your manchester The Magazine for Alumni and Friends April 2010 Mark Kermode back on campus Healing performances Amis on students Frenetic lifestyles Drugs to improve the mind The laughter laboratory features... 24 President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Alan Gilbert 26 welcome to your m Welcome to this latest edition of Your Which leads to the second timing of a major new student learning facility at Manchester, the magazine for alumni of consideration. We have reached an the heart of the campus. We are also The University of Manchester. important watershed in the development of making other changes in order to offer the University, making 2010 a sensible time students more purposeful curricula This will be the last time that I will be writing for a change of leadership, irrespective of and to re-pe rsonalise the student in the magazine as President and Vice- personal factors. learning experience. Chancellor as I have decided to retire at the end of the current academic year. I will have The Manchester 'merger' is effectively over, A new, powerful institutional culture has been in post for almost six and a half years and has been an unambiguous success - a developed around our ambitious by then, although for the first seven months reality reflected in our outstanding Manchester 2015 Agenda, bringing with it a prior to 1 October 2004 my role was that of performance in the Research Assessment genuine sense of institutional momentum President-elect working alongside the Vice- Exercise 2008, in our impressive climb up around the pursuit of scholarly excellence in Chancellors of the two merging institutions. respected international university rankings all its forms. Over the past few months, we since 2004, and in the physical have been revising our Manchester 2015 Two things have determined the timing of transformation of the Manchester campus Strategic Plan to take account of the my departure. First, as some of you may through a massive capital investment of progress that we have made so far and to know, I have had niggling health problems over £400 million. clarify our Goals and Objectives. The new over the past couple of years, culminating in document can be seen on the University heart bypass surgery last September. I am We have also begun to make progress on website at www.manchester.ac.uk/2015 feeling well enough and energetic enough our major teaching and learn ing reform to be confident about the next few months, agenda and address the unsatisfactory It has been a matter of immense good but it wou ld have been irresponsible for me performance by this University in the fortune that the Manchester merger took to give the same assurances to the National Student Survey (NSS). Blackboard, place in a relatively benign financial climate University community and its Board of a state-of-the art online learning in UK higher education. We took prudent, Governors about a further extended period environment, is now available to all our but significant, financial risks to empower in office. students and we have begun construction the new institution to take full advantage of 2 YOUR MANCHESTER contents University news 4 Students today 10 Drama – a powerful healing tool 12 Catching up with Martin Amis 14 30 Overcoming tiredness 16 33 Capturing carbon 18 Combating world poverty 20 Drugs to improve the mind 22 Mark Kermode receives University Award 24 Alumni event, a tour of underground Manchester 26 20 12 Soviet plans to invade Manchester 29 Manchester, a city of laughter 30 Alumni event, Alison Uttley revealed 33 Victorian peepshows and manchester freakshows 36 the opportunities afforded by the merger, strategically-focused institutions like ours Alumni in the Spotlight 38 that do not exist to the same extent in but we then took decisive action to Alumni Association news 40 balance our books and ensure that the easier circumstances. University budget is now back in surplus. One of the secret ingredients of the Development news 42 success of the University over the past six Thank goodness that we did, because the Alumni Benefits 48 external funding climate for all UK years has been the active and passionate universities is now taking a dramatic turn support that we have received from our for the worse. The kinds of bold 230,000 graduates around the world. I strategies that represented prudent risk have had the privilege of meeting many of Your Manchester is published by the you here on the campus and on my travels Communications, Media and Public Relations six years ago - and that in Manchester's Division in conjunction with the Division of case were vindicated by the results overseas over the past six years and I have Development and Alumni Relations, achieved - could not have been pursued seen for myself the high esteem in which The University of Manchester. you hold your University and the wide responsibly during a period of public For further information concerning any of the variety of ways that you continue to offer it funding stringency of the kind that UK articles in this issue please contact: your support. [email protected] higher education now faces. The articles printed here, to the best of our Thank you for that support. While I will be leaving The University of knowledge, were correct at the time of going to press. We cannot guarantee that all articles Manchester in a healthy financial position, submitted will be printed and we reserve the even the very strongest institutions will right to edit material where necessary. Furthermore, find it extremely challenging to manage the views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the sheer scale of the public funding cuts The University of Manchester, The University of likely to be compounded year-on-year over Manchester Alumni Association, or the Editor. the next five years or so. At the same time, I am aware that 'hard times' create Professor Alan Gilbert major opportunities for strong, President and Vice-Chancellor YOUR MANCHESTER 3 News Hidden star bursts into sight Astronomers at the Jodrell Bank Centre "Our own Sun will do this in about five for Astrophysics have discovered one of billion years time. The Bug nebula, which is the hottest stars in the Galaxy with a about 3,500 light years a way in the surface temperature of around 200,000 constellation Scorpius, is one of the most degrees - 35 times hotter than the Sun. spectacular of all planetary nebulae." Despite numerous attempts by astronomers Using the recently refurbished Hubble Space across the world, the mysterious dying star Telescope, a team of astronomers, led by at the heart of the Bug nebula, one of the Professor Zijlstra, has shed new light on the brightest and most beautiful of the nebula with a set of spectacular images. planetary nebulae, has never been The images were taken to show off the new seen before. improved Hubble after it began work again New National “This star was so hard to find because it is in September. hidden behind a cloud of dust and ice in Professor Zijlstra added: “It's extremely the middle of the nebula”, said Professor Clinical Director important to understand planetary nebulae Albert Zijlstra. such as the Bug Nebula, as they are crucial for Dementia "Planetary nebulae like the Bug form when a to understanding our own existence on dying star ejects much of its gas back into Earth. The elements necessary for life, Professor Alistair Burns will promote space and they are among the most beautiful especially carbon, are created inside stars, better care of people with dementia objects in the night sky. and ejected into space as part of these within the NHS and social care planetary nebulae.” communities and provide leadership for the implementation of the National Dementia Strategy. Formerly the University’s Professor of Old Age Psychiatry, Professor Burns developed the South Manchester Memory Clinic which provides specialist assessment and diagnosis for people with memory problems. He is alnso a instrumental part of the Old Age Psychiatry General Hospital liaison service and helped establish a Dementia Drug Treatment clinic. Professor Burns said: “I am delighted to have been appointed to the post of National Clinical Director for Dementia. In the past few years, there has been a great deal of public interest in dementia and several influential initiatives, in particular the National Dementia Strategy. The challenge now is to build on this to make a real positive difference to people with dementia, their families and carers. I very much look forward to working with colleagues to realise this ambition.” 4 YOUR MANCHESTER Providing support to Haitians following earthquake devastation Photo by Norman Scott / Rex Features © Professor Tony Redmond, the Deputy “Following on from this, we have worked Accompanying him to Kosovo were Dr Jenny Director of the new Humanitarian and with the Chinese to develop a Major Peterson, a social scientist, and MA student Conflict Response Institute, has recently Incident Medical Management Support Natalie Wood, who formed a multi-disciplinary returned from Haiti where he devised training programme and six Chinese doctors team there. This approach sets the HCRI apart health needs assessments for a number recently came to Manchester to complete from other UK-based relief organisations. of agencies including the British this. In 2010, we will be rolling out the “We are writing a research paper on my Department for International course in China, where it will be adapted by work in Kosovo in which we look at the Development. He also led a team of the Chinese.” situation now, ten years on, from a medical surgeons providing emergency medicine as well as a political p oint of view,” alongside the charity Merlin.