Year: 2014

The Careers and Employability team are running a number of events throughout the term that you can participate in.

These sessions are beneficial for every student, with a number of external and internal speakers running workshops.

These sessions range from CV help to industry/business specific advice and application processes, all of which are intended to make you more employable by giving you the knowledge and skills to succeed.

Below is a list of workshops that we are running for the upcoming weeks. These sessions also help towards the completion of the Lincoln Award for those students participating within the programme, but are extremely beneficial to everyone who attends.

To book, simply visit http://lincoln.prospects.ac.uk/index.html , log in/sign up and search for the event you wish to attend.

If you have any issues with booking, please email jmarsden@lincoln.ac.uk

This is a great opportunity for students from all disciplines graduating within the next two years.

Stand out from the crowd! Enhance your CV! Improve your commercial awareness!

A workshop is being held on Friday 26 September  from 12.30-1.30 in the Research & Enterprise Building to give further information and understanding in regards to what will be expected of you and also what you can expect to gain from the challenge, as well as a talk from one of last years participants.

Use the link below to book a place and print a ticket we hope to see you there!

http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-universities-business-challenge-information-workshop-tickets-12866761831

For any further information  please contact juturner@lincoln.ac.uk

For further information go to: http://uolcareers.co.uk/ubc/

also check out the UBC site: http://www.ubcworldwide.com/about-ubc-worldwide/ubc-whats-involved/

Enter our competition to name the University of Lincoln catering outlets and you could win a free lunch for four in the restaurant in the Minerva building.

Tell your ideas for a name which can be used for all the restaurants in the University. We are looking for the most creative and appetising idea  that gets our mouths watering.

Tweet us your ideas using #uoleat to enter. Get your entries in by next Tuesday 1pm and we will announce the winner later next week.

 

The University of Lincoln Students’ Union Islamic Society wishes you all peace, prosperity and success for the year ahead.

It was great to meet all the new students at the Freshers’ Fayre as well as catching up with those who are already part of the ISoc family over the Red September Campaign in aid of the British Heart Foundation.

The ISoc Meet & Greet event takes place on Wednesday 24 September at 6pm in Room BH0101, Ground Floor, Bridge House, Brayford Pool Campus.

It’s a great opportunity to meet the Committee and also a fantastic chance to meet the many staff and students, including local residents involved with the University who are involved in the work of the ISoc… there’s definitely more than meets the eye.

The Committee Members regularly check the inbox, so if you have any questions whatsoever, please do not hesitate to get in touch:

islamic@lincolnsu.com

To get a flavour of what we’re about please visit our Facebook Group Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ULIsoc/

For further information about the Muslim community of Lincoln please visit our website: www.isoclincoln.com

Drama Research Seminar – 24 September

The Theatre, Consciousness & Asian Performance Research Group with the Lincoln School of Fine and Performing Arts presents a Research Seminar on Wednesday 24 September, 6pm, Lincoln Performing Arts Centre, Studio 1:

Kate Genevieve – Staging subjectivity

Kate Genevieve is an Artist and Director based in Brighton, UK. Kate’s art projects use moving image, sound and the human body to create immersive environments for audiences that explore the interaction between embodiment and perception. Her art practice brings together research in contemporary science and technology with performance and phenomenological methodologies.

 

All staff and students welcome.

Would you like to have your memory tested?

Would you like to help with the creation of a memory test?

We are looking for healthy participants to help us with our memory research between the ages of:

• 18-19
• 45-54
• 65-75

The research is aimed at developing a test for those with memory problems who have Temporal Lobe Epilepsy.

If you fit into one of the above age categories and think you might be interested, then please email Emma Cameron via 12353908@students.lincoln.ac.uk

to find out more.

Contacting the researcher for further information does not mean you are obliged to take part. It will just provide an opportunity to find out more about what taking part would involve.

Summary of the business and decisions from the Board of Governors’ meetings on 1 May, 5 June and 4 July 2014.

