NEW DEAN OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES APPOINTED

Professor David Shepherd, currently Director of the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Sheffield, has been appointed as the next Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences.  He will take up his appointment on 1 April 2009.

Professor Shepherd is a specialist in twentieth-century Russian culture and in critical and cultural theory, working in particular on the Russian philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin and the Bakhtin Circle. He has also conducted research in the digital humanities.

Educated at the University of Oxford, Professor Shepherd completed his PhD at the University of Manchester, where he was a Lecturer from 1983 until his appointment in 1994 to a Chair of Russian at Sheffield University, where he founded the Bakhtin Centre. While at Sheffield Professor Shepherd has held a number of management roles. He was Chair of the School of Modern Languages and Linguistics (1999-2001), Head of the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies (1996-2001) and Director of the Bakhtin Centre (1994-2008). He also served as Director of Research for Arts and Humanities (2005-2008).

Professor Shepherd has held a range of national roles. A former President of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (2004-2007), he was a member of the RAE 2008 panel for Russian, Slavonic and Eastern European Languages.  He is on the AHRC Peer Review College.

The Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Rama Thirunamachandran, will be Acting Dean until 1 April.

VIRTUAL PATIENT PROJECT TO TEACH AUSTRALIAN PHARMACY STUDENTS

Professor Stephen Chapman and Luke Bracegirdle, School of Pharmacy, who developed the virtual patient concept to teach pharmacy students, are completing the first stage of a £50,000 project for Monash University, Australia, developing a new set of avatars for their undergraduate pharmacy programme.

The Virtual Consultancy Project uses 3D graphics and game technology to simulate teaching and learning objectives/learning outcomes that are difficult to teach or describe to the learner (e.g. visual consequences of drugs incorrectly prescribed or poor communications skills in clinical scenarios, picking up on non-verbal communication, such as body language).

Monash University awarded the contract to produce four avatars (computer generated 3D characters) and a virtual pharmacy as part of their "Pharmville 3052 Family" - like "neighbours" for pharmacy students! This comprises a number of resources, ranging from conventional video of real-life actors, to the development of virtual characters that correspond visually with their real-life counterparts. The School has been commissioned to develop the virtual characters, based on their prior research work into the development of 3D avatars and decision analysis.

They are finishing the development of Shirley Park, grandmother of the family, for the first case to be used with Monash students in March and are working on Steve Park (the father), Andrew (son) and Emma (daughter). Each family member presents to the students in a 3D environment and explains their problem. The students then interact with the patient by typing free-text questions into the system to find out more about the patient and the avatar responds (via textual analysis software) with a relevant audio and visual response.

The Virtual Patient Concept won the Innovation in Medical Technology and Development award at the Stoke-on-Trent City Council Citizen of the Year Awards last November.

KEELE CONFERENCE TEAM SHORTLISTED FOR THREE NATIONAL AWARDS

Keele conference team has been shortlisted for three top honours at a prestigious national ceremony.

Keele Conferences is in the running in the Best Academic Venue, Best Value For Money Conference Venue and Best Conference And Banqueting Staff categories at the annual Meetings And Incentive Travel Awards.

The awards are voted for by Keele's customers and in the last ten years the team has regularly been nominated, winning the Best Academic Venue category three times.

Claire Snape, Head of Keele Conferences, said: "To be nominated by our customers as the Best Academic Venue, Best Value for Money Conference Venue and Best Conference and Banqueting Staff is another massive achievement for Keele Conferences."

Last year Keele Conferences won gold in the Best Value for Money Conference Venue and Best Conference and Banqueting Staff categories at the Awards. The team also won Silver in the Best Academic Venue category. The final results will be announced at a Gala Presentation Dinner, attended by more than 600 industry professionals, on 23 February at the Novotel London West.

KEELE STUDENTS SPEED TO SUCCESS

Funding from the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE) has enabled four Keele students to successfully turn their business ideas into real companies, which are now trading and earning them money. Rebecca Mulhearn, Scott Bordoni, Nicola Smith and Matthew Forde started on the SPEED (Student Placements in Enterprise Education) programme in January 2008.

Run by the office of Research and Enterprise Services, these students have, over the last year, each received about £4000 to help them kick start their businesses. They've also been given office space in the Stepping Stone business incubation unit in MEDIC4 and business training, which covers all the things they will need to know to sucessfully run their companies.

For more information, see http://system.newzapp.co.uk/GLink.asp?LID=MTg1Mjg2OSw5 or contact Dee Frankish, Research and Enterprise Services, at http://system.newzapp.co.uk/GLink.asp?LID=MTg1Mjg3MCw5.

RESEARCH GRANT

Dr Peter Adey and Professor Barry Godfrey, both of the Research Institute for Law, Politics and Justice, have been awarded £85,740 by the Leverhulme Trust for the 16 month project: Mobility, regulation and control in a time of terror: The Liverpool Blitz. This project seeks to describe and understand how mobility, morale and morality were securitised, regulated and criminalized within the context of increasing public anxiety and a powerful system of government restrictions. Taking the Liverpool Blitz during the Second World War, the project will shed historical light on how, and by what means, we are governed and made secure.

CHIEF CONSTABLE VISITS KEELE

The Vice-Chancellor last week welcomed the Chief Constable of Staffordshire, Chris Sims, who visited the campus, accompanied by Inspector Neil Hulme, who graduated from the Criminology programme at Keele in 1991. They met with members of the Centre for Criminological Research (CCR) and were welcomed by Dr David Gadd, Acting Director for the Research Institute for Law, Politics and Justice (iLPJ) and Dr Mary Corcoran, Acting Director for the Centre for Criminological Research.

The other CCR members present were postgraduates and academic staff who gave presentations about their research on policing, with a particular Staffordshire-based or regional reference.  These included talks by iLPJ postgraduates, Gavin Bailey on 'Community Activism and 'Extremism' in Stoke' and Clare Jones on 'Confidence in the Police among Migrant Communities in Crewe'.  Dr Helen Wells discussed her research on 'Drivers, Speeding and Procedural Justice'. The Chief Constable also discussed research and postgraduate and undergraduate teaching and collaboration between the police and the University with Dr Bill Dixon and Professor Philip Stenning. Mr Sims and Inspector Hulme were also taken on a tour of the campus by Mr David Gray (Security and Residential Operations) where he met with security and residential staff.

NEW EXHIBITIONS AT UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY

Two new exhibitions have opened in the University Art Gallery in the Chancellor's Building. Covering Conflict – Photography and Susan Law-Webb – Paintings will run until 22 February.

Covering Conflict – Photography was commissioned for the BBC World Service and selected by Robin Lustig, BBC World presenter. This exhibition combines contemporary and vintage prints of historic conflicts. Work by Stuart Franklin and Robert Capa is juxtaposed with more recent images by Paolo Pelegrin's 2006 study of the Lebanon conflict.

Susan Law-Webb uses myths and fairy tales, as well as observations from nature, to explore the relationship between humans and their environment, both urban and rural. Her work in this exhibition includes a range of media: watercolour, oil, paint, charcoal, linocut and oil monoprint.