Scene Magazine

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The University of Chichester in words and pictures, 2008

Making waves

GLOBAL ACCLAIM FOR RESEARCH

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A real honour…

SIX PEOPLE HAVE been chosen to receive the University’s 2008 honorary awards – in fields covering everything from sport, design, public service and acting to business and education.

They are the latest recipients of awards dating back to 1990. Most will receive their awards at this year’s twoday graduation event in October. They celebrate the achievement of people who have demonstrated personal distinction and public service or a connection with Chichester, Bognor Regis or the region.

ON THE LIST ARE: ■ Actor David Suchet, famous for his portrayal of Hercule Poirot on ITV1, and champion of the Giant Panda in the channel’s 2006 programme David Suchet Extinct, receives a Fellowship ■ Former world boxing champion Richard Woodhall, who won bronze in the 1988 Seoul Olympics and who has worked with our sports science staff, receives an honorary MSc ■ Prof Margaret Talbot, chief executive of the Association for Physical Education, who received the award for her contribution to the opportunities for women and girls, ■ DIANA LEVANTINE – co-founder of receives a Fellowship The Sussex Snowdrop Trust.

■ Lord Lieutenant of West Sussex The Trust was founded in 1993 by Diana and Hugh Wyatt, who retires this year co-founder Kate Shaw and since then it has and who has been a great supporter spent more than £1.5 million on direct care, of the University, receives a supporting local parents caring for a child Fellowship with a life-threatening illness. This money has ■ And Diana Levantine and Kate been raised by the Trust and by very Shaw, co-founders of the Sussex generous local people.

Snowdrop Trust, each receive an Diana says: “Kate and I managed the honorary MA. charity voluntarily, from our own homes until Previously, awards have gone to 39 three years ago, when we rented an office in others, including actress Patricia West Stoke.

We started with £1,000 given to Routledge, triple yatching gold us by The Friends of Chichester Hospitals medallist Ben Ainslie, author Kate and the desire to provide a service to help Mosse and crime-writer Simon Brett.

We’ve been speaking to one of this year’s recipients about her work… these special families.

“Over the years we have been able to put together a team of professionals that includes community children’s nurses, counsellors and a volunteer co-ordinator. This Snowdrop Care at Home Team is led by Dr Anne Wallace, community paediatric consultant, who shares an office with the Snowdrop Team in College Lane, Chichester.

“We’re a unique charity because we not only provide the professional help but vital financial help for families as well. When one of the team contacts me with a request to help a family, it’s important to respond as quickly as possible. We can pay for a taxi to

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Campus satisfaction puts us near top 10

take a child to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. When a child’s immune system is very low because of their treatment, they can’t go by public transport. Snowdrop can pay for train fares, petrol bills and practical items such as washing machines and tumble dryers. It all depends on each family’s needs.

“We spend about £240,000 a year – and it all comes from the local community. Every single penny we receive counts and we really do appreciate all the support that we get.

“This is totally rewarding work and I’ll admit to being completely obsessed by it. My sixyear-old grand-daughter asks me if I ever talked about anything else!”

HELPING HANDS …

Diana, front, with Kate and the Snowdrop team

OUR STUDENTS value the University highly – and that’s official.

According to the annual National Student Satisfaction Survey, published in The Sunday Times, the University of Chichester continues to appear near the top of the chart, ranking 11th out of 109 universities.

The survey, commissioned by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, involved sending out questionnaires to nearly 300,000 final year university students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Sunday Times overall satisfaction rating was based on an average of the scores for the 21 individual questions in the survey. Over 60 per cent of the students responded to the survey, giving a reliable overall picture of how they rated their university experience.

In individual subject areas, history students reported 100 per cent satisfaction with their course putting the

University at No.1 nationally for the subject – and in the top 10 of all 50,000 university courses in the UK. English and creative writing also claimed top spot in subject rankings, with students registering 97 per cent overall satisfaction.

Other Chichester courses achieved excellent results, appearing in the top 10 for the subject rankings, including media which gained second place, social work, fourth, and sports science which took eighth place out of 54 providers.

In the latest rating in The Times Good University Guide, Chichester has moved, as a university, from 68th to 59th out of 113 institutions. It showed the best performance against the Government’s Public Accounts Committee benchmarks for student retention for any university in the UK.

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■ ON THE FRINGE: Two graduate theatre companies are being sponsored by the University to appear at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The companies, Play Possum, who evolved from the University’s innovative MA Theatre Collectives programme, and Ovaplay, made up of graduates from the BA Performing Arts programme, have been based at the University through the early summer, devising and rehearsing their work.

Dr Ben Francombe, subject leader in performing arts at the University, said: “We’re really proud of what these companies have achieved and are excited by the new work they plan to present. This kind of activity is at the heart of what we do at Chichester – helping students and graduates to develop new and original work and encouraging them to present it to the widest audience”.

Chichester’s reputation as a place to nurture theatrical creativity has been growing with established artists: recently Punch-Drunk, an internationally renowned company, spent a week in residence at the University, researching key light and sound aesthetics.

“They were exploring their own craft and creativity away from the pressures of putting on a show,” says Ben. “We supported them with free use of the space and resources and they found the relaxed environment highly conducive. In return, students dropped in, helped out and chatted about mutual discoveries.”

Two more companies, Reckless Sleepers and Brighton-based Spy Monkeys, are also booked in for residences.

For more information visit www.chiuni.ac.uk/showroom – also see www.playpossum.co.uk and www.ovaplay.co.uk

Award-winning author Dr Alison MacLeod is a senior lecturer at the University. We’ve been talking to her about her work, her writing and why amazon.co.uk is listing a book she’s not even written yet…

A novel

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WRITING A BOOK is a big thing, says Dr Alison MacLeod.

“It’s like carrying a building-in-the-making around with you for two to three years,” says the Canadian-born writer, who’s been lecturing at Chichester for the last 18 years.

“The only way you can do it is to stay fascinated by it. It begins with something that strikes or haunts me – an image or perhaps the voice of a character. Over time, I’ll focus on the details, breathe life into the story and create a world for its characters.

“I won’t know all of the plot at the start.

Robert Frost once said, ‘No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader’ and I agree.

The story has to unfold for me, as if I am, like the reader, discovering it with each new page.

If there was a blueprint, I couldn’t write it.”

Alison’s first novel, The Changeling, was published in the UK and USA in the mid-90s to critical acclaim. Several short stories followed and, in 2005, her novel The Wave Theory of Angels was released. Last year came her collection of short stories Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction, one of which, Dirty Weekend, has just won the 2008 Olive Cook Award for short fiction, presented by the Society of Authors.

This year she also won awards from the Arts Council of Canada and the Authors’ Foundation. She was long-listed as well for the Frank O’Connor International Award for short fiction, the Booker Prize of short stories - one of 39 writers worldwide, including two Booker winners, Anne Enright and Roddy Doyle. She didn’t win but was delighted and honoured to be on the list. She was also one of a handful of writers invited to read in Cork, Ireland, at the award celebrations in September.

Her writing fits in around her half-time position at the University, where she teaches

on the creative writing programme in English Studies.

“I feel very fortunate to be part of the University team,” she said. “It’s a dynamic community and includes excellent writers – novelists, poets and dramatists. People are creating terrific new work and connecting with the literary world in exciting ways. All that impressive experience feeds back to our students – many of whom have gone on to publish.”

Earlier this year, she produced an awardwinning show at the Brighton Festival. She brought together 18 Brighton writers, including Julie Burchill, Rachel Cusk and Peter James, each of whom wrote and read a short snapshot-of-a-piece that in some way captured the town, where she herself lives. A new book, The Illustrated Brighton Moment, is a collection of highlights from the show.

She’s out and about quite a lot in the UK, recently judging a short story competition for the Ipswich Literary Festival and reading at engagements in both the UK and abroad. Her latest short story, ‘Green and Pleasant Land’, was broadcast on Radio 4 in August.

And that Amazon UK Untitled Work – February 2009 mystery?

“Oh, that’s my next novel and it won’t actually be out until spring of 2010,” said Alison. “I’m a little superstitious about talking about it, to be honest, but it’s set in Brighton, at a vital moment in its recent history. I’m in the middle of writing it now.

“I need new challenges with each project.

The Wave Theory of Angels was, for me, about the power of the imagination, and is set, in part, in medieval France at the time of the cathedral-building craze. This new novel is set in the city and streets I see everyday, so, in this sense, it’s a departure, a new direction for me.”

approach to fiction

scene Dr Duncan Reavey…

“Planting trees in the bleak days of winter really matters”

Theory in practice DR DUNCAN REAVEY has become one of only 50 National Teaching Fellows appointed this year by the Higher Education Academy.

It’s a first for the University and brings with it a £10,000 award for his own personal and professional development in learning and teaching.

Duncan, a principal lecturer in learning and teaching, teaches undergraduates and graduates in a range of subjects including primary science education, environment, sustainability and adventure education.

