More...Reporter 421, 27 May 1998
The AUT announced the results of its strike ballot on the non-renewal of two Philosophy posts as we went to press. On a 63 percent turnout of AUT members, the result was 365-281 voting against strike action, and 376-275 voting for the question "Are you prepared to take part in industrial action short of a strike?" A fuller report will appear in the next Reporter.
Dr Doreen Illingworth was elected Councillor for Headingley in the recent local elections, joining her husband Dr John Illingworth who held the seat for Kirkstall. They recently held an outdoor surgery in Headingley and plan to hold some sessions on campus to deal with issues of specific concern to staff and students.
The University of Leeds has been announced as one of the consortium of
British universities working in partnership with British Aerospace’s
Virtual University. The aim of the institute is to provide a coherent
strategy for the design and delivery of learning, development and research
programmes across the company through strategic partnerships between
academia and enterprise. More...
Two teams from the Chaplaincy successfully completed the Leeds half-marathon last Sunday raising funds for the Student Support Network and Scope. The teams ran the race in relays as part of the corporate challenge. Accomplished marathon-runner Simon Robinson took part, and will have a week’s break before competing in a marathon in Prague to raise further funds for Scope.
Carolyn Swords – captain of the University basketball team and Canadian Olympic squad member – received a trophy for the award of outstanding athlete of the year from the Pro-Chancellor, Colonel Alan Roberts, and Dr Michael Lindsay, Director of Physical Education. Carolyn led the University’s team to the final of the British University’s Championships. This new trophy was presented to the University by the Pro-Chancellor to mark sporting achievement among the student body.
The Pro-Chancellor also met recently Tsedenjavyn Suhbaatar, Ambassador of Mongolia, during a visit to Leeds to celebrate the University’s successful bid for European funding to support an undergraduate project involving the National Medical University of Mongolia. Leeds’ links with Mongolia date back to the 1960s, and it is the only UK university to teach Mongolian studies at undergraduate level.
European-wide research into imaging technology with industrial potential is to be co-ordinated at the University of Leeds. This will be the first time the University has been chosen to co-ordinate a European Union ‘thematic network’.
The network will bring together 17 industrial and 14 academic partners from Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Poland and the UK.
Co-ordinated from the University by Professor Brian Hoyle – of the Institute of Integrated Information Systems, School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering – the network will involve the exchange of experience, software and trials of ‘tomographic sensors’.
“This new technology offers the promise of more efficient design and flexible operation of many industrial manufacturing processes, through high quality information concerning their actual internal state,” explains Professor Hoyle.
Through its collaboration with the University of Leeds, the European Thematic Network will also make use of the Virtual Science Park.
Final year English and German student Andrew Sheerin is one of ten prize-winners in the Woolwich Young Radio Playwright of the Year competition. His play Blind Spot will be contracted for radio broadcast and will be ‘showcased’ in the West End. Andrew’s winning entry is based on a piece he originally wrote as part of the Playwrighting module in the School of English.
A Formula SAE racing car designed, built and tested by a team of 35 students was unveiled in the School of Mechanical Engineering on May 15. The car will be flown out to Detroit where it will compete against student designs from 110 North American universities and colleges.
Last year the Leeds team was the first from a European university to take part in the annual event and finished 50th out of 94.
By invitation of the American University in Cairo, Dr Peter Liddle presented a paper earlier this month on rescuing personal experience documentation of the Battle of El Alamein. The conference was preceded by a visit to the scene of the battle and the British and Commonwealth, German and Italian war cemeteries as well as a tour of the museum given by the museum’s project originator and designer, Colonel Ernst Schmidt.
The conference was attended by the British Ambassador in Cairo, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, the German and Italian Military Attachés as well as senior officers of the Egyptian Army and University faculty members.
Leeds nursing experts have just completed a project to develop curricula at Moscow Medical College. Members of the Division of Nursing in the School of Healthcare Studies worked on the project for two years, with the aim of enhancing curriculum building skills and increase knowledge of nursing theory. A conference to disseminate the results was recently held in Moscow and was attended by nurses and educators from Russian cities and the Ukraine.
Dr Marjorie Wilson, senior lecturer in the School of Earth Sciences, has just returned from Oslo where she was awarded Norway’s highest academic honour by being elected a Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. The award was in recognition of Dr Wilson’s ongoing work with universities and industry in Norway. “It was a wonderfully elegant and formal ceremony, typically Norwegian,” she said.
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