LORD Phillips of Worth Matravers will be installed as Bournemouth University’s new chancellor next Thursday November 5.

He is the UK’s most senior law lord and this month became the first president of the newly established Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

The 71-year-old was educated at Bryanston School in Blandford then studied law at Kings College Cambridge.

“His appointment is a great honour,” said chairman of the university board Alan Frost.

“His Dorset roots complement Bournemouth well and his personal and professional life speaks for itself.”

Lord Phillips came to prominence when he chaired the BSE inquiry, and he also presided over the Maxwell pension fund trial.

The keen cyclist has made the news himself.

He went undercover with offenders to do community work on a council estate.

And he backed suggestions Muslims could use elements of Sharia Law in mediation, although British law would take precedence.

Lord Phillips is known as a legal moderniser who is not keen on gowns and wigs, and who has driven through reforms to cut delays and costs.

He addressed the recent opening of the university’s new Executive Business Centre in Holdenhurst Road, and praised its “dynamic, hands-on type of education.”

Lord Phillips is married with a son and a daughter. He will be installed during the university’s annual awards and graduation ceremony at the BIC.

Vice chancellor Professor Paul Curran said: “As a major figure in British public life, he will become a distinguished ambassador for the university.”

Paralympic gold medal-winning cyclist Darren Kenny OBE will receive an honorary doctorate from Bournemouth University.

He will be honoured during one of the annual graduation ceremonies at the BIC on Tuesday, 3 November.

Darren, 39, from Verwood, is one of Dorset’s most decorated international sportsmen, and he will become an Honorary Doctor of Arts. The award recognises his achievements in cycling and for setting an inspirational example of determination and perseverance against the odds.

He suffered a head injury aged 18 at the Junior tour of Ireland that cut short his promising cycling career, and he has cystic fibrosis and is paralysed down one side.

At the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing he won four gold medals and one silver, following two gold medals and one silver at Athens in 2004.