Alan Gilbert, 65, Mastermind behind the 2004 merger of the University of Manchester
Hoodoo
Mastermind behind the 2004 merger of the University of Manchester
Keith Bradley
guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 August 2010 18.42 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/aug/09/alan-gilbert-obituary
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Admin/BkFill/Default_image_group/2010/8/9/1281374596070/Alan-Gilbert.-006.jpg
Alan Gilbert was a social historian with a sharp Aussie wit.
Alan Gilbert, who has died aged 65 from a heart condition, served as the
inaugural president and vice-chancellor of the merged University of
Manchester. He oversaw the amalgamation in 2004 of the Victoria
University of Manchester and the University of Manchester Institute of
Science and Technology (Umist), the biggest such merger in British
higher education history.
The merger was not without its challenges. Agreements with unions not to
cut staff numbers following the unification, and a strategic decision to
invest in new staff and facilities, meant the fledging university was
£30m in the red by 2007. Alan's business acumen – he was named
north-west business leader of the year in 2006, not bad for an
educationist – ensured this deficit was remedied. Within a year the
university was back in the black, after selling off land, losing 650
jobs and securing more research funding.
Alan had a vision for the university, outlined in the Manchester 2015
agenda, to reach the top 25 higher education institutions in the world
by 2015. Manchester quickly climbed up the international academic league
tables. It is now ranked 41st in the world, seventh in Europe and fifth
in the UK, according to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University league table
for 2009.
Alan was a distinguished scholar, one of a new breed of social
historians to introduce quantitative methods into their research. His
interests lay in the secularisation of western societies. He traced this
secularisation to Jewish monotheism, which he called "a potent, creative
cultural force" that also led to "a dichotomy between 'sacred' and
'profane' aspects of reality [and] established an intellectual framework
within which secularisation was almost bound to occur". His books
include Religion and Society in Industrial England: Church, Chapel and
Social Change, 1740-1914, published in 1976, and The Making of
Post-Christian Britain: A History of the Secularisation of Modern
Society (1980). He was one of four editors of Australians: A Historical
Library (1987), an 11-volume history of Australia.
Born in Brisbane, Alan graduated from the Australian National University
in Canberra with first-class honours and completed his master's in
history in 1967. His academic career began as a history lecturer at the
University of Papua New Guinea, where many of his students went on to
shape the island's future, including one who became the country's prime
minister. He obtained a doctorate in modern history from Oxford
University in 1973. His thesis was on the growth and decline of
nonconformity in England and Wales.
Alan returned to Australia as a lecturer at the University of New South
Wales, where he was able to establish his academic reputation as a
historian in the social and religious history of Britain and Australia.
He was appointed professor of history at the university in 1981, before
becoming its pro-vice-chancellor (research) in 1988. He was elected as a
fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia two years later.
Alan's managerial career in higher education continued to develop, and
in 1991 he became vice-chancellor and principal of the University of
Tasmania, where he oversaw its merger with the Tasmanian State Institute
of Technology. In 1996, Alan became the vice-chancellor and principal of
the University of Melbourne. He is credited with the university's
transformation, overseeing a dramatic regeneration of the physical
structure of the university and attracting world-class academics to the
institution. Considered by many to be less successful was the
establishment in 1998 of Melbourne University Private (MUP), an
independent body established to work alongside the University of
Melbourne. The project was abandoned in 2005. The MUP building – now
part of the public University of Melbourne – is named the Alan Gilbert
Building.
Alan's leadership credentials in higher education and his experience in
overseeing the Tasmania merger prepared him for the creation in 2004 of
the University of Manchester, Britain's largest university. The
Manchester campus today is almost unrecognisable from when Alan took
office, having undergone a £400m transformation. Under his stewardship
the university managed to attract a number of academic heavyweights,
including Nobel laureates John Sulston and Joseph Stiglitz. Alan knew
when he embarked on the Manchester mission that the institution he would
help mould would be as vital to the city and the region of north-west
England as their support would be to the university.
Alan became an officer of the Order of Australia in 2008. He retired
from the University of Manchester earlier this year and had planned to
return to writing. Alan displayed vision and inspiration as a university
leader, and dynamism and flair as an entrepreneur. As a former
colleague, I will miss Alan's generosity, compassion and his sharp
Aussie wit. His death is a loss to the international academic community
and not least to the generations of students that were his lifeblood and
for whom he cared so passionately about.
He is survived by his wife, Ingrid, whom he married in 1967, and their
daughters, Michelle and Fiona.
• Alan David Gilbert, historian and university administrator, born 11
September 1944; died 27 July 2010
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