“It’s a reflection that a lot of what we do at Chichester in learning and teaching is being recognised at a national level. The award will allow me to explore some exciting and novel approaches from other European universities that will add to the diversity of ways students learn at Chichester.”

His teaching philosophy challenges the

learning of theory alone when so much more can come from living the experience.

“My courses are hands-on and minds-on immersion with students challenged to deliver end-products they think are impossible,” he said. “Increasingly it’s clear that heart-on engagement is essential if students are to choose to make good use of their learning. Sunset campfires on the beach and planting trees in the bleak days of winter really matter.”

One project, work on an innovative Masters programme in environment and development at the University of KwaZulaNatal, led to a paradigm shift in the work of the whole university, according to Professor Charles Breen there.

“The programme required the whole cohort to work together to address a real problem – where they realised they could only succeed if they learned to understand

each other’s academic language.”

Another – where students decide on projects in weekly tutorials – produced a 24-page booklet on local conservation that was distributed free to 63 schools.

In another, called One Minute Wonders, student teachers bring science learning to life for colleagues by creating short movies.

West Sussex environmental educator Dr Barbara Shaw says: “Duncan is both a gifted intellectual and an inspirational learning facilitator.

He is a rare bird – a creative scientist, fired by deep appreciation and concern for the natural world and a genuine desire to enthuse others with those feelings.”

Duncan says his goal is to provide diverse, meaningful and challenging contexts in which students and colleagues reflect and learn. “This will not change,” he said.

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CLOSURES UNDER REVIEW WORK HAS STARTED on a study to evaluate the impact on West Sussex of Post Office closures across the county.

Researcher Dr Jo Horwood will be producing a report on the economic, environmental and social impact towards the end of 2009.

Project manager Dr David Cooper, senior lecturer in information systems and management at the University, said: “We are looking at whether the closure of 36 Post Office branches across the county is a real threat to communities or simply an irritation to people.

“West Sussex County Council commissioned the study from us after raising its

concerns with the Post Office.

“Research done already shows evidence that closures are a major inconvenience, particularly to disadvantaged groups. There is evidence in urban environments that businesses suffer too. Smaller businesses rely heavily on their local Post Office and – in Bognor for instance – are now

having to use the main office, often with a long queue.

“Post Offices also act as a recruitment board – through postcard displays – and can be the centre of a lot of activity like this. This will be a fascinating study of an important area and a good opportunity for the University to demonstrate its research credentials.”

As part of the report, maps will be created looking at how closures affect communities, community focus groups will be set up and the impact of closures will be monitored.

Discussions will also take place with organisations and groups such as GPs, Chambers of Commerce and young mothers.

Chinese links bear fruit A NEW AGREEMENT with the Wuhan Conservatory of Music has led to the arrival of three Chinese students in Chichester for a threemonth stay.

And each year, three final year undergraduates from Chichester will now be able to elect to complete a semester of study in Wuhan, learning to play a traditional Chinese instrument and associated courses.

The conservatory has around 5,000 students and is recognised as the leading institution for traditional Chinese music – as well as achieving the highest standards in Western classical performance.

Ben Hall, subject leader in music, said: “The link with Chichester is Wuhan’s first with a UK institution and has been cemented during my appointment as guest professor of piano. It follows a successful recital in March in the conservatory’s China Bell concert hall.”

Wuhan’s music practice block – 900 rooms on 28 floors!

Right, inside with Ben and students

■ MODEL RESULT: A fullsize robotic arm is helping the University challenge current thinking on forces at play in swimming strokes – and may produce a different approach to training.

Swimmers and coaches are always seeking the most effective technique for best results in the pool and the arm is aiding that search by replicating the swimming stroke.

The arm was constructed in such a way that it measures the forces on the arm due to its movement through the water.

Biomechanist Dr Mike Lauder explained: “The model showed that the relative contribution of the hand to the propulsive force in swimming is dependent on the arm configuration, the elbow angle.

“These results cast some doubt on the widely shared assumption that the swimmers’ hand is always the main contributor to the propulsive force.”

Further research is now needed to fully quantify the hand’s contribution, which the arm model allows, and establish the factors that aid effective technique.

Dr Mike Lauder

scene ■ SIGN OF THE TIMES: Chichester has become the first university in Europe to sign a resolution to the European Commission aimed at saving wilderness areas on the continent.

Vice-Chancellor Dr Robin Baker signed the resolution, which calls for the commission to develop guidelines for member states to protect wild lands and their natural processes. It would, he says, be an important cornerstone to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010.

Big world, small scale

UNIVERSITY TUTOR Robert Daniels hit the road over the summer to present one of the smallest dramatic experiences in the UK. Robert, from the University’s Performing Arts department, has been running the Bootworks company for around 10 years – gathering a bit of a reputation in street performance.

“We run the Black Box, the smallest theatre in the country with an audience capacity of one,” said Rob. “That person sits in the box and our performance takes place outside! Of course, everyone is queuing to sit in the box, so they see the mechanics of what’s happening.”

They went to several summer festivals, including Glastonbury, and finished their summer season in Dublin. The company involves students from the University’s courses and produces a new show every year. This year it was based on Un Chien Andalou – the 1928 surrealist Luis Bunuel Western film.

Much of their work is based on film genres.

For more information, see www.bootworkstheatre.co.uk.

MARKETING WORK PAYS DIVIDENDS FOUR YEARS OF working with a Chichester marketing agency is paying dividends for the University, students and the agency too.

So strong has the relationship become that a scheme developed to increase students’ business knowledge is now a formal part of the module Learning for Work and each winter three or four second year students are working with the agency, Napier.

Senior lecturer in media production Roy Hanney has been involved with the relationship from the outset. “While our students’ creative and research skills were just what Napier were looking for, they were unfamiliar with business systems, project management and how to present data in a commercial environment.

“I took the industry standard for project management, called Prince2, and

introduced this into the second-year of the degree programme. “ Now, Napier has the ability to carry out speculative research that may help their technology clients plan their marketing. In the first year, the students’ live project had been to examine the business model of technical magazine publishers to understand the extent they favour advertisers in their editorial content.

Mike Maynard, from Napier, said: “These are things we want to do but don’t always have the resources to devote to with our daily client work. It’s a real bonus to us to be able to raise our credibility with existing clients or with finding new ones.

This project gave us an understanding of the relationship between editorial coverage and advertising spend.”

Napier now has a paid, two-day-a-week role that recruits from the University’s students and is scheduled to fit into the

academic schedule. And last year, Napier took on graduate Leigh Swains full-time as a marketing specialist.

She said: “Working with them during the course allowed me to put the theory I was learning into practice. I was able to work with their clients in the UK, Europe and the USA and even attended the world’s largest electronics show in Germany during my part-time role. I knew I wanted to work with them.”

Mike says there may be even greater opportunities for stronger links in future. “I want to make more use of the talent at the University,” he said. “We are getting good students for the work experience and we now need to develop more placement opportunities for them.”

Roy said: “The process is timeconsuming for both sides and to get it right means assessing how well partners can work with each other.”

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Days of delight THE CHILINGIRIAN QUARTET – one of the pillars of British musical life, according to The Times – is the quartet in residence at the University until 2010.

As well as giving masterclasses to music students in four academic years, they will also give public recitals at the University and education workshops at a local school.

Senior lecturer Laura Ritchie, coordinator of the instrumental and vocal teaching programme, gained the £30,000 funding for the project through the Paul Morgan Charitable Trust. “Last term, they were involved in the classicism module – and they

Laura Ritchie…

“With luck, it may be a rolling programme”

effectively dissected the work so students got to see a living, working musical example and a work brought to life.

“We have a diverse student population and the Chilingirians – who are

renowned for their thrilling interpretations of the great quartets – have provided us with a very effective teaching tool and a great deal of delight.”

They have been involved IN RESIDENCE… The Chilingirian Quartet, one of the pillars of British musical life

with a chamber music open day for local school and college students as well as amateur musicians – and that is to become an annual event.

The quartet also spent a morning with 70 Year 7 pupils at the Park Community School in Leigh Park, Havant, giving an introduction to classical music.

“This was a trial for what’s planned in the autumn with Park and its feeder schools for a day of workshops that will also involve the University’s music students. It’s another opportunity for them to further their course work.”

Profits from the twice-yearly public concerts by the Chilingirians will help to fund any future work with the University. The first concert made a profit of £800, which will fund a lecture presentation. “We hope that by the end of the three years, we will have at least one or two more semesters of their work with us. With luck, it may be a rolling thing,” said Laura.

One pupil at the morning session at Park Community School stood up and told the quartet: “You guys are good. You should be on Britain’s Got Talent!”

Another asked if they could play something they might have heard of – and viola player Susie Mészaros performed the theme music to the film Titanic, which went down a storm.

