A NEW DAWN FOR THE
KEELE EARTH AND SPACE OBSERVATORY
 Astronomer Royal and President of
the Royal Society, Lord Rees of Ludlow, this week
officially re-opened the Keele Earth and Space
Observatory after a major transformation designed to
open up the natural sciences to a wider audience.
The £360,000 project included the
refurbishment of the existing observatory and telescopes
and an extension to the lecture room and its teaching
and presentation facilities. It has been funded by the
Wolfson Foundation, alumni donations to the Keele Key
Fund and the University.
The centre aims to raise people's
awareness of science, while continuing its long-standing
commitment to teaching and outreach. Visitors will be
able to experience practical examples of physical and
earth sciences and astronomy, using equipment dating
from the 19th century to the present day. The original
observatory at Keele was built in 1962 and was
established to house the historic Grubb telescope, which
was built in Oxford in 1873 and used by Einstein on a
visit to Oxford.
The picture shows Lord Rees with the
Vice-Chancellor. |
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DISTINGUISHED
LECTURE IN ECONOMICS
 Sir John Gieve, Chairman of VocaLink and
former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, this week
gave the 2010 Annual Distinguished Lecture in Economics,
organised by Keele Management School.
The lecture, titled "The return of
complexity - economic policy after the financial
crisis", attracted a large audience of over 200 members
of staff, students and the public and also included
representation from Bloomberg Newsroom and led to an
article in Business Week. The speaker, pictured above,
discussed the causes and the consequences of the
recent financial crisis and emphasised the importance of
rescuing Northern Rock. He concluded by saying that
careful co-ordination of fiscal, regulatory and
monetary instruments was necessary to avoid, or at
least limit, the damage which can be caused by
future financial crises. |
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RESEARCH
GRANTS
Dr Nikki Kuiper, Research Institute for
Science and Technology in Medicine, has been awarded
£10,000 from RK Memorial Funding for a one-year
preliminary study entitled 'Can dietary supplements
improve ageing cartilage?' Dr Kuiper will investigate
the effects of glucosamine and chondroitin on cartilage
cells from an age-range of cartilage to find out whether
the supplements are capable of improving the synthesis
of new cartilage components.
The British Academy's Grants Committee
has awarded Dr Anna Barton, Research Institute for the
Humanities, an overseas conference grant of £500 to
attend The Northeast Modern Languages Association
Convention 2010 in Montreal. Dr Barton will contribute a
paper to a panel entitled 'The Margins of the Logos:
Children in Nineteenth-Century Literature', which has
been designed to explore current research into the way
the figure of the child offers a site for revisioning,
re-reading and re-articulating the nineteenth
century.
The British Academy's Grants Committee
has also awarded Dr Nick Seager, Research Institute for
the Humanities, an overseas conference grant of £500 to
attend the American Society for Eighteenth-Century
Studies 41st annual meeting. Dr Seager's paper, which
focuses on Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe trilogy
(1719-1720), is a contribution to a panel that aims to
explore the uses of the Hebrew Old Testament in
eighteenth-century culture in response to heterodox
challenges to orthodox Christianity. |
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NEW ACADEMIC
APPOINTMENT
The following academic appointment
commenced in post this week:
School of Physical
and Geographical Sciences:
Professor Clare Holdsworth, Chair in
Geography (Professor of Social Geography), who was
previously a Reader at the University of
Liverpool. |
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SHOW US WHAT WE'RE
MISSING
 The
Centre for International Exchange and Development hosted its
Welcome Back Event for study abroad students at Keele
Hall last week.
The evening saw the announcement of the
winners of the annual Study Abroad Photo Competition and a new
'Show Us What We're Missing' short film competition. The
judges - John Easom, Alumni Officer, Professor Marilyn
Andrews, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Student Experience)
and Professor David Shepherd, Dean of Humanities and Social
Sciences, presented the short-listed images from over 100
entries and everyone present voted on their favourite.
This year's Photo Competition winners were:
1st Prize (£100) - Dwayn Evans, pictured above
with his winning entry, Concordia - Fun Times; 2nd Prize (£50)
- Rob Cartledge, UNCW - Best Friend Sunset; 3rd Prize (£25) -
Emily Postlethwaite, University of Western Sydney - Road In
The Outback.
The new short film competition was a great
success and an audience of over 100 enjoyed watching the four
finalists' videos. Narrowly scooping the top prize of
£150 was Ed Simmons with a short film capturing his study
abroad experience at the University of North Carolina,
Wilmington. |
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PROMOTIONAL VIDEO FOR LEGAL
EDUCATION CENTRE
Professor Fiona Cownie, School of Law, appears in a
short promotional video issued this week by the U.K.
Centre for Legal Education (UKCLE), which is one of the
Higher Education Academy's Learning and Teaching
Centres, based at Warwick University.
The Centre is currently celebrating its tenth
anniversary and the film was released at the recent
LILAC conference, at which Professor Cownie, pictured
above, delivered a paper on the relationship
between legal academia and practising lawyers.
Professor Cownie was one of only six experts on legal
education invited to appear in the film, which explores
the participants' views on the challenges facing higher
education today, in particular as they will affect
university law schools.
The film, which lasts about 10 minutes, can be viewed
on the website of the
UKCLE. |
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SCHOOL OF NURSING AND MIDWIFERY
OPEN EVENT
The School of Nursing and Midwifery held an open day
for prospective applicants to nursing, midwifery and
operating department practice programmes at the Clinical
Education Centre, University Hospital of North
Staffordshire NHS Trust last weekend.
The event, which was attended by 102 prospective
applicants, featured talks with programme tutors and
tours of the facilities. The event was very successful
with many prospective applicants expressing their
intentions to make applications to the School's
programmes and undertake their studies at Keele.
FROM THE
ARCHIVES
Professor Donald MacKay, Emeritus Professor and
Professional Research Fellow in the Department of
Communication and Neuroscience, died peacefully at his
home on 6 February 1987.
Professor MacKay was an internationally known
neuroscientist, writer and broadcaster on information
theory and the theory of brain organisation.
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