The Board of Governors met on 1 May, 5 June and 4 July 2014. The following is a summary of business considered and decisions made at the meetings:

• The Vice Chancellor briefed the Board on the latest changes in the HE sector including developments in Government policy. The political parties were now in pre-election mode, considering their approaches to HE to be set out in manifestos. It was hoped that the Government’s Autumn Statement would include extending access to loans to postgraduate taught students, and that this might stimulate recruitment in a market that had declined across the sector since the introduction of the new fees regime.
• Professor Stuart advised of the positive outcome from a challenging audit by the Home Office Higher Education Assurance Team, and Governors commended the University Registrar and colleagues for the work undertaken in preparation for, during and after the audit.
• The VC informed Governors that the management of the Engine Shed had been transferred to the Students’ Union from the University which was a move aimed at improving the student experience and providing students with a place that they could call their own. Market research undertaken by an external organisation had indicated that students wanted more student-led social space and activity.
• Governors welcomed news of new staff appointments including the Head of the College of Arts and heads of schools.
• The Chief Finance Officer provided monthly summaries of the University’s financial position; and the Board approved the 2014/15 Budget and five-year financial forecasts. Governors also noted a review of the University’s portfolio of insurances; and approved the updates to the Treasury Management Policy and Treasury Strategy for 2014/15, and updated bank mandates.
• The Board received and approved a revised version of the Financial Regulations, following scrutiny by Audit Committee. The revised regulations had been underpinned by a set of financial guiding principles which reflected the University’s value and beliefs and created a link to the University’s strategic plan and objectives in detail.  FTF
• Two Governors provide briefings to the Board about their sponsorship of two of the University’s KPIs -‘Delighting its Students’ and ‘Collaborative Innovation Development’. Members noted that the University and SU enjoyed a healthy, respectful and productive relationship, of which the SU’s acquisition of The Shed pub, facilitated by the University, was a fine example. Collaborative Innovation and public engagement projects took place across the University – recent examples included the Twitter garden, the bomber command memorial and the Magna Carta celebrations; and the well-established relationships with local schools, including the UL-sponsored academies in the south of the county.
• The Governors received a presentation from the Students’ Union President/Student Governor who reflected on a very successful year by the Students’ Union. There had been excellent results in the SU staff survey, with 100% of respondents confirming confidence in the leadership of the Union, and agreeing that ULSU was a good employer. The Top 3 concerns among students were academic achievement, career prospects and employability, and these would inform the Union’s work during the next academic year. Governors warmly congratulated ULSU on the news that it had won the Students’ Union of the Year at the NUS awards.
• The HR Director presented the Human Resources Annual Report which provided a flavour of the breadth of work undertaken by HR during 2013 and contextualised the department’s engagement with, and contribution to, the University’s Top 40 ambitions. Human Resources had focused on three broad areas: transformation and change, attracting high quality staff and increasing engagement. The report highlighted work on the Academic Workload Model, the Well-Being blog, and the 2013 Staff Survey.
• The Board considered and discussed the University’s Risk Register which had undergone its latest rescoring exercise by the Senior Management Team. Each high level risk area was broken down into lower sub-risks representing contributing factors, to ensure that monitoring at all levels was undertaken effectively. The Audit Committee had recently considered this latest report and had felt it to be a very good summary of the foreseeable risks across the University’s areas of activity.
• The Board received the a report from the Director of Planning and Business Intelligence on sector review and university positioning in relation to the University Strategic Plan, including an update on HE league table movement. A number of strategies had been put into place to support improvement across all aspects of teaching and learning, including NSS action plans for each subject, supporting staff to become better teachers and to deliver a good academic experience with assessment and feedback to students. The Governors were fully supportive of sending a clear challenge to all levels of the University, from the SMT onwards, about the importance of this agenda.
• The terms of office of three Members expired at the end of July 2014. Two Members retired from the Board, and Governors paid tribute to the commitment and contribution of Dr Marek Kierstan and Dr Jon Slack over the past four years. The Board agreed that Mr Haydn Biddle be re-appointed for a further four years from 1 August 2014. Governors also expressed their thanks and good wishes to Mr Dan Sam, out-going ULSU President; and welcomed his successor as Student Member, new SU President Mr Brian Alcorn.
• Following a full selection process, the Board appointed five new Independent Members with an initial period of office from 1 August 2014 to 31 July 2018: Mr Neil Herbert, Mr Neil Gray, Ms Diane Lees, Ms Jane Reeves and Mr Chris Swinson. The Board also approved the expansion of its membership to 17 from 1 August 2014. Governors welcomed Dr Sarah Barrow, succeeding Dr Jon Slack as Staff Member.
• The Board was pleased to approve an extension to Lord Adobwale’s term of appointment as Chancellor of the University, which would now run to 31 January 2018.
• The Director of Estates and Commercial Facilities submitted a business case for new buildings for Engineering, Computing, Physics and Mathematics and Psychology, Health and Social Care. The proposed project to construct a building for the Schools of Engineering, Computing, Physics and Mathematics was critical as it focussed on growing the University’s partnership with Siemens and would represent a physical step change in terms of progressing the University’s Top 40 agenda. Governors endorsed this direction of travel.
• The Deputy Vice Chancellor (Teaching, Quality and the Student Experience) presented a paper summarising how the Board’s deliberations and decisions during 2013/14 had contributed to the shaping of the University’s educational character and mission.
• The Governors received and noted the Academic Board Annual Report; the Student Complaints Annual Report; and the HEFCE annual assessment of institutional risk letter.
• The Chair briefed Members on the business discussed at meetings of the Committee of University Chairs.
• The Board held an Awayday, together with the Senior Management Team, focusing on the theme of the University’s activities in the context of an increasingly global market, and a world of digital delivery.