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the bigger

picture Lesley Evans: Untitled etching, 60x60cm.

Nic Blair: Untitled, installation, 6x6m.

Nic is returning in November – when her geometric, elastic installation work will be seen during the performance of a work called Vexations by French composer Erik Satie. It’s a globally streamed event and the music takes 18 hours to perform. During the performance, Nic is making one of her sculptures at the University.

IT IS ONE OF the University’s annual set pieces – and it can help to shape the future careers of our undergraduates.

It’s the Fine Art Degree Show, held at the new artOne building, and it’s massively important to the 35 people who took part this year, says Steve McDade, leader in fine art and graphic design.

“We turn the upstairs studio and the ground floor foyer into a gallery for the week – and all our final year BA (Hons) students put on exhibitions of their work. It counts for 60 per cent of their final degree – so if they fail, they have to redo the year.”

Some students sell their work at the exhibition but, perhaps more importantly, it’s also a showcase that many gallerists –

Steve McDade

and hundreds of local people – attend to cast an eye over the talent of the University. “Individual galleries will have already approached some students about their work over the next year or so, which can be vital as they begin to carve out their career.”

The range of work on show is enormous – a reflection of the whole ethos of the degree course. “It’s a very open course, with a plurality of techniques and media,” says Steve.

“There is no set style and people are free to pursue their own ideas and material interests – whether that be as a painter, sculptor, print maker, textile artist or whatever.

“But it’s absolutely crucial to our degree that they develop another set of key skills as well. We want them to be able to write proposals and sustain their own independent enquiry. These are important educational outcomes that employers look for. It’s not simply about being able to paint or sculpt well.”

■ For the first time, students from Chichester made a film of the opening of this year’s exhibition, which can be seen on the website – www.chiuni.ac.uk/fineart/index.cfm

PICTURE: THE NATIONAL STOOLBALL ASSOCIATION

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■ ON THE BALL: Student teachers are helping to keep one of England’s oldest sports alive and well.

Stoolball is only played in Sussex and on the fringes of Hampshire, Kent and Surrey and the National Stoolball Association has recently gained “Sport England” recognition.

Mentioned in the Domesday Book, it is a forerunner to cricket. Balls are delivered underarm, there are 11 players – women or mixed – and the wickets are wooden boards on stakes.

The University was chosen to form the ‘coaching base’ of the ancient sport and now more than 200 students are qualified coaches and have even helped create a promotional DVD.

Kim Jordan: Untitled No 1, oil on canvas, 1x2m.

■ RAISING THE ROOF: Adding an extra floor to the building provides new practice facilities for around 350 music students at the University.

There are now 23 practice rooms – instead of 15 – and they’ve been equipped with new grand pianos supplied by Steinway and Sons.

They’ll be used for instrumental and vocal teaching by the subject’s 50plus specialist staff, as well as providing evening and weekend practice space.

New teaching, rehearsal and studio recording facilities are planned at the Bognor Regis campus – where there is extra provision in popular music performance.

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50 YEARS ON, A BISHOP IS REMEMBERED A THREE-DAY celebration of the life and achievements of one of Chichester’s most famous Bishops has underlined the University’s commitment to working with local partners as well as developing new research around the world.

The conference, Art, Politics and the Church: Bishop Bell of Chichester – held at the University, the Cathedral and the city’s Pallant House art gallery – attracted academics to mark the 50th anniversary of Bishop Bell’s death. Many of the papers presented will be printed in international publications.

The conference was organised by a committee chaired by Revd Dr Paul Collins at the Department of Theology. Visiting speakers offered evidence of the work of the George Bell Institute at the University of Chichester, which moved to the city from Birmingham only in 2007. It aims to support inter-disciplinary

Dr Andrew Chandler

PICTURE: THE CHURCH TIMES

localhistory

scholarship internationally and currently has Fellows across Europe, Africa and in America.

Bishop Bell became Bishop of Chichester in 1929. He retired in 1958 and died in the same year.

The anniversary of his death is also being marked by events across the diocese, at the House of Lords and in Oxford. Bell’s reputation was anchored in a number of issues – he was deeply involved in affairs in Germany in the run-up to and during World War Two. During the war, he maintained a link with Germans in Germany who were resisting the Nazi regime. Most famously, he spoke out in Parliament against the obliteration bombing of cities in Germany.

Bell was also a patron of the arts, inspiring T.S.Eliot to write his first play Murder in the Cathedral, and also commissioning works of art for churches across Sussex from, among others, the German exile Hans Feibusch. Throughout his life, Bell was a strong and active advocate of the international ecumenical movement, which sought to work towards unity across the churches.

Institute director Dr Andrew Chandler, who lectures in 19th and 20th century history at the University, said, “This conference will inaugurate a succession of international events hosted by the institute at Chichester and it will act as a stimulus to new research here and abroad.”

What do 18th century French opera, computer games and TV ads for Budweiser have in common?

We’ve been asking Dr Stephen Baysted…

Sound SENIOR LECTURER Dr Stephen Baysted has a thing about sound – and specifically the quality of it.

By day, he handles many of the music and music technology modules at the University. His PhD is in 18th century opera and the philosophies of music.

In his spare time, he’s a director of Blimey computer games – where his responsibility is the music and much of the sound design of games, including its latest, Ferrari Racing, due out at the end of 2008.

He and his wife, mezzo soprano Susan Legg, head

of voice at the University, also have a business making music for TV and cinema ads. In recent times, their clients have included Pizza Hut, BMW, McDonald’s and Budweiser. The company – Counterpoint Productions Ltd – also handles much of Susan’s performance work and they’ve also started their own ‘classical’ recording label in collaboration with a Chichester-based record company.

“It can be quite hectic,” says Stephen. “My focus is 100 per cent at the University in term time and,

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TRACK RECORD … Stephen, left, at Brands Hatch…

…and in his recording studio

barriers as I teach a lot of composition and music technology, the outside work does feed back into the University courses.

“I run a film music module, for example, and one of the projects is to write music for an advert. We now have more than 40 genuine adverts with proper briefs from agencies – a taste of the real world for our students.”

The Budweiser ad – called Damsel – is one he’s particularly pleased with. “I had a free hand to interpret the brief, but only three days to complete the work for the

ad, which was a minute long for cinemas and TV. “This was a request for something big and Hollywood orchestral, strong and dramatic. One of the interesting parts was the music for the ending. I’d done 11 different endings but nothing felt right. The director had liked the demo we had supplied and we’d added a choir to make the sound bigger. Finally, at one in the morning, he called me while I was in the studio, singing down the line what he wanted at the end!”

Blimey Games, he says, is known for its accuracy and

obsession with realism. For the latest game, they were approached directly by Ferrari to produce a game where you could drive every single Ferrari ever made, including Formula One cars around the leading world race tracks.

“There are 75 people in the games company and it’s taken two years. They’ve been working with blueprints for Ferrari, recording the cars to get proper engine sounds. We’ve even had data logging recordings – like how far a shock absorber compresses, what the throttle position is and so on

– and plugged all that into the game so it’s as accurate as can be. The visuals are virtually indistinguishable from photographs.”

He admits to being a motor race fanatic but he’s always been fascinated by opera too. “The quality of sound is always very important,” he says. “If it’s not top notch it shows. We’re always striving for perfection Most music is computer generated but film is a different matter, in particular big budget Hollywood films.

My ultimate objective is to do a Hollywood film but that’s a few years away I suspect.”

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olympicsround-up University facilities could be the base for competitors in four sports at the London Olympics. We’ve been finding out more

All eyes on 2012 THE LONDON OLYMPICS may still be four years away but there’s no time to waste if the University is to play an integral part.

The Faculty of Sport, Exercise and Social Sciences is busy preparing its bid to become the centre for a variety of disciplines ahead of the biggest sporting event in the world.

Boxing, table tennis, cycling and athletics teams could all be making the most of the University’s facilities come 2012 and the hard work starts now.

“It would be great to have some of the sports stars using our services,” said field leader Dr Marcus Smith, “but even more important than that would be the legacy it leaves – world-class facilities for students and the general public to

GET A GRIP… some of the youngsters on the Team Elite programme

enjoy for years to come. It would put Chichester up there with the best in the country.”

Dr Smith knows what makes the Olympics tick. He’s helped athletes prepare for the last five Games and attended those in Seoul and Barcelona, while working with boxers including Ritchie Woodhall and Amir Khan to study the effects on the body and brain of such a gruelling sport.

“There’s lots of work going on already towards London,” added Dr Smith. “As soon as the city won the bid, we were on to the organisers planning how we could be involved. We can bid to be in the official guide for the different sports then it’ll be up to the athletes to choose where they want to be based.”

Much will come down to the upgrades planned for the campus’ sports facilities. An eight-lane running track would form the centrepiece if they get the necessary investment through partnership funding. They already have the backing of UK Athletics which has identified Chichester as a location in need of such a track.

