Sculpture. Although I have worked as a designer, artist and sculptor, both nationally and internationally, my roots have always been in Leicestershire, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to make two large sculptures for the University of Leicester.

Biography
The University of Leicester's £22.5m Henry Wellcome Building is the home for two major sculptures by the national artist John Sydney Carter, FRBS. Standing 18ft high, Vortex is one of the artist's first pieces of public sculpture on a large scale. The same building also houses Atomica, a 30ft high sculpture of welded stainless steel, commissioned by Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester Professor Robert Burgess in 2004.

John Sydney Carter has exhibited four times in the University's annual summer exhibition of sculpture in the Harold Martin Botanic Garden in Oadby.

Born in Leicester, he attended the Gateway Technical Grammar School, where art was his main subject. At 16 he was apprenticed as an industrial designer for five years and attended the Leicester College of Art, where he won the best student award for drawing and painting. He was also awarded the Imperial Typewriters' Prize for painting.

John Sydney Carter set up Carter Design Group Ltd at Foxton and was Chairman from 1958 to date. Other Leicester connections include the Leicester Society of Artists, from whom he has won both the Henton and Society Prizes for painting. He was a Governor of Loughborough College of Art and Design and Assessor to Graphics there from 1984-1997.

Professor Antony Chapman, CPsychol, FBPsS; AcSS;
Vice-Chancellor and Principal, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. (DSc)

Press contact: Available from University of Leicester Press Office -0116 252 2415; pressoffice@le.ac.uk

Biography
Tony Chapman joined the University of Leicester in 1968, as a Psychology PhD student, subsequently moving to the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology (now Cardiff University). He joined Leeds University in 1983 as Professor of Psychology and Head of Department, later becoming Dean of Science and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, and (from 1998-2003) Visiting Professor.

Since 1998 he has been Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (UWIC) and during 2004-2007 he was the Senior Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wales.

With others, he has published 15 books, three book series and about 125 scientific papers. He has presented some 250 research papers in over 25 countries. His research has been funded by the major research councils, the EU/CEC, and by various government departments/agencies and other sources.

He was a founding director of Sound Alert Ltd (now Sound Alert Technology Plc), a business in directional sound alarms, which won the 1997 Prince of Wales Award for Innovation (for economic potential).

He has been editor of the British Journal of Psychology and editor-in-chief/editor of Current Psychology. He served on Research Assessment (RAE) panels for the funding councils in 1992 and 1996 and was Vice-Chairman of the Training Board.

Professor Chapman was elected an Honorary Fellow of the British Psychological Society for his 'research and leadership', and as one of 60 founding academician in the UK Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences (AcSS) for his 'exceptional, distinguished and substantial contributions to the Social Sciences.'

He has been President of the Psychology Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the British Psychological Society, and the Association of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences, Chair of the UK Deans of Science Committee, Chair of Higher Education Wales, and a Vice-President of Universities UK (UUK).

Professor Chapman is a member of the Council of the All Party Parliamentary University Group, the Council for Industry in Higher Education (CIHE), the Board of the University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), the Council of CBI-Wales, and the Advisory Committee of the London School of Commerce.

Until 2006, he was a Board Member of the Universities and Colleges Employers' Association (UCEA) and of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), for which he chaired the Access Recognition and Licensing Committee and the Advisory Committee for Wales.

Until 2007, he was a Board Member of the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education. Within Universities UK he is a member of the Board and of the International and EU Policy Committee, and until 2006 he was a member of the UUK's Longer Term Strategy Group, the Finance and Resources Strategy Group, and the Business and Industry Sector Strategy Group.

Nicholas Corah, OBE, DL, FRSA, Companion, Institute of Management, FIoD Industrial leader and champion of the East Midlands business community, also known for his work within the community. (DL)

Press contact: Available from University of Leicester Press Office -0116 252 2415; pressoffice@le.ac.uk

Press Comment - I have hugely enjoyed my time as a Pro-Chancellor of the University of Leicester, and the success we have achieved in fundraising is a measure of the enormous regard with which the University is held throughout the UK and internationally. I feel immensely honoured to be receiving an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from the University, whose achievements contribute so much to Leicester and Leicestershire and indeed to the wider world.

