Ian Mean sits down with Dame Clare Marchant, vice chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire

In the run-up to the official opening of the University of Gloucestershire's City Campus by the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, Ian Mean sits down with Dame Clare Marchant to talk

Dame Clare Marchant, the relatively new vice chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire is a tough cookie.

She needs to be as we see over 40 per cent of our universities struggling with big deficits.

Gloucestershire has a small deficit, but a strong net inflow of cash.

However, the going is very tough.

The university’s new City campus- developed from the iconic former Debenhams building in the centre of Gloucester- started as a £40 million project with the final costs £75 million.

Clare has a professional pedigree that really does fit the role commercially. She previously headed up UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) in Cheltenham and had also been the chief executive of Worcestershire County Council.

She is very open and refreshingly honest about her university challenge since being appointed two years ago.

“For the first time, universities are waking up to the fact the commercial world is tough and their whole survival depends on having the right courses for the right jobs”, she tells me.

As a result, the university are revalidating all their courses. They have between 250-300 and have so far closed about ten per cent of those with more consolidation to come.

Job outcomes for the students, are of course, the key issue- getting a good job after graduating.

As well as trimming courses that may not have relevance to current job opportunities, Clare has been disposing of buildings they no longer need in the struggle to be viable.

At the last count they were down to around 70 buildings in Cheltenham and Gloucester. I have always thought that the university estate was far too disjointed and spread out throughout the area to have a feel of a real home.

Without a doubt, the former Debenhams building fills that gap.

I find it very welcoming-from Stan the smiling security man through to its spaciousness and soft colours. It is obviously proving a big hit with readers who use the new City library housed on the ground floor of the building.

I asked Clare what she thought you need to be famous as a university. She was candid.

“The Skills White Paper talks about three important themes”, she said. ”One is quality, the other is collaboration and the third is specialisation.

“I think there is something we have been trying to do for the last two years which attunes to that. We are never going to be small and specialist.

“But we do need to specialise a bit more than in the past. In terms of what we are going to be famous for I would say this.

“When I stand up before applicants and parents I tell them that if you want your child to go to a big urban metropolis that doesn’t necessarily feel connected to students-to their personalities, to each other and to their sense of place this isn’t the place for you.

“Here I hope you should be able to pass people in the corridor and you have people you can say hello to. That sense of communication is something I would like us to be known for.

“And I would like us to be known for encouraging what can be a diverse group of students. We have 36 per cent of students joining us in the last year who declared a disability”.

What is her long term plan?

“I firmly believe in quality so we put a lot of our focus on the student experience”, she says.

*Ian Mean is former editor in chief of Gloucestershire Media and editor of the Western Daily Press.