“You’ve got to have a vision with things like this and share it with others,” said Dr Smith. “It’s vitally important to make the best possible sports provision available for all – local clubs, community groups and individuals. The Olympics may feature the best of the best sports men and women, but our vision would give everyone a chance to benefit, whatever their ability.”

■ FIGHTING FIT: Ben Quilter is a man who takes sport and study equally seriously.

He’s studying sport and exercise science at the University on a part-time basis so he can train in his other passion, judo. Now 26, he’s been training and competing since he was seven and that paid off when he was selected for the Beijing Paralympic Games where he was unfortunate not to win a medal, finishing in fourth place.

“I narrowly missed out on qualification for the Paralympics in Athens,” said Ben, who has a sight condition. “Since 2004 I’ve achieved success at European and World class events.”

He also competed in the British University championships in 2006, representing Chichester, where he won silver. Ben won silver again in the 60kg class at the 2007 Visually Impaired European Championships in Azerbaijan.

FINGER ON THE PULSE …

Dr Marcus Smith knows what makes the Olympics tick

IN THE FINAL …

Ben, in blue, at the Azerbaijan event

■ HIGH ACHIEVERS: Talented youngsters with their sights on the London Olympics are receiving vital help from the University.

The annual Team Elite programme aims to identify the top one per cent of sports performers from up to 30 secondary schools from the area and provide support and information to help improve performance.

Senior lecturer Ali Wakefield has teamed up with school sport partnerships to offer a six-day programme at the campus.

A full range of sports, including basketball, sailing, tennis, football, athletics, dance and wrestling, is on hand.

“Many of the Team Elite participants already represent their country in international events,” said Ali. “A school sport partnership is a group of primary and secondary schools which work together to improve PE and school sport. It allows everyone to work together for the best of the children. That’s what makes it a success.”

The selection criteria for Team Elite are tough with athletes having competed in their sport at regional level or above. Commonwealth Games hockey bronze medallist Alex Danson is its patron.

■ THANKS, PETER: Britain’s sailors couldn’t have been better prepared for their Olympic challenge in Beijing.

The sailing team is arguably the UK’s most successful Olympic team ever – four golds, one silver and a bronze. And a lot of that is down to the University’s Dr Peter Cunningham, who looked after 18 competitors until they reached the start line.

As the Royal Yachting Association’s physiologist he was responsible for everything from training programmes and diet to health and physical preparations. He has been chief exercise physiologist for the RYA over three Olympics. He has made many visits to Qingdao over the last four years to assess the likely sailing demands.

“I was with the team in Athens in 2004 and Sydney before that but this was the biggest challenge of the lot because of the light winds the Chinese venues were renowned for,” said Dr Cunningham. “It was a very tidal location but with little wind, the sailors had to be at the lightest they’ve ever been to cut through the water as quickly as possible.”

After three weeks acclimatising, it was down to two weeks’ competition against the world’s best and the culmination of four years’ work.

“It was a career high for me,” added Dr Cunningham. “My whole job is based on the fouryear Olympic cycle. By that token, the work for London 2012 starts now!”

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Gender agenda Moving away from historical theory and returning to her other WOMEN’S AND GENDER history has been one of the fastest major research emphasis, modern religion and gender, Sue is growth areas of historical study over the last 30 years – and working with American and Canadian colleagues on a there’s now a large, international body of literature on the collection of essays on women and religion from 1800-1950, subject, rethinking traditional areas of historical enquiry. due out in 2009, followed by a major work on the contribution of One of the most recent contributions is The Feminist History religious discourses to the first sexual revolution of the 1890s Reader edited by the University’s Dr Sue Morgan, Reader in and 1900s. gender history.

“A historical consciousness is an indispensable dimension of “I’ve taught 19th-century British cultural history and modern our humanity and what has always fascinated me about history women’s and gender history for over 15 years now at the is the ethical dilemmas it poses about what precisely it means Universities of Gloucestershire and Bristol before the to be human.

University of Chichester and thought it was time that historians “Although many historians continue reassessed the impact of feminist The University has the UK’s top history to pursue the study of history for its and gender theory upon historical department – according to the latest own sake, all history is politically discourse more generally.” national student satisfaction scores. skewed, as feminists and other social Sue’s most undergraduategroups omitted from the traditional focused book, The Feminist History Sue says the department is distinctive and encourages students to be critical historical canon are only too well Reader is already featured on readers of historical texts from the aware. Writing history invariably university reading lists worldwide, outset,and to reflect on the purpose and requires painstaking analysis of selling well in the US, Canada, function of history in the 21st century. contemporary sources, but what India, Australia and Japan as well “Students appreciate our commitment historians often forget is the creative, as the UK. essentially story-telling process that She’s since published her fifth to helping them develop their own then goes into shaping up such book, Manifestos for History, cohistorical positions and the genuine sources into meaningful narratives.” edited with University colleagues spirit of animated dialogue that Sue encourages her postgraduate Professors Keith Jenkins and Alun pervades the department,” Sue said. students to write confidently and Munslow. Manifestos is a collection courageously. “I always tell them to write the sort of argument of provocative essays on the nature, purpose and future of or book they’d want to read themselves. History has it all – love, history in the 21st century by some of the best practitioners of the day. The cover illustration is The Garden of Forking Paths II, passion, death, happiness, tragedy: what more is there?” a painting by Chichester Fine Art postgraduate student Deborah Mitchelson. ● Routledge publishes both The Feminist History Reader and Books six and seven are already on the drawing board.

Manifestos for History.

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newsfocus ■ SCIENTIFIC STUDIES: Local schools are helping the university to deliver an innovative approach to the training of secondary school teachers in the subjects of Science and Design Technology.

Julia O’Kelly, head of programme for PGCE Secondary, says: “Traditionally all subject study – the part of the course that looks at how you teach your subject – is done in a university setting. Some students see it as the theory, applied in practice during school experience.

“Delivering that ‘theoretical’ part in a school environment, we believe is a real bonus. The students are studying in a school setting where they can see their subject being taught. This gives them a clear example of the links between theory and practice.”

The two partner schools involved in delivering the Design Technology and Science PGCE are Brune Park Community College in Gosport and Bourne Community College, in Southbourne, near Chichester, respectively.

“This approach has been very successful and the feedback from students is extremely positive. One said: “Bourne Community gives the module a brilliant atmosphere and is a great way to start the PGCE. Staff are friendly and open to help.”

Margaret Eva, head at Bourne, an outstanding school according to the Ofsted 2006 results, said: “The relationship with the University is a long one and thriving.

We’ve tightened up the training of our own staff as mentors – which means we have highly-trained staff.”

Margaret, a governor at the University, added: “Many students go on to get jobs here or in West Sussex and we’ve discussed ways of extending the partnership. We have a passion for wanting to tackle the poverty of aspiration, which seems to be endemic in this perceived leafy coastal strip.”

REASSESSING HISTORY… Dr Sue Morgan and her two latest books. Two more are on the stocks

■ BELGIAN FUNDS: A second staff and student exchange programme has been signed by the University’s history department with the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium.

It’s part of the European Union’s Erasmus scheme, which funds international study opportunities among member states – and follows a similar agreement earlier this year with the University of Joensuu in Finland.

Chichester students have the chance to study for one semester in the Belgian city – two are there now – and students from Leuven, often called the Cambridge of Belgium, will study at Chichester. Staff research exchanges are also part of the agreement.

Dr Hugo Frey, subject leader in history, said: “It’s great to be associated with such a highly-regarded institution as Leuven, one of the most important universities and student cities in Belgium.”

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ourheritage Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Clive Behagg, right, relives a dramatic moment in the life of the University…

D-Day: the part we played

JUNE 6, 1944, is a date that will live in history – it was the day the invasion of Normandy began.

And the University had a vital role to play in what is seen as the beginning of the end of the Second World War and the effort to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation.

Bishop Otter Training College, as it was then, was taken over by the Air Ministry in 1942, just after the Battle of Britain. Its position in the south of the country made it an important military location and it was used for a variety of purposes up until D-Day. Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Clive Behagg says it meant the college had the unusual experience of being evacuated to Bromley in Kent, very much against the flow of evacuees out of the London area.

“The irony is that the college they moved to had itself been evacuated elsewhere earlier in the war – but by 1942 some of the fears about the intensity of the bombing in the Bromley area had receded.”

Back in Chichester, what is now room E124 in the centre of the University, was turned into a control room for 56 squadrons of the RAF that featured in the airborne invasion of Normandy.

“We do know that Eisenhower – US five-star general who became President of the United States in 1953 – visited Bishop Otter College on a number of occasions,” said Clive. “There are photographs of him in the building in which we taught art here until we built our splendid new artOne building in 2002.