Biography
For the past 5 years, Nicholas Corah has been a Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Fundraising for the University of Leicester. During this period, with a small team, he raised around £13 million from non-traditional sources of funding.

Nicholas Corah was born and brought up in Sussex. He was educated at Malvern College and, following National Service with the Army in Cyprus and Egypt, he moved to Leicester in 1953 to join the firm of N. Corah (St. Margaret) Limited which by then was a public company. He spent the following years putting down extremely strong roots in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, where he has lived and worked for all of his working life.

In 1965, following extensive training in marketing, production and general management, he was appointed Managing Director. This was followed, 4 years later, by his appointment as Chairman, a post he held for the next 20 years until the company was acquired in 1989. Corahs, which was always based in Leicester, was a major manufacturer of a wide range of knitted clothing, primarily for Marks & Spencer, employing around 6000 people in factories across the Midlands, Wales and the North of England.

Nicholas Corah always greatly enjoyed his business life, which extended well beyond Corah's. Amongst his many business roles and interests, he was a Group Board member of Alliance & Leicester for 23 years; he served on the Board of East Midlands Electricity for 13 years - 6 of which as Deputy Chairman; and for 2 years he was Chairman of East Midlands Development Company, which was a Government-sponsored organisation responsible for bringing overseas investment into the East Midlands and thereby creating additional jobs in the region.

More recently, Nicholas Corah has devoted a considerable amount of time to working within the community, for which, in the New Year's Honours of 2001, he was awarded an OBE.

For 9 years, he chaired a highly successful Millennium initiative called Conkers, which is a family attraction created on land that was left scarred and derelict by the closure of the old Midlands coalfields in West Leicestershire. Conkers cost £20 million to create, all of which was successfully raised under his Chairmanship, and has so far attracted over 1½ million visitors.

In 2000, Nicholas Corah became the founder Chairman of Leicestershire Cares, a major initiative of Business in the Community, for whom he enlisted the support of over 30 leading employers across Leicester and Leicestershire.

In 1996-97 he was the last High Sheriff of the merged county of Leicestershire and Rutland and for 24 years he has been a Deputy Lieutenant of Leicestershire and then of Rutland.

Nicholas Corah is a Fellow of the Institute of Personnel and Development (formerly the Institute of Personnel Management), Companion of the Chartered Management Institute, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow of the Institute of Directors.

Rigby Graham, artist. (D Litt)

Press contact: Available from University of Leicester Press Office -0116 252 2415; pressoffice@le.ac.uk

Press Comment - I came to Leicester as a boy of 11 in 1943 and have studied and worked here ever since. I found the city and the county to be a continual source of visual stimulus. I have seen so much change, destruction, loss, re-organisation and rebuilding, and have tried to record what I could while it yet remains.

I have often felt my work has been against the grain or out of kilter, and I am pleased this Honorary Degree is being conferred from the University of Leicester. I find myself delighted still to be around to relish the irony of it.

Biography
Rigby Graham was born in Stretford, Manchester, in 1931. He moved with his family first to London and then to Leicester in early childhood where he attended Wyggeston School and then, from 1947-1954, Leicester College of Art, where he specialised in mural painting and was awarded the Sir Jonathan North bronze and silver medals.

After teaching at Ellis and Lansdowne Schools for three years, Rigby Graham joined the School of Graphic Design and Printing at the Leicester College of Art. He was transferred to the School of Teacher-Training in 1961, where he was a Principal Lecturer until leaving in 1983.

Art has always been his passion and he has pursued it all his life, through painting, book illustration and production, murals (mainly in Leicester schools) lithography, etching monotypes, and woodcuts. He has produced broadsheets in Leicester and internationally, and numerous books and articles on art, printing and music.

Rigby Graham was initially described as a neo-romantic, but his work now reflects a wider context.

His relationship with Leicester has always been tempestuous, as he has recorded and experienced the change from an industrial and business centre to a multi-cultural monument to 'urban regeneration'.

