Chris Jacobs was in the first graduating cohort of Wolverhampton Polytechnic, before the institution became the University of Wolverhampton, and over 50 years later he returned to the campus for a trip down Memory Lane.
Chris lives in Philadelphia in the US and has worked in management for over 30 years for Fortune 100 companies, international consortia, regional and local non-profits, and the government. He currently works as the managing director of the Institute for Healthy Leadership, which his wife and he founded in 2020.
In late 2022, Chris returned to the UK and, after visiting his sister in Lancashire, came back to tour the University where he once studied Business Studies in 1969 – back when it was a polytechnic.
He said: “I just thought, I’d really like to see how the University is now. There were only 400 undergraduates when I was there and it had just become a polytechnic. I loved that term, and when the renaming came up, I was one of those who voted against it."
As part of Chris’s visit, he was given a tour of the City Campus by deputy head of alumni relations David Wedge, who showed him around all that had changed and the few things that remain the same, such as the Wulfruna Building entrance.
Chris fondly remembers forming and volunteering as first vice president for the student’s union, and remains proud of the fact that despite there only having been 400 full undergrads at the time, the fledgling union had around 1,000 members.
Chris continues: “It felt overwhelming to come back. I was stunned to find that the centre of Wolverhampton is now basically just two things: the Wolves ground and the University. And that’s wonderful."
“I’m eternally grateful to the University for who I am and where I am today. My education there grounded my thinking in everything I’ve done since.”