They were substantial and supposedly temporary huts put up in 1944 to house the wounded

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RECOGNITION FOR OBESITY WORK ART MODERN… the new artOne building that replaced the previous art building which General Eisenhower was pictured visiting

from the D-Day battle and intended to accommodate the overspill from St Richard’s Hospital in Chichester. In the end, they gave splendid service for more than 50 years.”

And the doorway in which Ike was pictured was claimed by the Shoreham D-Day Museum when the building was demolished.

Clive has met one of the women who worked in the control room on the eventful D-Day. She

was one of hundreds of people based at the site – working three, eight-hour shifts to provide 24hour cover in the control room.

“It was an interesting moment in our history – and not one you’d think about if you’re just walking about the place,” he said.

And what happened after the war ended? “Well, we were safely back in here on August 2, 1945, just months after the German surrender,” said Clive.

A BRIEF HISTORY ■ The University has existed as a place of higher education since 1839. It’s been through a number of phases in the last 170 years.

■ It all started when a training college for schoolmasters was set up by the local diocese at a time when the Church took responsibility for children’s education. The man behind the move was the then Bishop of Chichester, William Otter – a leading figure in the field and the first principal of King’s College, London. Chichester, along with Oxford, Cambridge, University and King’s Colleges in London was in at the start of the debate in England about where education should go and what was needed.

■ Phase Two dawned in 1939 when the college became a teaching institution for women, known as Bishop Otter Training College ■ In 1946, an emergency teacher training college was set up in Bognor Regis in the aftermath of World War Two. ■ In 1977, the two institutions merged to create the West Sussex Institute of Higher Education ■ In 1998, degree-awarding powers were conferred and the institute became University College Chichester ■ In 2005, we became the University of Chichester, one of nine new universities created that year.

THE FIGHT against increasing rates of obesity is being strongly supported by the University’s awardwinning PE team.

Not only is their work helping inform and educate our children’s weight problems, it’s also gaining international recognition amongst health experts.

Dr Maggie Boniface won a prize from the European Congress for Obesity in Geneva for her poster campaign to raise awareness of the condition.

She had interviewed children on their experiences of being told they were obese and taking part in a healthy lifestyle intervention project, which had been carried out by senior PE lecturer Dr Julia Potter and in just nine weeks, saw a stark change in pupils’ fat-tomuscle ratio, through a programme of a healthier diet and exercise.

“Dr Boniface interviewed children to ask them how they felt when they were told they were obese,” said Dr Potter. “To be honest, they said they were relieved. They were being bullied over their weight and their parents were telling them they were fine.

So it was a question

of re-educating parents too.”

The research group is already involved in more high impact and innovative work such as that carried out by Jane Deville-Almond, a trustee of the National Obesity Forum, who is working with Julia to explore the health of men in nonclinical environments such as motorway services and job centres.

Chichester has an established research partnership with St Richard’s Hospital where research into both childhood and adult obesity is being carried out and Julia has been awarded international research grants to support this work, which it is hoped will go further to putting the University on the map.

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Ground forces LANDSCAPES CAN BE a joy to the eye but they’re also a living and vivid illustration of the history of an area.

Dr Mandy Richardson – a senior lecturer in mediaeval and early modern history at the University – is a specialist in landscapes, in particular in forests and deer parks.

“What makes them interesting is that once you scratch the surface, there’s so much more there,” she said. “They’re another dimension of historical evidence.

“In the mediaeval period, we’re still trying to read the ideals and mores of a particular society into the landscape. We know a lot more about country parks in the 18th century, when people built big, high-status landscapes that embedded their political values and ideas. Sometimes, landowners moved whole villages, or parts of villages, so they could get a nice view.

“It’s the 18th century version of Leylandii hedges. In the early part of the century, country houses were clearly visible from the roadway. All of a sudden in the late 18th century, these physical and symbolic barriers were put up between one class and another.”

Mandy presented a paper on mediaeval deer parks at a recent Arts and Humanities Research Council conference at the University, which she helped to organise. Deer parks are all about status, she says. “People always seem to have been attracted by the aesthetic qualities of fallow deer, the species normally kept in these parks. We know there were fallow deer in Roman times but they disappeared until the Normans brought them back. They were the lords of Sicily and it’s believed they came from there.”

Part of the reason landscape is becoming a hot history topic is the level of current concerns about the environment. “It’s natural we’d want to look at how the environment was considered in history. Did they really conserve things? Did they really worry about the environment?”

Famous gardens by people like Capability Brown help to illustrate political and social trends. “After very formal gardens at the turn of the 17th and early 18th century, manicured gardens like Versailles get swept away within decades as people wanted things to look more natural.

“Everything became controlled and artificial in gardens at the time when the New World was discovered. Suddenly, wilderness and natural things were seen as threatening. The opposite might be going on with the studied Englishness of Capability Brown’s style – making your land look like a little part of England that no-one has ever touched.”

IN THE LANDSCAPE… Dr Richardson, a specialist in forests and deer parks, at Clarendon Palace, the subject of her PhD

A recent Arts and Humanities Research Council conference aimed to increase the dialogue between the history academics and the non-academics – and attracted more than 120 people. “It’s what we try to do here at Chichester – fostering links with the local community,” says Mandy. “As well as the research papers, we also had sessions on the meaning of house names in West Sussex – and Neanderthals.”

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Sweden, USA beckon for student teachers STUDENTS TRAINING to be teachers at the University have the chance to study in the United States and Sweden.

The exchange scheme – which also includes staff at the three universities – is the result of a four-year, £480,000 scheme, jointly funded by the European Commission and the US Government. It links Chichester with Pennsylvania State University in America and Jönköping University in Sweden.

Staff from the three universities have been on exchange visits and a total of 12 American and Swedish students started at Chichester in September, 2008.

Chichester’s first students head out for a semester in Sweden in January – and among them is Kerry Atkinson, above.

She’s just completed her first year on the primary education teaching course, specialising in early years, and will follow her six months in Sweden with 12 months in Pennsylvania.

She said “We’re all very excited about the scheme, which could be a life-changing experience. It will definitely benefit our careers. Swedish education is quite famous for being so successful and I’m looking forward to seeing how that works, as well as how the different cultures influence things.”

Highlights of her first year include working at a nursery in Portsmouth. “There was a lot of play-based work while we were there for three days a week for

three weeks. It’s been very tiring – the kids are just so full of energy. It was different from the school setting.”

Chris Shelton, left, one of the tutors on Chichester’s primary education and PGCE courses, said: “Our students will be away for a year and half, turning this into a four-year, international degree. On top of that, experts from the other universities will be teaching sessions on our course – and our staff will have the same experience over there as well.”

ACTION… on the set with Venetia and the Voltage… and, right, Psychic Spies

UNIVERSITY FILM CREWS OUT AND ABOUT MEDIA STUDENTS have been helping a range of projects in and around Chichester.

“If someone has a project we can support and that provides great experience for our students, we’ll do it,” said senior lecturer in media production Roy Hanney. They’ve included: ■ Nine films for TV Chichester – an online TV station. They were about the history of the area and six have been accepted and put on the TV’s

website. Around 80 members of the It was a big production for us – but local history society attended a the students cite it as the most important and valuable learning they screening.

■ Work to create a video for Brighton did while at university.” electronic rock band Venetia and ■ Nine films for Music Fusion, part of the Voltage. the Youth Music organisation that ■ A professional film, Psychic Spies, works with youngsters at risk of inspired by the last woman jailed for exclusion and uses music as a means witchcraft in the UK, Helen Duncan. of development. “The nine winners of Roy said: “I was the client for this film. one of their competitions won an We invited industry professionals to electronic press kit made by our train students. We’re currently editing. students to publicise the band.”

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infocus Jonathan Plowright is one of the UK’s leading pianists. He’s been talking about his love of Polish music, the recordings that have helped make his name – and why his home piano is always out of tune…

On the record IF YOU TYPE Jonathan Plowright into YouTube you’ll have five chances to see and hear him play.

The University’s head of keyboard – described by Gramophone magazine as ‘one of the finest living pianists’ – has drawn rave reviews for six recent recordings with Hyperion, one of the most respected classical music labels in the country. The YouTube videos feature some of that work.

He’s just recorded his seventh, part of a series of piano transcriptions of Bach.

Next April, he’ll record another, music by composers influenced

by Chopin, in time for the 200th

anniversary of the composer’s birth in 2010.

This autumn, he’s playing one of his Hyperion-recorded concertos, Sigismund Stojowski’s Second Piano Concerto, in Warsaw with the Polish National Radio Orchestra – as well as giving a masterclass at the Conservatoire.

“I seem to have become the man who’s discovering Polish music that the Poles have never heard of,” he says. “Stojowski liked tonal music, very romantic melodies. Eventually he was considered old-fashioned and was forgotten, but he didn’t care what people thought. He knew what he wanted to do. He knew

he was going to die this musical death but couldn’t help it.”

Jonathan has just started his second year with the University – where he spends a day a week.

