STAR-struck students met Star Trek actor Patrick Stewart during his first visit to Huddersfield University as its chancellor.
The actor, most famous for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the sci-fi series, as well as his leads in the X-Men movies, was mobbed as he wandered around campus.
Mirfield-born Stewart met staff and students at the start of a two-day fact-finding trip to learn how he can best help their work.
As well as boosting the profile of the university he also hopes to coach drama students.
While chatting to the media scrum, Stewart explained just how much the appointment meant to him.
"I was a secondary modern schoolboy. I left school at 15 and imagined my formal association with education was gone.
"This is the greatest distinction that has ever come my way."
Promising not to be an absentee chancellor, he said: "It's an honour being bestowed by my local community in a town very significant to me."
Stewart continued: "I'm hoping I can involve myself, assuming I'm wanted, in the life of theatre and drama at the university."
Classically-trained Stewart acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company and is well-known for running many masterclasses in America.
He said that engaging directly with students was an area he hoped to develop.
"One thing I know I can talk to them about is enthusiasm and love for what you do," he added.
Stewart was inspired to act at Huddersfield's Theatre Royal, now demolished. "My first experiences of professional theatre were right here, opposite the campus," he said.
He appeared in many amateur productions in Mirfield, Cleckheaton and Brighouse.
Although he left school at 15 to begin work as a reporter on the Dewsbury District Chronicle, he treasured his education.
"Some of the most significant moments of my childhood were to do with education."
Stewart will be officially installed as chancellor in November. Admitting he felt something of a new boy as he tried on the chancellor's ornate attire, he said: "This is very much like first day of rehearsal, when most actors feel they are starting for the very first time."
Chatting to students on a walkabout, he asked them what they thought of the university. He sat down to share a few words with logistics student David Bonilla, who is from Burgundy in France.
"I was a bit surprised," said a stunned David. "He asked us how we were feeling about the university and why we chose Huddersfield. I asked him how he got the chance to become chancellor."
Phil Williams, the university's head of public relations, said it was great to have an actor of Stewart's calibre so keen to help, adding: "He ticks a lot of boxes for us in terms of kudos."
