THE INDEPENDENT
COLLEGE STARS: CELEBRITY CHANCELLORS
26 February 2014
Brian May
The Queen guitarist served as chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University for five years. The anti-badger cull campaigner – who completed a PhD in astrophysics four decades after dropping out of university to be a rock star – was replaced by Lord Leveson in 2013.
Sir Trevor McDonald
ITN’s first black newsreader was appopinted chancellor of London South Bank University in 1999. He handed over to “Dragon’s Den” star Richard Farleigh last year.
Floella Benjamin
The former “Playschool” presenter has been chancellor of Exeter University since 2006. As well as a successful acting career she led a 20 year campaign to appoint a Minister for Children and was elevated to the peerage in 2010.
Sir Michael Parkinson
In his inaugural speech after becoming the first chancellor of Nottingham Trent University in 2008, he said of his own truncated formal education: “I didn’t so much leave Barnsley Grammar School as flee the premises.”
Professor Sir Patrick Stewart
Better known to millions of “Star Trek” fans as Jean-Luc Picard, the Yorkshireman moved back to the UK from Los Angeles in 2004 and has taught acting master classes at the University of Huddersfield where he is chancellor and a professor of performing arts.