Foundation Day lecture

Dr Gavin Esler, Chancellor of the University and award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author, delivered the 2014-15 Foundation Lecture on Thursday 20 November 2014.

The lecture, titled ‘Trust Me: How Trust has been diminished in the Suspicious Century’, took place in Woolf College Lecture Theatre on the Canterbury campus. Dr Esler discussed the Scottish independence referendum and how the lack of trust of Westminster played a big part in the campaign.

Dr Gavin Esler

Born in Glasgow and brought up in Edinburgh and Northern Ireland, Gavin Esler has worked for the BBC since 1977. He was its White House-based Chief North American Correspondent between 1989 and 1998, and has more recently been one of the three main presenters on BBC2’s Newsnight, as well as the main presenter on Dateline London (BBC World and BBC News Channel). He is the winner of a Royal Television Society Award, and in 2007 he won a Sony Gold Award for his radio documentary report on Sami al-Hajj, one of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay. Following the broadcast, al-Hajj was released from American custody.

Gavin Esler is also a regular newspaper and magazine writer and commentator. As an author, he has written a book on American discontent (The United States of Anger, 1997), a book on leadership (Lessons from the Top – The three universal stories that all successful leaders tell, 2013) and five novels. He is a BAFTA member and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

He graduated from Kent with a BA in English and American Literature in 1974, and was awarded an honorary MA in 1995 by the University and an honorary Doctor of Civil Law in 2005. Dr Esler was installed as Chancellor of the University in July 2014.