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Leaving event for Professor Paul Gough
Join us for a leaving celebration and exhibition for Professor Paul Gough
Date and time: Thursday 30 January 2025, 18.00–20.00
Location: TheGallery, AUB Campus
The Chancellor Professor Sir Christopher Frayling, and Chair of AUB Board of Governors Dorothy Mackenzie, invite you and a guest to a leaving celebration and exhibition for Professor Paul Gough.
The event will celebrate Paul’s years of service to arts education and will also welcome Lisa Mann to the role of Principal and Vice-Chancellor.
After 40 years in higher education, of which 10 years have been spent in the most senior leadership positions in this country and overseas, Paul will step down as Vice-Chancellor of AUB in January 2025.
In marking this moment, the AUB Chair of Governors Dorothy Mackenzie placed on record the Board’s appreciation of Paul's distinctive contribution, adding that he has brought extraordinary energy and vision to AUB, as well as providing inspirational leadership both internally and more broadly across the sector.
This event will include an exhibition of Paul's artwork and publications in TheGallery at AUB.
Event overview
Chair of the AUB Board Dorothy Mackenzie will address guests and lead the formal presentations and speeches for Professor Paul Gough, which begin at 18.30.
"Paul has led AUB over the past five very challenging years, working tirelessly and relentlessly yet always cheerfully and optimistically, with imagination and huge enthusiasm. He has strengthened AUB’s identity as a university and nurtured the strong sense of family, community and belonging that is so important to everyone at AUB.
"Paul is the epitome of the modern 'Renaissance Man'. A man of many talents and interests: painter, writer, scholar, communicator, curator, influencer, leader. As likely to be seen on TikTok as heard on the Moral Maze!
"He has been an inspiring leader for AUB, setting new directions and ways of working internally, while playing an important role nationally through chairing UKADIA and working with GuildHE and beyond. His definitive book on Gilbert Spencer is a testament to his scholarship and writing skill, and he carries on his own painting practice.
"Paul has been determined that AUB should play a civic role that delivers practical benefits to the community. From the rebirth of Palace Court Theatre to the encouragement of Saturday Art School and short courses, he has positioned AUB as an important contributor to local economy, culture, and wellbeing."
– Dorothy Mackenzie
Please RSVP via email by 17 January 2025.
About Professor Paul Gough
Paul Gough was appointed to the position at AUB in 2019, having served six years as Vice President at RMIT University, Melbourne. During his tenure in Bournemouth, as part of the new 2030 Strategy that he led, the University has grown from 3,000 students to over 4,600 and has expanded its online and hybrid delivery through a suite of new Master’s programmes designed for the global market. As part of an expanded portfolio of courses, new validation partnerships were established in London, and transnational AUB degrees devised in Southeast Asia. A new School of Arts, Media and Creative Industries Management was opened in 2023 and significant progress made on the pathway to gaining research degree awarding powers.
AUB continues to offer a comprehensive provision of skills and education, from short courses and summer schools, through to its Foundation course, which was ranked by Ofsted as ‘Outstanding’ in Spring 2023, an enlarged portfolio of undergraduate degrees, and an expanded Graduate School with campus-based and online provision.
Achieving a markedly improved return for REF 2021, the University has significantly increased its industry engagement, opening an Innovation Studio, funded by ERDF and LEP, in 2020 and maximising its civic engagement through several town centre initiatives including the purchase and restoration of the Palace Court Theatre, which opened its doors to community and stakeholders in 2023. As a result of its increased business and community engagement, AUB was awarded HEIF funding for the first time in 2022, and again in following years. As a mark of its research growth in creative technologies, AUB was awarded competitive research funding of £1.64 million from the AHRC E3 programme, for the PLASTiCS project, 2004–07.
Paul's contribution to the national creative arts community was marked in 2020 by his five-year appointment as Chair of UKADIA – the UK Arts and Design Institutions Association – where he forged links with international federated bodies, such as DDCA and ACUADS in Australia, and ELIA in Europe. During Gough’s tenure, UKADIA also created a formal alliance with FDS, the Federation of Drama Schools, and devised through the leadership of AUB’s Deputy Vice Chancellor, Lisa Mann, the Graduate Careers Framework, which was launched in Autumn 2024.
During his tenure as Vice-Chancellor at AUB, Gough maintained an active studio practice and exhibited in the UK, Southeast Asia, the USA, and Australia. In addition to other scholarly works, he completed a monograph on the painter Gilbert Spencer RA, published by Yale University Press in 2024. He also helped create and stage a touring exhibition of Spencer’s work to UK venues throughout 2024 and 2025. Gough maintained a high media profile particularly in regard to his published works on the street artist, Banksy, amassing 1.7 million views for a TikTok video on the artist that went viral during summer 2022.
Professor Paul Gough is a painter, broadcaster, author and curator, who has exhibited internationally and is represented in the permanent collection of the Imperial War Museum, London; the Canadian War Museum, Ottawa; and the National War Memorial, New Zealand. Along with leading roles in international higher education and global research assessment, his research into the representation of war and peace has been presented to audiences throughout the world.
Gough has published nine books, including monographs on the British painters Stanley Spencer, brothers Paul and John Nash, and several comprehensive studies of art from both World Wars. Over the past decades, he's curated many exhibitions including Crossing the Line, an exhibition about street art with fellow curator Joshua Reed, at TheGallery at AUB, which was accompanied by the publication Crossing the Line: From Alley to Gallery. The exhibition was staged in two locations in Bournemouth – TheGallery (2021) and GIANT Gallery, Bournemouth (2022).
Among other exhibitions, Gough curated Shock and Awe: Contemporary Art at War and Peace, Brothers in Arms, and an exhibition of the works of John and Paul Nash. An illustrated biography of the artist Gilbert Spencer will be published by Yale University Press in Spring 2024. Gough is currently writing his second book about the street artist Banksy.
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TheGallery
Arts University Bournemouth
Wallisdown, Poole
Dorset
BH12 5HH
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