His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and he is author or co-author of 15 publications.

Lady Jennifer Ann Gretton, JP, Lord-Lieutenant of Leicestershire. (DL)

Press Comment - I am, delighted and honoured to have been awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws. I would like to extend my grateful thanks to the Chancellor and the University. I am very fortunate that in my role as Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire I have many opportunities, not only to meet the business communities of our City and County, but also the people working for the voluntary sectors. One is incredibly fortunate to be part of so many exciting and humbling occasions.

Biography
Lady Gretton, as Lord-Lieutenant, is the official representative of Her Majesty The Queen for the County and City of Leicester, and was appointed on 1 February 2003.

On 24 February 2003 Lady Gretton was appointed Chairman of the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committees on Justices of the Peace and General Commissioners of Income Tax, and a Justice of the Peace and Keeper of the Rolls for Leicestershire. In 2004 Lady Gretton was made a Dame of the Order of St John.

Lady Gretton is the widow of the Third Baron Gretton, and has a married son (the Fourth Baron Gretton), and a married daughter, as well as a granddaughter and two grandsons.

She has been running the Stapleford Estate near Melton Mowbray since the death of her husband in 1989. In the same year she was appointed to the Leicestershire and Rutland Country Land and Business Association Committee, the Student Affairs Committee and Advisory Council at Harlaxton Manor (the British Campus of the University of Evansville) and President of the Melton Mowbray and District Model Engineering Society.

She served on the Country Land and Business Association Environment and Water Committee at national level from 1994 -1998. In 1994 she was appointed President of the Rural Community Council (Leicestershire and Rutland) and in 1999 President of LOROS (the Leicestershire and Rutland Organisation for the Relief of Suffering). In 2001 she was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Leicestershire.

Lady Gretton has been a Member of the Committee of Somerby Parochial Church Council since 1991, Church Warden of All Saints Church Somerby 1992-1995, and has been a member of the Leicester Cathedral Council since 2003.

She is Patron of six Parishes in Leicestershire and Staffordshire, and is patron or president of a wide range of local charities and organisations.

Lady Gretton is interested in sport, especially tennis when she has the time, and music, singing with the Oakham School Choral Society. She is interested in all aspects of steam, and restored the Stapleford Miniature Railway with the help of volunteers, and instigated the Stapleford Steam Rally in 1996.

Philip Hammersley CBE (OBE 1989); CEng, MIMechE. Former Chairman of the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. (DL)

Press Comment - "I have worked with the University Hospitals of Leicester and the National Space Centre. The University has made a major contribution to the success of both of these organisations, to the great benefit of those living in the City and County. It is an honour and a privilege to become a member of the University by the award of this honorary degree."

Biography
Philip Hammersley's working life was spent in the chemical and footwear industries until his retirement in 1991. At various times he was Chairman of CBI East Midlands, Chairman of the Shoe and Allied Trades Research Association and President of the British Footwear Manufacturers' Federation.

He continued his work in the private sector as a non executive director and Chairman of BSS Group plc, a Leicester company, until 1999

In 1991 he began his second career, in the NHS. He was Vice-Chairman of the Leicestershire Health Authority and then, in succession, the first Chairman of Leicester Royal Infirmary NHS Trust, Chairman of Trent Region NHS Executive and, on the merger of the three Leicester hospitals, the Chairman of the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.

He has been involved with the National Space Centre from its early days and has been the Chairman of the operating company since 2000. He is also a Trustee.

He has worked closely with the University through the NHS and the Space Centre and he was a member of Council until 2004.

He received an OBE in 1989 for services to the footwear industry and a CBE in 2000 for services to the NHS.

Mrs Jean Humphreys, Long-standing supporter of the University and of the City of Leicester, and Honorary Graduate of the University (2001). (DHF)

Press Comment - I am overwhelmed. It's strange to reflect that when we came to Leicester in 1947 my husband Arthur said: 'I'll give it five years and then rejoin the British Council'. He loved being abroad and travelling. Our warm reception here bound me to the Leicester community for ever.

