A number of respected figures are to be awarded honorary degrees from the University of Essex at graduation ceremonies in July.
The University’s former Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Ivor Crewe; actress Juliet Stevenson; Dragon’s Den entrepreneur Doug Richard; a Holocaust survivor who educates younger generations about the Second World War, Dora Love; internationally renowned human rights lawyer Nuala Mole; telecommunications expert Neil McArthur; and distinguished mathematical scientist Professor John Francis Toland will rub shoulders with more than 2,000 Essex students collecting their undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.
Honorary degrees will be awarded to:
Professor Sir Ivor Crewe was the University’s Vice-Chancellor for twelve years. During this time, Essex grew from 5,500 students to almost 9,000, while the University engaged in the largest building programme since its foundation and won recognition as one of the UK's leading academic institutions.
Sir Ivor, knighted in the 2006 New Year's Honours, also served as President of Universities UK which represents heads of UK universities. He joined Essex’s Department of Government from Oxford and served as Director of the Social Science Data Archive, Head of Department and Pro-Vice-Chancellor.
Sir Ivor has featured regularly as a political commentator in the media, directed the British Election Study from 1973 to 1981 and published ten books. He is currently Master of University College, Oxford.
Dora Love is a Holocaust survivor, born in Lithuania and now settled in Colchester who educates younger generations about the Holocaust. She was deported to the Stutthoff concentration camp near Danzig (Gdansk) with her mother, sister and one brother. All, except Dora, perished.
Although Stutthof was the only camp never liberated, Dora was one of a group that reached Neustadt/Holstein, on barges, on 3 May 1945. There she worked on translations for war crime trials for the British Army, UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) and the American Joint Distribution Committee.
After her marriage to Frank Love, a member of the British Army, she was reunited with her father in 1946. Her husband’s work took her to South Africa, where her two children were born. Her daughter became a freedom fighter in the South African Underground movement and later a member of the parliament led by Nelson Mandela. Dora’s son is Professor of Neuropathology in Bristol.
Neil McArthur graduated from Essex with a degree in telecommunications in 1979. He set up his first business providing control systems and robotic automation in 1981.
Following industry de-regulation he went onto create Opal Telecom, which was acquired by The Carphone Warehouse plc in 2002 and resulted in the launch of the TalkTalk consumer fixed-line and broadband business. Neil is Chairman of TalkTalk Technology, the networks operating division, and has seen revenue expand from £100 million to over £1 billion today. The network supports over 4 million residential and business customers. In 2005, the company won the Queen’s Award for Innovation.
Neil is also Chairman and a trustee of the Hamilton Davies Trust, a charity awarding grants to education, youth, sport and community projects.
Nuala Mole is an internationally renowned human rights lawyer and advocate who led two of the world’s principal pro bono legal advice and advocacy organisations: Interrights and the AIRE Centre, which she founded.
Initially specialising in immigration and asylum, her work now includes all aspects of international human rights law. Nuala was chosen by the Council of Europe to represent human rights NGOs at the 50th anniversary of the European Convention and was Law Society Human Rights Lawyer of the Year (2001).
Nuala was part of the legal team in over 70 cases before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Since 2001 she has assisted in curriculum development and implementation for judicial training centres.
Doug Richard, who appeared in the first two series of Dragons' Den, is founder of School for Startups, Chairman and CEO of Trutap, founder and member of the Cambridge Angels, Chairman of the Conservative Party Small Business Task Force and non-executive director of AlertMe, VizWoz and BeatsDigital.
Doug is a successful entrepreneur with 20 years' experience in the development and leadership of technology and software ventures in the US and the UK. Between 1996 and 2000 he was President and CEO of Micrografx, a US publicly quoted software company. Prior to that he founded and subsequently sold two other companies, Visual Software and ITAL Computers.
Doug holds a BA Psychology from University of California, Berkeley and a Juris Doctor at the School of Law, University of California, Los Angeles. In 2006 Doug was an Honorary Recipient of The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion and in 2007 became a fellow of the RSA.
Juliet Stevenson CBE is one of the UK’s most prominent theatre, film and television actresses. Born in Essex, she was trained at RADA and later spent almost a decade with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
She has worked regularly at the Royal National Theatre, most recently in The Seagull (2006), the Royal Court Theatre and in the West End. She is perhaps best known for her film work, specifically her roles in Drowning by Numbers (1988), Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991), Emma (1996) and Bend It Like Beckham (2002).
She has also undertaken work for BBC Radio and has worked on television, including the 2003 drama Hear the Silence in which she played the mother of an autistic boy. Recently she appeared alongside Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent in the film And When Did You Last See Your Father? She was awarded the CBE in 1999.
Professor John Francis Toland is a distinguished mathematical scientist who worked at Essex between 1973 and 1979.
Now professor at the University of Bath, he is a Royal Society-Wolfson Merit Award Holder and Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. As well as editing journals, Professor Toland is Scientific Director of the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS).
Professor Toland held a Senior Research Fellowship from the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council and was president of the London Mathematical Society. He has published over 90 books and papers and solved GG Stokes’ 150 year-old problem on the existence of gravity waves of maximum height on deep water.
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For pictures of the 2009 honorary graduands, please contact the Communications Office on: 01206 872807 or e-mail: comms@essex.ac.uk.
The honorary graduands will attend the following ceremonies:
• Nuala Mole, ceremony one at 10am on Wednesday 15 July
• Professor John Francis Toland, ceremony three at 4pm on Wednesday 15 July
• Professor Sir Ivor Crewe, ceremony four at 10am on Thursday 16 July
• Juliet Stevenson CBE, ceremony five at 1pm on Thursday 16 July
• Neil McArthur, ceremony six at 4pm on Thursday 16 July
• Doug Richard, ceremony seven at 10am on Friday 17 July
• Dora Love, ceremony eight at 1pm on Friday 17 July
For more information, please contact the University of Essex Communications Office on telephone: 01206 872807 or e-mail: comms@essex.ac.uk