He is also a professor of piano at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama in Glasgow.

Both as a student and in the 80s, he won a range of awards – including the European Piano Competition. Since then, he’s played concerts around the world – including London’s Wigmore Hall and South Bank, along with an open-air recital at a game park in South Africa!

“At Chichester, I enjoy seeing students mature and develop,” he says. “What I do is not just

about playing the piano, it’s everything involved with playing in public, a very difficult thing to do. It’s dealing with the pressure and projecting your ideas. In some ways, you have to become a different person – a fascinating subject.”

This year, he wants to focus on the repertoire for two pianos.

“Pianists tend to play solo pieces but there’s a fantastic repertoire for two pianos. You have to listen more and quite often pianists are notoriously bad at listening. They listen only to what’s in their head. This is a good medium and one I’m sure the students will enjoy,” he says.

At home, he has a 6ft 4in 1897

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HANDS ON… Jonathan in rehearsal

Broadwood piano. “It’s a war horse that really takes the pounding I give it and it’s always out of tune,” said Jonathan. “I have it tuned and it’s out of tune next day because of the damage I inflict. They say pianists have the worst pianos!”

■ Piano masterclasses for two University students are set to continue. The third in the series – held in The Chapel of the Ascension at Bishop Otter campus – is scheduled for November 28 and will be given by Deidre Doyle, Head of Keyboard at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. The three-hour, afternoon events are open to students and the public.

FEW MOMENTS IN sport engender such emotion as the football penalty shoot-out but while many think they are something of a lottery, an expert in the field believes otherwise.

University sport psychologist Dr Iain Greenlees says: “While luck clearly plays some part in the penalty shoot-out, sport scientists around the world are now turning their attention to examining factors that can contribute to performance in these ultimate tests of mental strength and composure.

“At the University of Chichester we’re particularly interested in the psychology of the penalty shoot-out and the role that non-verbal communication such as body language can have in influencing them.”

Iain’s most recent research examined the impact eye contact used by penalty takers when preparing to take a penalty can have on the confidence of goalkeepers.

The results indicated that goalkeepers view penalty takers who maintain high levels of eye contact as more confident and more composed than penalty takers who avoid eye contact. They also found goalkeepers are far less confident of saving spot-kicks when the striker maintains eye contact in the moments before his run-up, according to researchers.

“They were more doubtful of their ability to save penalties taken by those players who made eye-contact,” says Dr Greenlees.

“Although there are many other factors involved our research does indicate that penalty-takers can increase their chances of intimidating the opposing goalkeeper by ensuring that they maintain eye contact with them as they prepare to take their penalties.”

Dr Greenlees also feels that goalkeepers can benefit from displaying the correct body language. His advice to goalkeepers is to take as much time as possible to prepare to face a penalty, delaying the kicker to give him more time to think about the possibility and consequences of failure.

The research also discovered teams wearing red kit can influence how penaltytakers are perceived, with those wearing red appearing more dominant and able penaltytakers. This poses the fascinating idea that wearing red may provide an advantage in penalty shoot-outs.

“We saw it in Euro 2008 when Spain and Turkey, both wearing red won their shoot-outs and, in the past few years, Champions League final penalty shoot-outs have been won by teams (Liverpool in 2005 and Manchester United this year) wearing red,” Dr Greenlees adds.

He admits to an on-going fascination with the extreme human drama penalty shoot-outs represent. So does he, unlike most fans, relish the prospect of a shoot-out? “Not when it involves my teams, England and Liverpool!”

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Helping older folk keep LIFE EXPECTANCY in the UK is increasing with predictions there will be more people over retirement age than of school age for the first time in history within the next five years.

Dr Elizabeth Pike is at the forefront of research to identify how this quantity of life can also offer a good quality of life. In particular, she is investigating the best ways to offer appropriate physical activity opportunities into old age.

“Increased longevity is one of the greatest demographic challenges facing our country,” said the senior lecturer in the sociology of sport. “Our research focuses on enabling choice but we’re discovering too often that choice is constrained especially by people’s social class and gender. We’re finding that women, in particular,

are less able to find physical activity options which they see as suitable for them.”

Dr Pike and her research student, Bethany Simmonds, investigated experiences of people living in Chichester’s rural areas and found its high proportion of older people have limited choice of regular physical activity, partly because of a lack of facilities, concerns about safety, or regular public transport.

“For many of those immediately into retirement, the ‘Third Agers’, who have the resources, ageing can be a positive and liberating experience,” added Dr Pike, “but in the ‘Fourth Age’, there are fewer opportunities.”

The senior lecturer, who is General Secretary of the International Sociology of Sport

Migrants: how

IT AID FOR FINANCE FIRM STUDENTS AT THE University have helped to make improvements to computer systems run by the global financial services firm JP Morgan.

The systems manage most of the banking giant’s global IT operational systems and handle trillions of dollars in transactions every day. The department has 650 staff worldwide and a head office in Bournemouth.

The University’s relationship with JP Morgan involves an annual IT project, identified by JP Morgan.

This year, four second-year students from the IT Management for Business degree have developed a system that tracks the operational status configuration of the business’s different operating systems second by second.

“It’s an extremely valuable tool,” said Dr David Cooper, senior lecturer in information systems and management at the University. “It has become important to them and they are developing it further.

One result of the relationship is that JP Morgan is now starting to employ our students after graduation. Two were taken on last year.”

Part way through the project, JP Morgan took over the ailing Bear Stearns company. The project sponsor had to fly to New York at short notice for four weeks – and students liaised with him on the project across the Atlantic.

Professor Chris Gaine

WORK TO DESTROY rumours and misinformation about the arrival of new migrants to the UK has been the sizeable task Professor Chris Gaine has set himself over many years.

He has conducted a number of studies, several in the Chichester area, in an effort to destroy the commonlyheld beliefs that immigration can only have a negative impact on our health service, education, employment market and housing.

“Migrants have contributed to a gradual rise in the UK population,” Chris says, “but UK-born individuals still account for 90 per cent of the total working population.

“The overall economic impact of migration from EU member states in Britain as a whole is contested, but in the local area I have no doubt it has been broadly positive, reflecting the flexibility and speed of adjustment of the UK labour market.”

More recently the arrival of Eastern European workers has been examined, finding that far from taking

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Association, has also taken her message overseas, addressing conferences in Canada, China, Denmark, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa. She believes that we can learn a lot from what is happening elsewhere. She’s now working with West Sussex County Council to encourage better information for older people.

“We’re not advocating that this country becomes a ‘nanny state’, and we don’t think people should be made to feel guilty if they cannot or do not want to exercise, but we have to look at how we make our policies better.

“We should be able to say to anyone: ‘If you want to get active, this is what we can do to help you’.

“It’s about enabling ‘active ageing’ for people who wish to make those choices.”

UK benefits British people’s jobs they enable local employers to expand. “People say about the Polish community, for example, that they take housing from those in this country. The reality is the immigrants feel the pain of a housing shortage more than anyone,” adds the Chair in Social Policy.

“I surveyed more than 300 immigrants and was surprised, and saddened, at the mis-match between the evidence of what they add to this country and what’s widely believed.”

A website led by Prof Gaine and involving many local agencies – expandingcommunities.org – aims to help provide information and a contact network between all the local agencies – from education to the fire service to health, to help relieve pressure points, avoid duplication of any translations, and dispel myths.

“Far from acting as a drain on public services, often new migrants help to deliver vital services,” he says.

“This is a topical debate and I hope we can inform future thinking on it.”

Drum fit DR MARCUS SMITH admits he’s ‘living the dream’ held since he was a 15-year-old boy.

How else could you describe working with one of the music world’s most celebrated artists from one of the biggest bands ever?

Clem Burke is the drummer with Blondie, fronted by iconic singer Debbie Harry. His work with Dr Smith is helping promote the physical and emotional benefits drumming can bring.

The Drum Project, launched by the pair this summer, will offer help to obese children, stressed business people, pensioners needing more exercise and everyone in between.

“There are many proven benefits to people’s health and well-being through drumming,” said Dr Smith. “Children might not think it cool to go for a swim, but picking up a pair of drum sticks? There can be few things cooler.”

His partnership with Clem Burke began when, as a fan with a PhD behind him, he wrote to the Blondie man asking him about the physical demands of performing so intensely for such a long time.

“We met in the late 90s at Wembley, as the band’s popularity was on the rise again,” explained Dr Smith. “We built up a rapport, developed some studies of Clem’s drumming and it’s gone from there. Now I can stand four

BEAT IT… Blondie drummer Clem Burke at the launch of the foundation

feet behind him at a concert as he plays to 10,000 people. It’s real Jim’ll Fix It stuff!”

They’ve travelled from Bristol to Portugal spreading the drumming message and will be taking it into communities to give everyone from eight years to 80 the chance to live a little bit like a superstar – albeit without the world tours.

