University Announces Honorary Awards List
2 December 2008
Jasvinder Sanghera. (Photograph copyright of GSR photographic).
Professor Robert Howie.
The University of Derby today announces the recipients of its eight honorary awards as part of the forthcoming annual Awards Ceremonies in both Buxton and Derby.
Each year, a selection of high achievers with links to Derbyshire are decorated with the academic honorary doctorates by the University, as more than 2,000 students celebrate alongside them by collecting their own degree awards.
As annual highlights of the University’s calendar to celebrate student academic achievement, the Buxton Awards Ceremony will be held this Saturday (December 6), with the Derby ceremonies taking place in late January.
Derby
Campaigner Jasvinder Sanghera and ITV editor-in-chief David Mannion head up the list of six honorary award winners at the Derby ceremonies, to take place on January 23-24 at the Assembly Rooms in Derby.
Jasvinder Sanghera, 43, is an accomplished campaigner, speaker and writer on the subjects of forced marriage and 'honour' based violence. She is also project founder and director of Karma Nirvana, a Derby-based support refuge charity helping mostly Asian men and women affected by these issues.
She was instrumental in the change in the law, which came into force last month, allowing a third party to apply to the courts for a Forced Marriage Protection Order, preventing someone being taken abroad for, or be forced into, marriage.
Jasvinder received a national Women of the Year award in 2007 and, last October, won one of the UK Inspiration Awards, through the Breakthrough Breast Cancer charity. Her autobiographical book Shame, published in 2007, was a best seller and a follow-up volume is due shortly.
She is currently working on a University of Derby PhD, researching ‘honour’ based violence. Jasvinder lives in Derbyshire with her family. She said: “I am absolutely delighted to hear that I am receiving an honorary doctor award from the University. I am born and bred in Derby and it means so much to be awarded this.”
Born and raised in Derby, Jasvinder describes herself as living the normal life of a daughter of Indian born parents, until they began to increasingly restrict her freedom.
She was shocked when they one day produced a photograph of a man she’d never seen before and told her this was her future husband. Her sisters had previously been taken to India to marry and Jasvinder’s sister Robina was to commit suicide, aged 24, by setting herself alight, rather than leave a violent relationship.
With the help of the man she would later marry, Jasvinder ran away from home aged 16. She initially believed her family would accept her decision but, apart from a partial reconciliation with her mother shortly before she died, Jasvinder remains estranged from them – but through her work has given hope and strength to thousands of people.
Derby-born David Mannion – who produces ITN News, and famously secured Nelson Mandela’s first interview after his release from prison, said: “It is a tremendous honour. I am thrilled to hear about this award.” The other Derby honorary award winners are:
John Tams - Honorary Doctor of Letters: Five times BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winner, and recognised nationally as a composer and performer of folk music for over 40 years, promoting his Derbyshire origins within his work. He is also a well known character actor.
Peter Gould - Honorary Master of Music: Peter Gould was appointed Master of Music at Derby Cathedral in 1983. Over the last 25 years, he has created and established two choirs and has made a remarkable contribution, not simply to the life of the Cathedral, but to the cultural life of the City and the County as a whole.
Professor Robert Howie – Honorary Doctor of Science: An outstanding research scientist, abstractor and author of the most widely known textbooks on mineralogy. He is also one of the few scientists to have a mineral named in his honour (the Fe-Mn Silicate Howieite).
John Knollys Bather – Honorary Doctor of the University: John has been Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire for 14 years. He has given outstanding service that he has given to the University, the City of Derby and the County of Derbyshire over a period of more than thirty years.
More details about the preparations for the Derby Awards Ceremonies will be announced in the coming weeks.
Buxton
At our Devonshire Campus in Buxton, Andreas Kunzli and Joyce Ellis have been named as the honorary award winners for the Buxton Ceremonies this weekend – Saturday, December 6. They join about 175 students preparing to collect their degree certificates bedecked in gowns and wearing mortar boards.
The event is set to include a non denominational service at St Anne’s Church in Terrace Road at 10.45am, before a formal procession through the town at 11.25am led by the Chapel-en-le-Frith brass band back to the Devonshire Campus for the ceremony. There is also an evening event hosted by the Students’ Union at the Railway Hotel.
Joyce receives an Honorary Degree of Master of Music award. She is a former opera and concert singer who now works in choral education. Before joining Opera North as a founder member in 1978 Joyce was a member of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera and the Glyndebourne Touring Opera.
She founded the Kinder Children’s Choirs of the High Peak in 1991 and her work enables young people from a variety of backgrounds to come together and work through exciting but tough rehearsals to produce programmes which are recognised as astounding.
And Dr Andreas Kunzli will be made a Doctor of Education. He is a passionate advocate and provider of vocational education for the hospitality and tourism industry. The student experience is his top priority.
He has successfully grown the Swiss Hotel Management School from an intake of just 20 students each year to over 2,500 students in 15 years and he has been in partnership with the University of Derby for ten years. Around 200 students a year study on University of Derby Buxton programmes at the Leysin campus in Switzerland.
There will be reaction and pictures following our Buxton Awards Ceremonies on the University website.
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For more information about this news release, contact Deputy Head of Corporate Relations Simon Redfern on 01332 591942 or email: s.redfern@derby.ac.uk.