Biography
Mrs Jean Humphreys was born at Drumadoon Farm on the Isle of Arran, a place which, she says, is lovely in itself and legendary for its welcome towards friend and stranger alike. Brought up among people of every kind, she became adapted to collegiate life. Her parents sent all three children to the mainland to be educated at great emotional and financial expense.

There she attended secondary school and the University of Glasgow, where she trained as a teacher. She graduated in 1945 with an MA, gaining a Teachers' Diploma in 1946. She taught English at the newly-opened Arran High School from 1946-47.

Through Glasgow University she met her husband Arthur Humphreys. The couple married in August 1947 and came to Leicester, where Arthur Humphreys became a greatly admired and influential Professor of English at the University of Leicester, originally in its University College days.

She has been a staunch supporter of the University and the City ever since, in acknowledgement of which she received an Honorary Masters Degree from the University in 2001.

Jean Humphreys is a Life Member of the National Trust for Scotland, The Woodland Trust, Arran Museum and Arran Drama Society and supports The National Trust, English Heritage and Welsh National Opera. In Leicester she is a Life Member of Leicester Civic Society, Leicestershire Arts in Education.

She is a member of the Friends of Leicester Philhaermonic Choir, the Leicester Symphony Orchestra, the Bardi orchestra, the London Philharmonia Orchestra, the Bach Choir, Tudor Choir, Recorded Music Society, the University Hospitals of Leicester, the Lit and Phil Society, Leicester and Leicestershire Museums. She was a founder member of the Haldane Society and the University Women's Club.

Freda Hussain, MBE Former High Sheriff of Leicestershire and retired Principal of Moat Community College in Leicester. (DL)

Press contact: Available from University of Leicester Press Office -0116 252 2415; pressoffice@le.ac.uk

Press Comment - I feel honoured and humble about receiving this honorary degree from the University of Leicester. It is perhaps the highest point in my work in education in Leicester over the last 30 years. I have been privileged to work with some wonderful people and I would like to say 'thank you' to my family, friends and colleagues for all their support.

Biography
After graduating from Manchester University, Freda Hussain started her teaching career at Altrincham Girls' Grammar School in Cheshire. She was appointed as the Principal of Moat Community College, Leicester, in 1991. Over the next fifteen years she transformed this inner-city school into a successful, over-subscribed school. The OfSTED report for the College in 2005 described her as 'outstanding and inspirational'.

Freda Hussain has served on local, regional and national bodies such as NHS Trust Board, Government Office East Midlands and the Headteacher Reference Group at the TTA and DfES. Her career in education, spanning three decades, was dedicated to engaging young people in achieving their maximum potential. She was instrumental in designing and establishing a 'progression accord' between the universities and schools of Leicestershire.

Freda Hussain edited a book entitled 'Muslim Women', which was published by Groom Helm in 1984. In 2003 she was awarded an MBE for services to community education. In 2004-5 she was appointed as the High Sheriff of Leicestershire - the oldest secular office under the Crown. She worked with the Police and Probation Services to develop a citizenship module entitled 'Law and Order and the Criminal Justice system'. In 2006, Freda Hussain was commissioned as a Deputy Lieutenant of Leicestershire.

After retiring in 2006, Freda Hussain serves on the governing bodies and boards of several organisations, including The University of Leicester, Leicester College, Samworth Enterprise Academy, Welbeck Defence Academy, Leicestershire Economic Partnership, Special Olympics Leicester. She has also received the Freedom of the City of London.

Promoting intercultural understanding at all levels is very important to her.

Lord Janner of Braunstone, QC, MP for Leicester North-West, then Leicester West from 1970- 1997, when he was created a Life Peer. Also a barrister, author, lecturer, journalist and broadcaster (DL)

Press Comment - I was Member of Parliament for Leicester NW then Leicester West from 1970 to 1997. I am honoured and delighted to receive my honorary degree and to be remembered so warmly by the great city so long after I ceased to be serving so many of its people.

