Comment | 'Difficult decisions and transformative change mark decade in charge'
By Professor Trevor McMillan OBE, Vice-Chancellor of Keele University. This article first appeared as a Personally Speaking column in the Stoke Sentinel in August, 2025.
At the end of this week I hand over the Vice-Chancellor's reins for Keele University to Professor Kevin Shakesheff who is joining from the Open University, and I wish him every success as head of this wonderful university.
A Vice-Chancellor's job is a complex one, and an increasingly difficult one. The complexity comes in part from the wide range of "business" that is done in universities. For example, 2,000 staff and 13,000 students from a very wide range of backgrounds and with a wide range of needs, have a right to detailed attention and support in order to help them succeed in their studies or the roles that they play. The increasing difficulty in making sure we can provide this support is, in no small part, a result of the fact that we currently do not have a financially sustainable model for higher education in this country. Difficult decisions have been made in many universities, including Keele, but they are always done with the best interests of the university as a whole at their heart.
We often say that Keele was 'born to be different', but we sometimes struggle to know exactly what that means. I believe it comes from the fact that staff are dedicated to Keele and our students, and they don't just see it as a place of work or a conduit for their own personal ambitions. In the last few weeks we have seen this reflected in excellent outcomes in this year's National Student Survey and very high, and still improving, outcomes for our graduates when they leave.
We also continue to believe that our core function is to have a positive transformative effect on the lives of the people we interact with. I have written recently in this column about the regional impact Keele has but there are many, many more examples that I could quote including that recent data has again shown that we are one of the leading universities in the country in addressing the important topic of sustainable energy supply and usage. The starting up of our Law Clinic in the recently opened Keele In Town facility in the centre of Newcastle-under-Lyme is another shining example of staff and students working together for the good of our communities. And the soon to be opened Institute of Technology, led by Newcastle and Stafford College Group with Keele as its university partner, is a landmark initiative that lays out what key aspects of a modern post-16 education system can look like.
Transformative change delivered by universities comes in many forms; from the opportunities that we give young people whose families don’t have a natural predilection towards education being taken to high levels, to the discovery of new treatments for common diseases, or increasing our understanding of how society works (or sometimes doesn't work!). These are all a critical part of what a forward looking and civilised society should be and I am proud of what Keele has done in the last decade to be part of this.
All of this makes the Vice-Chancellor's position at Keele fascinating, rewarding and a genuine privilege, so once again I wish Professor Shakesheff and the university every success for the future. And I thank all of our partners across Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire who help make Keele University what it is.
