MEET SAM: KEELE UNVEILS UK'S FIRST VIRTUAL STUDENT ADVISER

Students and staff at Keele and Staffordshire universities met Keele's virtual student adviser, SAM, for the first time this week in a soft launch of a service that will be available to the entire UK HE sector from the autumn of 2013.

SAM is an avatar that will interact with students in real-time on a range of support service topics. When launched, SAM will be available via PC, tablet, and smartphone so that students can ask questions anytime, anywhere.  The technology behind SAM is based on the University's innovative Virtual Patient programme.

Participants in the soft launch – who were joined by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nick Foskett and Dr Simone Clarke, Director of Planning and Academic Administration, pictured above - had the chance to ask SAM questions on three 'hot topics': Student Finance; Money Management; and Living Away from Home.  Some of the questions SAM was able to help them with included 'What do I need to bring with me to University?' and 'How do I budget?.'

Summer 2013 will see the development of three additional topics: Understanding University and the Language of Higher Education; Learning and IT; and Coping with Difficulty.  In addition to being available to all HE students from autumn 2013, SAM will also go 'on the road' to other Universities and to sector organisations such as AMOSSHE so that colleagues delivering student-facing services can find out more about SAM and how it could transform student services.

AHRC EARLY CAREER FELLOWSHIP

Dr Anthony Carrigan, Research Institute for Humanities, has been awarded a prestigious AHRC Early Career Fellowship for a project entitled Representing Postcolonial Disaster: Conflict, Consumption, Reconstruction.

The project's overarching aim is to complete a comparative study on literary representations of postcolonial disasters that will bring interdisciplinary disaster studies into sustained dialogue with humanities-based research, and seeks to inform future developments in post-disaster policy and practice.

The award, which lasts for 24 months, will fund the writing of a monograph and other collaborative academic outputs, alongside a range of leadership development and international networking activities, public engagement and impact events. The funding level is still to be confirmed by the AHRC but will be in the region of £200,000.

NEW AGREEMENT WITH GUANGZHOU

To increase education/research collaboration in the areas of Biomedical Engineering, Cell and Tissue Engineering and Biotechnology, Guangzhou University, China, has signed an agreement with Keele to establish a programme known as "Study Abroad with Postgraduate Progression".

In such a specific pathway Guangzhou students can apply to study on MSc programmes in Institute of Science and Technology in Medicine, School of Medicine, following a year of undergraduate study at Keele. Dr Ying Yang and Dr Nick Forsyth, who visited Guangzhou University last year, pictured, will be in charge of this programme

NARRATIVE AND AGEING CONFERENCE

Over 70 people from across the University and the neighbouring community met at The Hub last week for a special one-day conference on Narrative and Ageing. 

The aim of the event was to showcase some contemporary developments in narrative research and to explore the value of narrative and story-telling in work with older people.  The morning session consisted of five keynote lectures. 

The first by Arko Oderwald, Professor of Medical Humanities in Amsterdam, was on 'The many ways of getting older',  followed by Rebecca Frankenberg from B-Arts who spoke on their work on digital story-telling with older people.  Professor David Amigoni, from Keele, spoke on 'Narrative and historical perspectives on later life creativity', there was a lecture by Dr Mo Ray, Keele, on using life biographies in staff training and finally Dr Dana Rosenfeld, Keele, spoke about her research on older gay survivors of the AIDS epidemic. 

The afternoon session included workshops on the use of novels in medical training, building a digital memory box, life history projects with older residents, and creative storytelling for people with dementia.
 
The meeting was organised by Keele Initiative on Ageing.  In closing the conference Professor Michael Murray stressed the central importance of narrative as means of both understanding the experience of ageing but also providing a framework for interventions designed to enhance the quality of life of older people.  There are plans for future events and details of these will be posted at www.keele.ac.uk/ageing

KEELE SCIENTIST CHAIRS INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION

Professor Peter Styles, School of Physical and Geographical Science and EPSAM, who was appointed President of the International Commission on Hydrocarbon Exploration and Seismicity in the Emilia region by the Italian Government chaired the inaugural meeting in Rome.

In May 2012, a severe seismic sequence occurred in the central part of the Po Plain, Northern Italy. It was characterized by two main shocks, displaying local magnitudes 5.9 (on May 20) and 5.8 (on May 29) and a large number of aftershocks. The commission is tasked with investigating whether there is any relationship between the onset of the seismic activity and the hydrocarbon activities which occur in the region and so tool evidence from Government organisations and petroleum and gas companies.

Professor Styles was quoted in the Guardian today, and interviewed on BBC Radio Stoke, on reports by the British Geological Survey that Britain is sitting on shale deposits that could supply the whole of the UK's gas needs for more than 40 years.

And he was the principal UK speaker at a colloquium this week entitled "Unconventional gas in Ukraine: Higher Education opportunities" at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, London, and at DECC, organised by the British Council, The Foreign Office and supported by Shell, which hosted a party of Senior Ukrainian Academics and Regulators.