Since the launch, interest has exploded. In addition to national press and broadcast coverage in the UK, Marcus has: ■ Conducted live radio interviews in Australia, Canada and the USA ■ Been interviewed by Harpers magazine in New York ■ Helped organise coverage in Rhythm, a major drumming magazine ■ Dealt with a huge e-mail response from famous drummers wanting to be tested.

“We’re looking to do some work with Slim Jim, from the Stray Cats at Brixton Academy – one of the few drummers who plays while standing,” said Marcus.

International music therapists have been in touch, wanting to collaborate, as have outreach projects nearer home wanting his help and music departments from other universities. For more information, go to www.clemburkedrummingproject.com

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THE DARK SIDE OF TINTIN’S CREATOR

Monks join student cohort TWO MONKS FROM the Syrian Orthodox Church have just started a year’s full-time study at the University.

Their studies came after a visit to Turkey – up to the borders of Syria and Iraq – by the Revd Dr Paul M. Collins, Reader in Christian Theology, to assess them and to identify how best their studies could be organised.

The Bishop of Chichester, the Rt Rev John Hind, has a particular interest in the churches of Turkey, and the local diocese has organised exchanges in recent times.

The Syrian Orthodox Church is a minority in Turkey – which has two main traditions, the Greek Orthodox Church, largely around Istanbul, and the Syrian Orthodox further east. It’s an area that has ancient Christian foundations and the monastery where Paul stayed is around 1,600 years old.

“My week in Turkey was absolutely fascinating and rewarding,” said Paul. “We were shown many of the sights of the area, including

Paul, right, with a student at Derulzafaran Monastery, Mardin

churches dating from the fourth and fifth centuries, and were able to visit several local village communities. The two monks are very much looking forward to their time in West Sussex and hope it will enable them to support their church in years to come.”

Behind the scenes…

ROLLS-ROYCE Motor Cars at Goodwood has been working with two university students for the first time as part of their degrees in Business Management and IT Management for Business.

Each student spent 10 weeks with the company, with projects completed during the second semester of their third year. Dissertations were written on the back of the projects.

One student helped to develop a skills management IT system and the other worked on a project concerning the setting of personal targets.

THE CARTOON adventures of Tintin, Snowy and Captain Haddock have delighted readers for decades. But behind the stories of the young Belgian reporter is the darker story of his creator, Hergé – the penname of Georges Remi.

Dr Hugo Frey, subject leader in history and a French expert, has published the results of his research on Hergé’s anti-Semitism in a recent book from the University of Mississippi Press.

“It is well-known that Hergé collaborated with the Nazis during the occupation of Belgium and if you look at his later work, from the Sixties, you still get a recurrence of the anti-Semitic clichés. For example, one of the main villains is Rastapopoulos, who Hergé describes as Greek.

But when you look at the basic cartooning, it fits with common, offensive, antiSemitic stereotypes.

“It is very similar to the antiSemitic drawings he did during the war, when he was working in Nazi occupied Belgium.”

Hugo admits to having been an enthusiastic Tintin reader in his youth. He explains: “The books are incredibly clever but when you understand the political context and stereotypes you can reread them in a far more critical light. In my research I’m suggesting that Hergé’s anti-Semitism did not stop when the war ended.”

It’s not just anti-Semitism

that he identifies. “The first book, Tintin in the Soviet Union, is anti-Communist and the second, Tintin in the Congo, is colonialist. The books do improve in sophistication but never quite become hymns to multiculturalism. One positive though is that Tintin travels the world and children reading about him can become interested in travel and different slices of world history.”

“By the Sixties, Tintin was a world icon. President Charles de Gaulle’s famous quote was ‘I have only one international rival and that is Tintin!’ Hergé, who died in 1983, is hugely successful – but a politically perplexing character.” ● Hugo’s 8,000-word essay on Hergé is part of the collection, History and Politics in French Language Comics and Graphic Novels, edited by Mark McKinney – price $50.

Dr Hugo Frey

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Making waves…

WORK DEVELOPED by University human performance scientists studying the impacts on the body of high speed boats is gaining worldwide acclaim.

Techniques used as part of an extensive project with the Ministry of Defence have been taken up by researchers in America, Canada, and Australia.

“Our findings contributed to a design guide on high speed craft, such

as those used by the RNLI and US Navy,” explained Trevor Dobbins, who undertook the work with colleagues Rosemary Dyson, Steve Myers and Terry McMorris.

“It’s been distributed globally and won an industry award. The lifeboat naval architects and engineers are now using the guide to assist in the design of the next generation of boats.”

With a grant from the Research Council, the team monitored crew on

Iain lifts the lid on diet Iain in action

board two MOD high speed boats during a circumnavigation of the British Isles. They assessed the effect of the boat passage on the crew, which included heart rate measurement and subjective questionnaires.

The trial showed the boat operators have an increased discomfort tolerance that, although useful for operating in rough sea conditions, may lead to them being put at an increased risk of injury.

IAIN KENDRICK IS perfectly placed to ensure his power-lifting skills are exploited to the full.

As a PhD in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, he’s investigating the effects of diet and training on the body – so knows how to achieve maximum results.

And it clearly works. He’s the British Weight Lifting Association’s champion in the 90kg class of the sport’s unequipped discipline having lifted 220kg in the squat, 142.5kg in the bench press and a mere (his words) 245kg in the dead-lift to give a

total of 607.5kg. In June he became World Drug Free Powerlifting Federation’’ (WDFPF) 90kg unequipped champion with a 642.5kg total.

This November he travels to the United States to compete in the WDFPF World championships.

“Although the Commonwealth Games may be the most well-known event to the general public that power-lifting is involved with, it’s now high-profile on the world stage,” he said. “The major competitions for me are the world championship events.”

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ON TRAIL OF SPORT MYSTERY A MYSTERY CONDITION that’s hampered promising sports stars and baffled coaches could soon be explained by world-leading research at the University.

Sports psychologist Melissa Day has long studied the debilitating effects of socalled Lost Move Syndrome in

Pool boosts canoe hopes AN ‘ENDLESS POOL’ at Bishop Otter Campus is helping to support research into how to improve Britain’s canoeists.

Student research projects have included Ben Mahon’s examination of surf board paddling and glove design, John Kennedy compared two different styles of teaching an Eskimo roll and Becky Warke explored the effects of static and moving water on thermal comfort and cooling.

The pool, which is often used for swim training, uses recirculating water and can maintain a current of 5km/h.

Meanwhile, the Adventure Education team has been running a prestigious national training event for British Canoe Union tutors.

The first of this standard under a new coaching scheme, it was attended by the those who train coaches to a national standard.

Paul Gray organised a two day event at Chichester that included psychology and physiology as well as mentoring and outdoor education with all modules written by University staff.

athletes who can suddenly no longer perform a simple move essential to his or her sport.

It struck the young British diver Tom Daley, who’s just competed at the Olympics, while gymnastics and trampolinists are also known to suffer.

“One day they can be fine, the next they can’t do it and it’s often the simplest of tasks,” said Melissa. “It’s like driving your car, you do it automatically. These sufferers can’t visualise themselves doing it and the harder they try, the worse it gets.

“It became so bad in some cases, the coaches were banning these people from training because they thought the condition was contagious in some way.”

Melissa’s work has now got the attention of a leading French psychologist and the pair are hoping their combined

efforts will bring about a breakthrough.

“There’s no magic cure but it can be solved,” she added.

“Steve Backley suffered the same thing. He lost the ability to throw his javelin. I found it took hours of work in the field to overcome the condition.

“The more we understand this, the more we can help some of the world’s brightest sporting stars.”

Melissa Day

Steve Backley lost the ability to throw his javelin

Performance expert remembers his roots DR PAUL HURRION may be a leading biomechanics specialist advising some of the biggest names in sport, but he doesn’t forget his roots.

A graduate from the University with a sports studies degree in 1993 and who achieved his PhD in 1997, he now runs a highly successful consultancy business, Quintic, using video analysis software to help European-based performers in sports including golf, cricket and athletics.

Dr Hurrion counts worldclass golfers Paul McGinley, Lee Westwood, David Howell and Padraig Harrington among

Dr Paul Hurrion

his clients but also returns to Chichester to help with studies of cricketers’ bowling actions.

“There are a lot of good people at Chichester,” said Dr Hurrion. “I have very fond memories of my time there

because it set me on the path to where I am now. What I did then and what I do now have a lot of similarities.”

Sports biomechanics uses the scientific methods of mechanics to study the effects of various forces on the sports performer to allow them to maximize their ability.

“We have a new version of our Quintic software coming out this year which will allow even greater understanding of the work we do,” added Dr Hurrion. “More and more top sports people are turning to us to give them an advantage over the competition, but it’s an ever-expanding field.”

scene TAPE MEASURE… Dr David Cooper, right, with MD Mike Punter

We can fix it…

PROGRAMMES TO improve the management performance of local businesses have been developed by the University.

