£80,000? I can think of far stupider things to spend it on.

Marketing is a difficult thing; how exactly should you get your business/your ideas/yourself into the public domain to be debated and absorbed by the general population? It always takes money, it always takes time and it always takes energy. So how should a university, focused on educating, attempt to market itself and get a profession image in the increasingly competitive sphere for academia.

The University of Manchester is moving up in the world rankings, with the vision to be in the Top-20 by 2012. It’s part of what drew me to study at Manchester, their desire to move further and keep pushing to be better. While other universities I visited talked about how good they were, Manchester talked about how good they could be. But how are they meant to promote themselves globally as a university that is taking risks and pushing boundaries?

Martin Amis’s appointment was controversial for many reasons, but mainly due to his £80,000-a-year salary and extremely reduced teaching hours. Leaving aside many of the reasons regarding his personal beliefs and opinions, a lot of the reason for his appointment was marketing. While there are plenty of other, cheaper, probably better, lecturers; it makes more sense to have someone who brings in students as well as media attention. While many students may never have been to one of his public lectures, they managed to bring in experts from all kinds of fields to debate with Amis about sexuality, science and religion with literature. Would students have had the opportunity to see these speakers and hear their thoughts without the draw of Amis? Probably not.

Universities bring in high-profile lecturers like Amis all the time, to bring in more students and to promote to the world that they also have the contacts and draw for major academics and speakers. While the University of Manchester may have been controversial for bringing in Amis, the influx of interest in the University of Manchester, and the influx of students to his course (a 100% rise) has proved that maybe, the University of Manchester may have been right to appoint someone so expensive.

As I said, marketing is a difficult thing, especially for a university. Sure, Martin Amis was, and continues to be, a controversial figure, and a controversial person to associate with the University of Manchester, but I believe he gave back more than he took and maybe the university should increasingly look to invest in people like Amis, who draw both column inches and students.