The talk, 'Improving public understanding of unconventional gas: UK unconventional gas experience, and a perspective on development in Australia', was based on Professor Styles' work on environmental issues associated with Shale Gas. This was a follow-up from an invited visit which Professor Styles made to three Ukrainian universities (Kiev, Donetsk and Kharkiv) last year and seeks to establish collaborative training and research initiatives between the UK and the Ukraine.

MA IN MEDICAL ETHICS AND PALLIATIVE CARE

Members of PEAK and the School of Law attended a launch event for the MA in Medical Ethics and Palliative Care.

The course, taught in association with the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute Liverpool, has for twenty years offered a unique educational programme to palliative care doctors, nurses, social workers, lawyers, and others associated with end of life care. It has been re-launched under a new name to better reflect its updated structure and content.

The invited audience, including alumni and senior palliative care practitioners, listened to presentations by Course Director Dr Anthony Wrigley, MCPCIL Director, Professor John Ellershaw, and MCPCIL Research & Development Lead, Dr Stephen Mason, on the history and development of the programme, current issues in palliative care, and the challenges of teaching practitioners to integrate ethics into everyday practice.

Members of the audience talked warmly of their own experiences on the programme and the importance of ethical thinking for palliative care. Information about the course can be obtained from http://www.keele.ac.uk/pgtcourses/medicalethicsandpalliativecare/.

KEYNOTE AT RUSHDIE CONFERENCE

Salman Rushdie continues to be one of the most important controversial of writers and last Saturday saw the 'Rushdie in the 21st Century' conference at Senate House for the Institute of English Studies. The conference was co-organised by Marianne Corrigan, who is currently completing her PhD thesis on Rushdie at Keele, and Daniel O'Gorman from Royal Holloway.

Dr Nick Bentley, English, RI Humanities, pictured, gave a keynote talk at the conference on the Transatlantic in Rushdie's fiction concentrating on representations of cities in his novels Fury, Shame and The Satanic Verses. The day brought together a number of leading researchers and scholars working on Rushdie including Anshuman Mondal (Brunel), Stephen Morton (Southampton) and Andrew Teverson (Kingston). The Conference was funded jointly by the Humanities RI at Keele and Royal Holloway.

SECRETS FROM THE WORKHOUSE

Alannah Tomkins, Senior Lecturer in History, has appeared on the ITV History programme 'Secrets from the Workhouse'. 

She filmed conversations with Keira Chaplin, the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin, in and around the surviving buildings of the Lambeth workhouse. 

Charlie was admitted to the Lambeth institution in the spring of 1896 with his mother Hannah and brother Sydney.

He later reflected on his experiences in his autobiography. Ironically the admissions block of the workhouse is now home to a cinema museum.  

Alannah discussed both the family's time both in Lambeth and Hannah's later experience of admission to a lunatic asylum. 

Part one of the programme was screened this week and part two is scheduled for transmission on 2 July.

INTERVIEW ON RESEARCH INTEGRITY CONCORDAT

Dr Sorcha Uí Chonnachtaigh, PEAK, School of Law, was recently interviewed for Sunday Sequence (BBC Radio NI) about the recent launch of the UK Concordat for Research Integrity.

The Concordat follows the recent imprisonment of a researcher, Steven Eaton, for faking data on anti-cancer drugs and the announcement that retractions in scientific journals are likely to exceed 500 for 2013.

The Concordat, supported by the top HE research funding bodies, focuses on embedding and supporting a culture of research integrity, monitoring mechanisms, and transparent and robust processes for dealing with allegations of misconduct.

INVITED PAPER

Dr Gabriella Legrenzi, Economics & Finance, has been invited to present a paper at the 2nd time series workshop organised by RCEA, this week.

Her paper "Estimating Fiscal Reaction Functions with Time and State-Varying Parameters", joint with Costas Milas (Liverpool University), models the reaction of fiscal policy authorities to budgetary disequilibria, for the case of the GIPS (Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain).

The paper shows that, in line with the theoretical predictions of political economy models, GIPS fiscal policy authorities correct budgetary disequilibria only when they become "too large".

Such threshold for correction is nevertheless lowered during periods of financial stress, uncovering further weaknesses in the GIPS' fiscal policy.

KEELE STUDENTS FOODBANK DONATION

Newcastle Staffs Foodbank has thanked Keele Students Union for the donation of 133 kgs of food – one of the largest single donations they have ever received.

Students donated the food at the end of the academic year and left it in donation boxes in halls on campus.

The food was then collected by Sarah Amphlett, KeeleSU Volunteering Project Leader, and two members of Keele Medsin Society, who took it to the foodbank warehouse in Silverdale.

The Newcastle foodbank has fed more than 1000 people, including 400 children, since it opened in December 2012.

END TO END TO END

Peter Hooper should reach John O'Groats today, the final day of his two week 'End to End' cycle ride from Land's End.

He set off from Land's End in sunshine, with a strong tail wind: the finish should be with a tail wind as well, but probably in the rain!

Peter has raised over £1,000 for charity - donations for Macmillan Cancer Support are still welcome via his Justgiving site.

Peter's progress can be followed at the following twitter link here or facebook here.