Here’s the burning question – why aren’t England, Wales and Northern Ireland also getting that same say?

For months – years really – we’ve been hearing arguments from both camps on the benefits and pitfalls of an independent Scotland.

My family is a Border family which through generations has straddled the Tweed, which is why I am so aggrieved that I don’t get the opportunity to have a say on something that affects my heritage. I firmly believe that a ‘Yes’ vote would be the wrong move, but I’m powerless to do anything. As British citizens, I strongly believe we have a right to be part of the decisions which shape our future as well.

I concede this is a thorny issue. Perhaps there are many English, Welsh and Northern Irish voters who would gleefully mark the ‘yes’ box if given the chance, and frankly, that’s what democracy and the right to vote affords us. But that’s just the point – we do not have the opportunity.

This month‘s referendum gives people living in Scotland the chance to be part of a decision which will shape their future. But we’re not getting that same chance, nor are people who were born Scotland and now live in other parts of the UK. This is even more absurd when the Interim Constitution for Scotland states that people who are not now resident in Scotland, but were born there, can become Scottish citizens.

Furthermore, we’ll see the voting age for the referendum lowered to 16 to ensure as many Scottish residents as possible can have their say on seceding from the Union. The lowering of the age for the electoral franchise is a major constitutional issue that has not been discussed in the wider United Kingdom, where it has significant implications both now and in the future.

Everyone, not just Scottish residents, will be affected by the result of a ‘yes’ vote. People who think that things will just go on as usual are gravely mistaken. Citizens of Scotland will be foreigners to us; no more a part of our polity than any other foreign citizen.

When Czechoslovakia separated and became the Czech Republic and Slovakia in January 1993, thousands of different pieces of legislation which needed to be enacted to complete the transition. Should the ‘yes’ vote prevail, we will be subjected to years of wrangling while the rump of the UK Parliament and the Scottish Parliament work through the constitutional and other legal ramifications.

As a nation, there are real financial concerns about the situation which current and future generations of England, Wales and Northern Ireland could inherit. .