Biography
Greville Janner was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he was President of the Cambridge Union, Chairman of the Cambridge University Labour Club and International Secretary of the National Association of Labour Students. He also took a keen interest in athletics and rowing. He went on to Harvard Post Graduate Law School and was a Harmsworth Scholar at the Middle Temple.

His early career included National Service and work as a war crimes investigator.

He contested Wimbledon for Labour in 1955 and in 1970 became MP for Leicester North West, and four years later for Leicester West, where he continued to be MP until 1997.

He served on a number of Parliamentary committees concerned with Employment, Industrial Safety, Homeless and Rootless People; Race and Community, Jews in the Former Soviet Union, groups working with Israel, Spain, India, Romania, Eastern Europe, Jewry, War Crimes, Anti-Semitism and Magic.

Lord Janner has been President of the National Council for Soviet Jewry, and on the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and of the Commonwealth Jewish Council. He has been Vice-President: of the Association for Jewish Youth since 1970, the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen, IVS since 1983 and is a former European Vice-President of the World Jewish Congress. He is Vice-President of the World Executive, and Joint President of the Political Council for Co-existence.

He is on the Board of a number of businesses and charitable organisations. Lord Janner is a Life Member of the National Union of Journalists, and a former Director of the Jewish Chronicle Newspaper Ltd. He is a member of the Society of Labour Lawyers, the Magic Circle, the International Brotherhood of Magicians and President of REACH, and of the Jewish Museum.

Lord Janner has been made a FIPD (FIPM 1976) and a Commander of the Order of Grand Duke Gediminas (Lithuania).

He is the author of 68 books, mainly on employment and industrial relations law, presentational skills, and on public speaking, including: Complete Speechmaker; Janner on Presentation; One Hand Alone Cannot Clap and memoirs 'To Life'.

Sir Patrick Moore, Kt 2001; CBE 1988 (OBE 1968), Hon FRS; is well-known as an astronomer, broadcaster and author. He is also an Honorary Graduate of the University of Leicester (1995) and a Patron of the National Space Centre. (DHF)

Press Comment - "I missed University and a lot of my official degree because of the war. My only real research was as a member of the official moon mapping ream re Apollo. If I have made any contribution, it is in popularising astronomy.

"I feel deeply honoured-this is a great moment for me. Over the years I have of course had a great deal to do with Leicester astronomers, and have made a number of TV programmes from the University. I am indeed proud to be back."

Biography

During his early career, he served with RAF, was involved in the running of a school, was a free-lance author and, from 1965-68, Director of the Armagh Planetarium. He is universally known for his long-running BBC TV Series, The Sky at Night, which has been running since 1957, and he is also a radio broadcaster.

He is a keen musician and has composed and performed in two operas: Perseus and Andromeda (1975) and Theseus (1982).

Sir Patrick is a former President of the British Astronomical Association and was an Honorary Member of the Astronomic-Geodetic Society of the USSR, the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

Among his awards are: the Lorimer Gold Medal, 1962; the Goodacre Gold Medal, 1968; the Arturo Gold Medal (Italian Astronomical Societies), 1969; the Jackson-Gwilt Medal, RAS, 1977; and the Roberts-Klumpke Medal, Astronomers' Society of the Pacific, 1979.

Since 1962 he has been Editor of the Year Book of Astronomy and he is the author of more than 60 books, most of them astronomical.

Press contact: Available from University of Leicester Press Office -0116 252 2415; pressoffice@le.ac.uk

The Most Reverend Vincent Gerard Nichols, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham and Titular Bishop of Othona. (D Litt)

Press Comment - I am delighted to receive this Honorary Degree from the University of Leicester. I have enjoyed the contact between the University of Leicester and Newman University College, Birmingham. Leicester has provided validation for Newman College courses, of which I am the Chairman. This has been a very fruitful relationship and I am gad to be at the University of Leicester to receive this honour.

