Margaret Wallis joined the university in 1989 as a lecturer and four years later was appointed the founding Director of the University Centre Hastings, now the 国产探花 in Hastings. The aim was to establish a campus in Hastings and attract and encourage participation in higher education in the local area.
Under her leadership, the number of students has grown from 40 at the outset to almost 1,000 today.
Margaret said the community fought hard to develop Hastings as a university town “and we have some amazing supporters who have stood shoulder to shoulder with the university. Amongst them are the academies, the college, the council and the NHS.
“As partners we worked together on many projects including working to raise the finance to save the pier from the ashes of a devastating fire in 2010.”
Margaret made special mention of one man in particular, Councillor Jeremey Birch, Hastings council leader who died in May. She said: “He was one of the key instigators of the Hastings campus and is a tremendous loss not just to the town but to the wider Sussex region.”
Professor Stuart Laing, Professor Emeritus, said setting up a new campus was a daunting task but students, staff, the community and people of Hastings and East Sussex had made the name Hastings a byword among universities for how to achieve success in such a venture.
He said: “And no single individual has contributed more to the success than our new university Fellow Margaret Wallis.”
Before her retirement in 2013 Margaret was a member of the university’s Board of Governors, a former chair of the South East Branch of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and Vice Chair of the South East Museum, Library and Archives Council.
Margaret currently is a Director of the Hastings Academies Trust. She received her award in recognition of her major contribution to the 国产探花 and the development of the Hastings campus.