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scan.lusu.co.uk/news
Interviews:
Alan Milburn
“If I’m a former anything when I become Chancellor
of Lancaster, it is a former student of the University.”
Jack Perry
News Editor
L
ancaster’s 50th Anniversary year is significant as
another watershed in the
university’s history, as
current Chancellor Sir Christian
Bonington completes his 10-year
chancellorship at the close of the
year. 2015 will see his successor,
the Rt. Hon Alan Milburn, take up
the position. When SCAN spoke
to Milburn, he said he was “honoured” to have been approached
by the University to become Lancaster’s Chancellor for the next
10 years. “Lancaster has played
a very important part in my life,
and over the years I’ve tried to
keep in touch and help with a
variety of things, so it was a real
surprise when I was approached
but I am absolutely thrilled.”
Whilst the two Chancellors are
distinct in occupation, with Sir
Bonington’s mountaineering career a stark contrast to Milburn’s
political one, Milburn appears to
share the same enthusiasm for the
role which Bonington has exhibited during his time as Chancellor. “Chris [Bonington] has done
a fantastic job, and I know he’s
put his heart and soul into the job
and that it really matters to him,”
Milburn said. “They are very big
shoes to fill, but I really look
forward to doing it. Every time
I come to Lancaster the weather
ceases to amaze me, but it strikes
me how much the University has
grown, and all the new buildings
that the campus has, and I want
to be part of that and do as much
as I can to help it.”
Milburn was perhaps an obvious candidate for the role as
Chancellor due to his already
strong links with the University,
not least because he is an alumnus of Lancaster. Milburn graduated from Lancaster in 1979 and
was a member of Pendle College,
“which at the time was at the absolute far end of campus.
“I can’t believe now that –
looking at the layout of the University – Pendle sits somewhere
near the middle of campus.”
Milburn was a history student
at Lancaster, and back in Week
3 of Michaelmas term this year,
he returned to the campus to give
a lecture on the subject. On that
lecture, he said: “One of my his-
tory professors, [now Professor
Emeritus] Eric Evans very kindly
turned up, and I suspect I learned
a lot more from his lectures than
he did from mine. He was a real
inspiration and a fantastic tutor.”
Rather than living on campus,
Milburn spent his first year living
in Galgate - “not too far from the
pub” - followed by a year by the
canal in Lancaster, and spent his
third year living in Morecambe.
Looking back at his time as a
student as a whole, Milburn said
that “My time at Lancaster really
laid the foundations for everything I have done in my career.” However, like many
undergraduates, he did
not know this at the
time. “At university I had no idea
what I wanted
to do. After
university I
moved back
up to the
northeast, and
I began
a PHD at
Newcastle which,
to
my
shame, I
have never
completed.
“I’m
afraid I got
bitten by the
politics bug, so I
became involved
in politics. The
PHD thesis is still i