All three main parties in Westminster have ruled out Scotland’s use of the British pound if they secede from the Union – a currency Alex Salmond is insisting they will retain. There are huge financial implications for any change; fluctuating currency rates, higher prices for goods and services, and a rush on withdrawing currency and capital flight, as happened in Czechoslovakia.

This again begs the question why isn’t anyone south of the border being given the chance to make their views heard when it affects us all so deeply?

Under the interim Constitution for Scotland, the Queen would remain Head of State – continuing the Union of the Crowns of 1603. While the Queen will not intervene in the political debate over the referendum, the constitutional conundrums remain. Although it would gravely annoy a significant proportion of the Scottish residents, is there any reason why a newly elected United Kingdom Parliament in 2015 would need to be bound by a ‘yes’ vote? And what would Her Majesty’s Government advise her to do in such circumstances?

by Professor Scott Davidson
Deputy Vice Chancellor

 

Astronomer Royal, Professor Lord Martin Rees of Ludlow, is one of the world’s most respected cosmologists and astrophysicists, and he will visit the University of Lincoln later this month to explore the mysteries of our galaxy in a free public lecture.

Regularly referred to as Britain’s “top scientist”, Lord Rees was formerly President of the Royal Society and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He has authored more than 500 research papers, and has a comet in his name.

As part of the University of Lincoln’s prestigious Great Minds lecture series, which welcomes high profile speakers from all over the world, Lord Rees will take the stage on Tuesday 23^rd September 2014.

His talk, entitled Space Exploration, Life and the Cosmos, will provide an inspirational insight for school pupils, university students and members of the public into the vast impact of the space age.

This period is widely recognised as beginning in 1957, with the launch of the first artificial satellite of Earth. In little more than 50 years, the discoveries and developments of the space age have fundamentally changed the world in which we live, from the technology which underpins modern communication networks to our understanding of the origins of the universe.

Throughout his illustrious career, Lord Rees has conducted extensive research in this area. His current cosmology and astrophysics research includes studies of gamma ray bursts, galactic nuclei, black holes and cosmic structure formation – with a particular focus on the early generation of stars and galaxies, which developed more than 12 billion years ago.

Lord Rees is a Fellow of Trinity College and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge, and he holds the honorary title of Astronomer Royal. From 1992 to 2003 he was a Royal Society Research Professor, and then from 2004 to 2012, Master of Trinity College. In 2005 he was appointed to the House of Lords, and also named as President of the Royal Society – a position he held for five years.

During his visit to Lincoln, Lord Rees will ask his audience to consider many of the unanswered questions that astronomers still ponder today. Unmanned probes have visited the planets of our Solar System, but will human explorers soon follow? Or will the Solar System always remain an arena for robots and fabricators?

He will invite his audience to consider that within our Galaxy, there are billions of planets like Earth, and that our Galaxy is itself just one of billions.

Professor Rees said: “The stupendous timespans of the evolutionary past are now part of common culture. Our present biosphere is the outcome of more than four billion years of evolution, but most people still somehow think we humans are necessarily the culmination of the evolutionary tree.  No astronomer could believe that.”

Professor Andrew Hunter, Pro Vice Chancellor and Head of the College of Science at the University of Lincoln, said: “These are exciting times for science at the University of Lincoln. As we are just opening our new School of Mathematics and Physics, it is a particular delight to welcome Professor Lord Martin Rees, one of the UK’s most eminent astrophysicists.”

The Great Minds lecture, Space Exploration, Life and the Cosmos, will take place in the EMMTEC Lecture Theatre, on the University of Lincoln’s Brayford Pool Campus. Attendance is free and limited places are available for the public, but advanced booking in essential. Registration begins at 5:30pm.

For more information or to reserve your place, call the University of Lincoln Events team on 01522 837100, or visit the Events pages of the website: http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/campuslife/whatson/eventsconferences/sir-martin-rees.html.

 

Image Credit: Space Station Expedition 22 Crew, NASA