The University of Warwick is to award a Chancellor’s medal to Leamington resident Jim Rushton who was for many years Deputy Registrar of the University. The medal will be awarded on the occasion of the installation of the University of Warwick’s new Chancellor, CBI Director-General Richard Lambert, on the evening of Wednesday 10th December.

James (‘Jim’) Rushton joined the University in 1969 and was appointed Deputy Registrar in 1983. His work covered most areas of University management, with a particular concentration on income-generating activities.

Jim initiated, led and supported some of the University’s most successful non-academic, income generating activities. These included the establishment of Warwick’s Hospitality Services and its three thriving conference centres (Arden House, Radcliffe House and Scarman House); Jobs.ac.uk (a jobs portal developed and managed by Warwick on behalf of other universities to recruit academic and professional staff) and AdsFab (a specialist advertising agency aimed at the higher education market).

Jim also played an important part in raising the University’s profile at home and abroad. At home, he founded Warwick’s International Office – the first of its kind in any UK university. He negotiated numerous agreements with overseas governments to fund scholarship programmes for students studying at Warwick including Mexico, Argentina and Eastern Europe. Earlier in his career, he himself spent some time working abroad, when he was seconded for six months to the University of Benin in Nigeria in the late 1970s.

Jim’s acknowledged expertise on university management and ‘the Warwick Way’ led to lecture tours for the British Council and EU-funded programmes world-wide including Belarus, Ethiopia and Poland. He undertook consultancy on higher education development in Nigeria, Namibia, Poland, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Romania and Argentina, and in 1996 served as a member of the Presidential Commission of Enquiry into the University of Guyana. He was also the lead developer of the Higher Education Management Programme, run jointly by Warwick and Oxford, which was attended by university administrators from across the Commonwealth.

Also receiving a Chancellor’s medal that evening will be the former Coventry Teacher Juliet Amery – find out more in a separate press release.

There will be a photo opportunity with Jim and the Chancellor at 6.15pm on Wednesday 10th December 2008 in the National Grid Room at Warwick Arts Centre. Photographers should ask for Dr Roberta Warman.

For further information please contact:

Peter Dunn, Press and Media Relations Manager, Communications Office,
University House University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 8UW
024 76 523708 or 07767 655860
email: p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk

PR97 PJD
9th December 2008