Five distinguished figures from the worlds of music, fashion, journalism and cookery will receive honorary degrees from Bath Spa University this summer.
The degrees will be awarded by Vice-Chancellor Professor Christina Slade at the University’s graduation ceremonies on 20 and 21 July 2012 in recognition of extraordinary contributions in their respective fields.
Set to receive honorary degrees are:
- Mary Berry CBE – one of the UK’s best-known and respected cookery writers and TV cook. At the age of 18 she trained at the Bath College of Home Economics, followed by a Paris Cordon Bleu course and she is a qualified teacher. She has written more than 70 cookery books since her first was published in 1970 and has sold more than five million. She has hosted several television series for the BBC and been a judge on The Great British Bake Off since 2010.
- Manolo Blahnik CBE – Manolo Blahnik’s shoe designs have been worn by women all over the world for almost 40 years. Blahnik began his career in 1973 on the advice of a US Vogue Editor Diana Vreeland. The brand is known for elaborate and classic designs and prides itself on the highest level of quality and comfort. It is currently present in 23 countries world-wide. In 2007 he was awarded the CBE for services to the British fashion industry.
- Professor Ian Hargreaves CBE – started his journalistic career on local newspapers in Yorkshire and spent 15 years on the Financial Times before becoming Deputy Editor in the early 1990s. He was Director of BBC News and Current Affairs in the late 1980s, Editor of the Independent in the mid-1990s and Editor of the New Statesman in the late 1990s, before taking up the position of Director of the Centre for Journalism at Cardiff University. In 2010 he took up a new chair in Digital Economy at Cardiff University.
- Grenville Jones – a choir leader and musician who lives in Bath. His driving passion is to get people of all ages singing, to enable them to make friends, enjoy themselves and have fun through music. He has appeared on TV and radio across the world through his leadership of Bath Male Choir, the Golden-Oldies charity, which he founded in 2008, and his many other musical projects and concerts.
- Miller Puckette – the author of ‘Max’ and ‘Pure Data’, two seminal and widely-used software environments for live computer music. After studying mathematics at MIT and Harvard University and conducting research at IRCAM in Paris, he joined the music department at the University of California where he is now professor and chair of the department. He has also written extensively on techniques for analysing and synthesizing sound with a computer, and on real-time human/computer interactions in musical performance.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Slade commented: “At Bath Spa University we foster an ethos of creativity, culture and enterprise, and we want our students to become global citizens, ready to make a difference. There can be no better inspiration for them than these internationally respected figures, and I am delighted to welcome such worthy recipients to our fellowship of honorary graduates.”