Biography
The Most Reverend Vincent Gerard Nichols was educated at St Mary's College, Crosby, the Gregorian University, Rome, Manchester University and Loyola University, Chicago

His early employment was as Chaplain of St John Rigby VI Form College, Wigan, between 1972-77. The following year he became a Priest in the inner city of Liverpool. Then, in 1981 he took on the post of Director of the Upholland Northern Institute, with responsibility for in-service training of clergy and for adult Christian education.

From 1984-91 he was General Secretary of the Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference. of England and Wales, and was Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster (Bishop in North London) between 1992-2000.

He is Chairman of the Catholic Education Service, and of the Department of Catholic Education and Formation, the Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference of Eng. and Wales. The Archbishop is also Advisor to Cardinal Hume and Archbishop Worlock on the International Synods of Bishops for 1980, 1983, 1985 and 1987. He was a Delegate of the Bishops' Conference to the Synod of Bishops in 1994 and a member of the Synod of Bishops for Oceania in 1998 and for Europe in 1999.

His publications include Promise of Future Glory, 1997 and articles in Priests and People, and Business Economist.

Councillor Manjula Sood, Lord Mayor of Leicester from 15th May 2008 (the first Asian woman Lord Mayer in the UK), also High Bailiff of Leicester and a Leicester Graduate. (DL)

Press contact: Available from University of Leicester Press Office -0116 252 2415; pressoffice@le.ac.uk

Press Comment - I am honoured and delighted to receive the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Leicester. When I arrived in Leicester in 1970 I had the privilege of studying at the internationally renowned University. I am indebted to the University for giving me the opportunity to study and find employment. I had a very enjoyable time at the University. It has played a pivotal role in my career. Long may the University continue with educational excellence. It makes our great city of Leicester globally recognised and proud.

Biography
Councillor Manjula Sood arrived in England in 1970 and has been living in Leicester ever since. Upon arriving in the city, Councillor Sood attended the University of Leicester, where she completed a PGCE. In 1970 she became the first Asian female teacher in Leicester and was a primary school teacher for almost 20 years.

During her time as a teacher, Councillor Sood was instrumental in introducing multiculturalism in the education sector and her services were recognised by a visit to her class by the then Secretary of Education, the Late Sir Keith Joseph.

Manjula Sood has been City Councillor for Latimer Ward (the Golden Mile of Leicester) since 1996, following the sudden death of her husband, the late Councillor Paul Sood.

Councillor Sood is the only ethnic minority female councillor at Leicester City Council.

She has received numerous awards, in many cases being the first Asian woman to do so, seeing herself as a role model for women in Leicester. Her awards include: the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Women of the Year Award for 2006; the Labour Party Merit Award 2004 for her contribution to the Labour Party; a listing in Red Hot Curry's top 300 most influential Asian women in the UK 2002; the Triangular Media Group Global Award for outstanding contribution to local politics 2006; and LABA (Leicestershire Asian Business Association) Honorary Award for assistance to small businesses 2002.

Councillor Sood is active on many charitable, interfaith, health and local council committees, including as Trustee and Executive Member of the Leicester Council of Faiths; Governor of Leicester College; Trustee of North Memorial Homes; and ex NHS Non-Executive Director.

Sue Townsend, FRSL Author, broadcaster and creator of Adrian Mole. (DHF)

Press contact: Available from University of Leicester Press Office -0116 252 2415; pressoffice@le.ac.uk

Press Comment - I am delighted that the University of Leicester has given me a Distinguished Honorary Fellowship. I failed my eleven plus, and the nearest I came to going to university was winning a twist competition at the University of Leicester's Student Union.

Biography
Sue Townsend was born in Leicester on April 2 1946. She left South Wigston Girls High School at the age of 14 and worked in a series of unskilled jobs. She was working on an adventure playground when she joined the writers' group at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester. (She had been writing secretly for 20 years.)

She won a Thames Television bursary for her first play, Womberang. Sue Townsend wrote The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Age 13 ¾ as a radio 4 play and later as a novel. After writing for many theatres, including the Royal Court, she has concentrated on writing novels. She is a fellow of the Royal Society for Literature and in 2007 was awarded the Joyce Prize by UC Dubun.

UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER
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