University of Dundee in the context of "Rector of the University of Dundee"

In some Scottish universities, a Master of Arts (MA; Scots: Maister o Arts, Scottish Gaelic: Maighstir nan Ealan) is the holder of a degree awarded to undergraduates, usually as a first degree. It follows either a three-year general or four-year Honours degree course in humanities or social sciences and is awarded by one of several institutions.

Chiefly, these are the ancient universities of Scotland — St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh. Other institutions which provide undergraduate programmes leading to an MA degree include the University of Dundee, because of its history as a constituent college of the University of St Andrews, or Heriot-Watt University at honours level only.

There are fifteen universities based in Scotland, the Open University, and three other institutions of higher education.

The first university in Scotland was the University of St Andrews, founded in 1413, with St John's College being added in 1418 and St Salvator's College in 1450. The other great bishoprics followed, with the University of Glasgow being founded in 1451 and King's College, Aberdeen in 1495. St Leonard's College was founded at St Andrews in 1511 and St John's College was re-founded in 1538 as St Mary's College. Public lectures that were established in Edinburgh in the 1540s would eventually become the University of Edinburgh in 1582. A university briefly existed in Fraserburgh between 1592 and 1605. In 1641, the two colleges at Aberdeen were united by decree of Charles I (r. 1625–49), to form the ‘King Charles University of Aberdeen’. They were demerged after the Restoration in 1661. In 1747 St Leonard's College in St Andrews was merged into St Salvator's College to form the United College of St Salvator and St Leonard. A new college of St Andrews was opened in Dundee in 1883, though initially an independent institution. The two colleges at Aberdeen were considered too small to be viable and they were restructured as the University of Aberdeen in 1860. Marischal College was rebuilt in the Gothic style from 1900. The University of Edinburgh was taken out of the care of the city and established on a similar basis to the other ancient universities.

The (Lord) Rector of the University of Glasgow is one of the most senior posts within the institution, elected every three years by students. The theoretical role of the rector is to represent students to the senior management of the university and raise issues which concern them. In order to achieve this, the rector is the statutory chair of the Court, the governing body of the university.

The position's place in the university was enshrined by statute in the Universities (Scotland) Act 1889, which provided for the election of a rector at all of the universities in existence at the time in Scotland (being St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh). Students of the University of Dundee also elect a rector.

Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell (/bɜːrˈnɛl/; née Bell; born 15 July 1943) is a Northern Irish physicist who, while conducting research for her doctorate, discovered the first radio pulsars in 1967. This discovery later earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974, but she was not among the awardees.

Bell Burnell was president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 2002 to 2004, president of the Institute of Physics from October 2008 until October 2010, and interim president of the Institute following the death of her successor, Marshall Stoneham, in early 2011. She was Chancellor of the University of Dundee from 2018 to 2023.

The ancient university governance structure in Scotland is the organisational system imposed by a series of Acts of Parliament called the Universities (Scotland) Acts 1858 to 1966. The Acts applied to what were termed the 'older universities': the University of St Andrews, the University of Glasgow, the University of Aberdeen and the University of Edinburgh. Together these four universities are commonly referred to as the ancient universities of Scotland. Whilst the Acts do not directly apply to the University of Dundee (except insofar as section 13 of the Act of 1966 conferred a power to appoint, by Order in Council, the date for its independence from the University of St Andrews), the same governance structure was ordained for use by that institution in its royal charter.