Dame Margaret Barbour, after years of donating to Newcastle University, is to have a campus building to be named after her.
Dame Margaret is head of the business, Barbour. She established The Barbour Foundation in 1988, with the aim of helping charitable causes. The Foundation helps things alike cultural and community projects, particularly in the North East.
"Notably, she gave a charitable one million pound donation to the Wolfson Childhood Cancer Research Centre, which opened in 2016."
Since 2012, however, Dame Margaret has offered significant support to the university. Notably, she gave a charitable one million pound donation to the Wolfson Childhood Cancer Research Centre, which opened in 2016. This generous donation supports PhD studentships as part of the Cancer Prevention Programme (CAPP), led by Professor Sir John Burn. Since then, Dame Margaret has donated a further two million pounds, which has offered support to a number of PhD students across Newcastle University’s Medical School. The money has the intended purpose of focusing particularly on dementia, cancer, age- related chronic diseases, infection and immunology, human genetics and neuroscience.
The thirty nine million pounds six-storey building, which is being named after Dame Margaret, is currently under construction on the Richardson Road site. The building will include a lecture theatre for 300 students. It will also include seminar rooms, social learning spaces and academic and postgraduate offices.
Dame Margaret recently said: “I am so very honoured to have this building named after me. I so admire the tireless academic work carried out within the University”. President and Vice- Chancellor of Newcastle University Chris Day also said: “I would like to thank Dame Margaret for her continued support. We are all very grateful for the opportunities that the Barbour Foundation has given to the University”.
The new building will be used by the whole university, supporting both teaching and learning, with specialist spaces for Sport and Exercise Science, Human Nutrition and Dietetics, Psychology and Medical Education.