Queen Margaret takes centre stage in university debut

Edinburgh, 5 July 2007; With all the colour, pomp and ceremony of history in the making, Scotland’s capital city will gain its fourth university on Thursday 5 July when Queen Margaret University (QMU) ceremonially marks its achievement of full university title, and its newly installed chancellor leads the academic procession through Edinburgh’s ancient streets.

The day’s celebrations will begin in the Assembly Hall when the First Minister will welcome QMU as a full member of the Scottish university system and Sir Tom Farmer CBE KCSG accepts office as the University’s founding Chancellor. A ceremonial mace will be gifted by the University of Edinburgh to QM. The formalities will be interspersed with musical and film interludes by students, including a Bengali folk song based on Burns’ ‘Ye Banks and Braes’ and performances by the new university’s fiddle group and choir, reflecting the cultural diversity among QMU students.

The University’s Principal, Professor Anthony Cohen, said:

‘Today, Queen Margaret University comes of age, as Scotland’s first new university of the post-devolution era. We have earned our place among Scotland’s universities through a substantial record of achievement in teaching and research; and by having successfully undergone an exhaustive and rigorous process of scrutiny to warrant our standards. Our commitment is to contribute to Scotland’s knowledge economy through the further development of relevant and applicable knowledge in our specialist areas; to further widening the opportunity for higher education both at home and through our international partnerships abroad; and, as Scotland’s smallest university, to making ourselves sustainable and indispensable to the country’s university sector and civil society.’

The award of full university title confirms QMU’s long-established position as a university level institution carrying out high quality teaching and research. With the university’s new campus, university title provides a strong platform for QMU to develop further its already successful record in research, learning and teaching, and its pioneering international activity in India, Sri Lanka, Singapore and the Middle East.

First Minister Alex Salmond said:

“This is a wonderful and historic day for Queen Margaret as it marks achieving its full university title.  I am delighted to be able to take part in the celebrations which are being enjoyed by all those associated with this fine institution.  I am also pleased to welcome the appointment of Sir Tom Farmer to the position of Chancellor at Queen Margaret University.  I have no doubt he will be a great asset to the University as it begins this exciting new chapter.”

The University focuses on the health professions, of which it has the widest range of any of the Scottish universities, including the U.K.’s outstanding centre of excellence in speech science; on business and management, especially in the fields of public services and international hospitality and tourism; and in drama, media and communication. Queen Margaret’s academic expertise is focused on subjects which are of immediate social relevance, which directly touch people’s lives and which enhance the quality of life.

This reflects the institution’s long history of ‘knowledge translation’ in areas of pressing social need: in 1875 Christian Guthrie Wright and Louisa Stevenson established an institution to train women from all backgrounds to create better standards of health for their families by developing their nutritional knowledge.

QMU's evolution into a powerful force in Scottish higher education gains physical expression this summer when the university relocates more than 5,000 students and staff to its brand new campus at Craighall, to the east of Edinburgh.

This massive £105 million development project has created a vibrant new academic campus, complete with 800-bed student residences. The campus’ sustainable, environmentally intelligent buildings have been sensitively designed around richly bio-diverse parkland spaces, and set within woodland to minimise the impact on the surrounding countryside. High tech teaching spaces and flexible laboratories and clinics are all linked by the most modern IT infrastructure using thin-client technology. Students and staff have a choice of excellent sports and leisure facilities both on and off campus. When it opens in 2007 it will become the most sustainable University campus in the UK.

Shortly after receiving university title in January, QMU announced the appointment of Sir Tom Farmer CBE KCSG, founder of Kwik Fit and one of Scotland’s most dynamic business and philanthropic figures, as its first chancellor. Sir Tom joins QMU at the start of what promises to be the institution’s most exciting era yet as it seeks to realise its full potential to contribute to the nation’s health and wealth.

"I am delighted to be appointed the first Chancellor to Scotland's newest and most exciting University. I now look forward to being associated with the students and others involved with the University,” said Sir Tom Farmer.