Colin Day
Areas of Interest
Business, Education, Environment and AgricultureHonorary Award
Honorary Doctor of the University, 2007Biography
Colin Day served Anglia Ruskin University for more than twelve years, most notably during his term as Chairman of Governors. A Chartered Public Finance Accountant, Colin has many wide ranging business skills including negotiating, managing and motivating. He joined the Board of Governors in 1995 and held his first meeting as Chairman in 2002, after which followed a period of unprecedented growth and expansion.
Under his leadership, student numbers have grown from 17,000 in 1995 to about 27,000 today. Over the same period our University has invested some £85 million in new facilities for students, become the UK's number one provider of face to face part-time university education and begun the development of new fledgling universities in Peterborough and King's Lynn. Colin, who retired as Chairman of the Board of Governors in 2006, is recognised for his unfailing and unprecedented contribution to the quality, credibility and standing of our University.
In 2007 Colin Day was awarded the Honorary degree of Doctor of the University.
Citation
"The Senate of Anglia Ruskin University has great pleasure in recommending the award of Honorary Doctorate of the University to an individual in recognition of his unfailing and unprecedented contribution to the quality, credibility and standing of Anglia Ruskin University over the last decade.
Colin Day, despite his youthful appearance, has notched up 44 years experience in the workplace, initially in the offices of his local council but principally in the City of London, as a senior business leader both here and internationally and latterly as business adviser.
Colin has served Anglia Ruskin University for more than twelve years, most notably during his term as chairman. He joined the Board of Governors on 29 June 1995 and then held his first meeting as Chairman on 4 April 2002, after which followed a period of unprecedented growth and expansion.
Under his leadership, in those twelve years, student numbers have grown from 17,000 in 1995 to about 27,000 today. Over the same period Anglia Ruskin University has invested some £85 million in new facilities for students, become the UK's number one provider of face to face part time university education and begun the development of new fledgling universities in Peterborough and King's Lynn.
Colin, a Chartered Public Finance Accountant, has many wide ranging business skills including negotiating, managing and motivating but perhaps his greatest strength is as that of an ambassador, winning friends and influencing people wherever he turns. A dab hand with a spade, he has cut new turf on the many and spectacular new buildings that now grace the burgeoning Rivermead campus in addition to opening many newly refurbished and beautified teaching and learning spaces.
Colin is a man of the highest principles and standards but never afraid to lead from the front and by example. He has inspired many people at Anglia Ruskin, particularly those who went with him on trips with Anglia's Mission Croatia initiative to see him join staff and students in the far from glamorous job of re-building a children's hospital at Kraljevica, a coastal town on the Adriatic.
A man who is deeply proud of his North Yorkshire Grammar School education has never forgotten his roots, nevertheless, he has grown to love the county of Essex and the East of England where he has settled. The fact that he did not go to university has made him ever more proud of Anglia Ruskin's mission to make a university education available to all who seek it.
In his spare time, such as it is, he is a magistrate in Hertfordshire, a breeder and exhibitor of rare cattle and sheep, in fact the inspiration for Jimmy's Farm, a trustee of the World Wildlife Fund and a keen golfer.
An extraordinary force in business - he has helped to make the University what it is today. He is also a very nice man indeed and a joy to work for and with. It is our pleasure to honour him today.
I hereby exercise the power conferred on me by Senate, to invite the Vice Chancellor to bestow the award of Honorary Doctor of the University upon Colin Day."