And five members of the senior management team of specialist adhesive firm Parafix, based in Lancing, have just completed the year-long programme.

Senior lecturer in information systems and management Dr David Cooper said: “Parafix work with self-adhesive material using 21st century technology to meet customers’ needs – whether that be glueing together mobile phones or fixing mirrors to cars.”

The programme came after discussions with the South East England Development Agency, who put them in touch with Parafix. “We built the programme from Foundation degree in management modules,”

said David. “We also created a module on strategic management, specially for Parafix, but now available as part of our overall programme.”

Topics covered include marketing as well as strategic and project management. Each module consists of three one-day workshops.

Parafix MD Mike Punter said: “We were impressed by the response from the University. We briefed them on our objectives and the University produced a series of modules that required very little adjustment. In short, they were very professional.”

Research undertaken by the University on working with external organisations highlights the need to listen carefully to specific business needs and to react flexibly to demands. “Our work with Parafix is a key example of that,” said David.

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infocus

Curtain up A MAN WHO has worked as musical director on Broadway – and conducted at Sydney Opera House and London’s Royal Festival Hall – is the University’s new head of musical theatre studies.

Julian Kelly joined the Chichester staff this autumn and is responsible for the course in musical theatre – which involves the production of theatre pieces in Bognor Regis.

Until last summer, Julian was musical director on The Pirate Queen – by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg of Les Miserables fame – at the Hilton Theatre on Broadway. Until recently, he was musical director of the UK tour of Disney’s smash hit High School Musical.

His other theatre credits include much of Stephen Sondheim’s work, as well as shows like Chicago, West Side Story, Oliver!, The King And I, The Sound Of Music, Guys And Dolls and Singin’ In The Rain.

He admits a particular interest in the works of Sondheim, which he hopes will bear further fruit in his new role.

“Not all that we do will be highbrow,” says Julian. “We acknowledge the commercial imperatives of compilation rock shows and other musicals.”

The work of which he’s proudest so far came during his 15 years as a visiting musical director at Leicester’s Haymarket Theatre. “After a long association with

director Paul Kerryson at the Library Theatre in Manchester and Oldham Coliseum, I was involved in a wide range of productions at Leicester,” he said.

“It was a repertory theatre environment where you might rehearse one show during the day, put on another in the evening and orchestrate something else when everybody’s gone to bed. We might be doing six musicals a year, including West End transfers. You cover a lot of different repertoire appealing to different audiences.”

Around 18 years before his new appointment, he was musical supervisor and orchestrator for Chichester Festival Theatre’s production of 70, Girls, 70! He also played rehearsal piano and was assistant musical director to Jeremy Sams, for the Royal Exchange Theatre production of Carousel, directed by the late Steven Pimlott, who was associated with the Festival Theatre.

“My experiences with Chichester have all been good,” he says.

The University’s Foundation Degree in Musical Theatre attracted more than 40 students in its first year. It’s based at the Alexandra Theatre in Bognor Regis and has a workshop programme given by current West End professionals in subjects ranging from set design to stage fighting. Students engage in extensive production work and have opportunities to see London shows as part of their field trip schedule.

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newsupdate

LIDO MEMORIES LIVE ON BATON CHARGE… Julian at the final sing-through in Dublin before rehearsals in New York for The Pirate Queen

MEMORIES OF HILSEA Lido, opened in the mid-30s in Portsmouth, have been committed to film thanks to two University people and a National Lottery Heritage grant.

Visiting fine arts lecturer Jez Stephens and Roy Hanney, senior lecturer in media studies, worked together to produce a video, No Diving, to celebrate the architecture and heritage of the lido and its role in the local community. A website – www.hilsealido.com – has also been set up. The future of the lido is uncertain.

The application for a Lottery grant was made in Spring 2007 – and when notification came of a £24,500 award, planning began in earnest.

University students and volunteers worked alongside archivists and film crews to collect and archive film footage, memories and memorabilia.

Portsmouth Arts and Community Education ran a pilot project – teaching a video art class at the lido – and the West Sussex Film and Sound Archive collaborated too.

In February, a recollection event – covered by local TV and radio – attracted around 80 people, some of whom bought cine footage donations.

Several oral histories were recorded including stories of characters called Tarzan, The One-Legged Fire Diver and the Unbeatable Swimming Clown.

Later more interviews were taped – a total of around 40 that included more contemporary memories from pupils of the City of Portsmouth Boys School.

At the end of March, a celebratory event at the lido complex included a showing of the No Diving film along with video art by adult learners.

Events for schools are planned and a second website is up and running – www.hilsea-lido.co.uk. Editing of a documentary DVD has started – and it will be available free to libraries, museums and archives.

Jez said: “The building is still used but it’s in poor condition and no money is being spent on it. So its future is uncertain. What is certain though is that the memories of times spent at this historic pool will live on.”

NIGHT SHOT… Hilsea Lido is the subject of a new video and website. Inset, Jez Stephens

scene Saskia, left, and Christina in action

PICTURE: ROYAL YATCHING ASSOCIATION

Sail on!

CHICHESTER GRADUATE Saskia Clark took on the world at the Beijing Olympics – the culmination of years of preparation.

Saskia, who graduated with a BA (Hons) in Sport and Exercise Science in 2001, ended up in sixth position with 82 net points in the women’s 470 sailing class with partner Christina Bassadone.

She said: “I first visited the Chichester campus as part of the Royal Yachting

Association youth squad for physiological testing. Having completed my A levels, I was advised that the University was a good place to study. The degree certainly helped with my sailing, particularly with pre-event preparation. The 2004-2008 Beijing campaign has been focused not on qualifying and getting there but on winning a medal.”

Their preparations included 10 visits to China over the past three years.

How Nazi refugees inspired a new generation

SNAP HAPPY… Fatmata Sesay and the county council’s Frances Carron

YOUNG PEOPLE with a refugee background have been involved in an art project at the University’s Otter Gallery.

The project came about as a result of a gallery exhibition in the summer of work by refugee artists from Nazi Germany in Britain.

Exhibitions and outreach officer Kate Maple said: “We worked with the West Sussex County Council Ethnic Minority Achievement Team on this small-scale photography project – with a very positive outcome.”

Artist and photographer Jimmy Symonds led the bespoke, one-day workshop session with young people identified and invited by the council team.

The exhibition contained 25 paintings and prints – all by people expelled from Germany – ranging from abstract pieces linked to modern jazz to simple landscapes and still life.

“Jimmy provided a perspective for the project, which allowed the children a lot of

freedom to explore their natural creativity,” said Kate. “The kids made work they thought Nazi Germany would not have approved of – anything that pushed traditional boundaries.

This kind of approach often highlights undiscovered potential in this age group.”

Their work was featured at the exhibition and they were invited back to a prize-giving event.

It was one of a series of workshops run by the gallery – which have included pupils from Chichester High School for Girls. “There is tremendous potential for us to be able to serve this community in many different ways,” said Kate. “One area we hope to develop is working with groups who find themselves more isolated from society and who find access to the arts difficult.”

The Otter Gallery has an extensive collection across all disciplines, including works by artists such as Henry Moore, Patrick Heron, Stanley Spencer and Graham Sutherland.

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Making maths add up…

External funding total moves over £1million EXTERNAL FUNDING of more than £1m a year has been attracted by the University for its continuing professional development courses.

The courses, for professionals working in education in the UK and internationally, range from leadership and management to mentoring and coaching and include accreditation programmes for special educational needs.

Former head of CPD Dr Coleen Jackson, now deputy dean in the Faculty of Sport, Education and Social Sciences, said: “Our flagship courses include the MA Education programme, the largest part-time postgraduate programme in the region, and MA Maths Education is also the largest such programme in the UK. They’ve been funded by the Training and Development Agency for Schools.

“We also have a huge project with the TDA on the Student Associate Scheme, working with undergraduates and postgraduates interested in gaining classroom experience while pursuing their studies.”

Smaller, externally-funded projects include work with: ■ The City schools in Pakistan, where the University is working with

50 head teachers on training and development programmes ■ The National College for School Leadership ■ The Southern Education Leadership Trust ■ The Virtual Staff College ■ The Chichester Diocesan Board ■ Southern Partnership and West Sussex PLA. It’s meant a raised profile for Chichester – with greater representation at conferences, more published papers and even book contracts in specialist fields, says Coleen.

“The future for CPD and the University is all about productive partnerships and collaboration – and all the CPD team has spent the last three years strengthening those links. All the way along, it’s been teamwork, with different elements underpinning the growth we’ve experienced.

“In all we do, we are looking at making an impact on learning, whether that be children’s or adult learning. If schools improve, life chances for children improve too – and that also applies in other educational institutions as well.”

The new head of CPD is Andy Wild.

NOT ALL OF the UK’s maths teachers have heard of the University’s Mathematics Centre directly – but their day-to-day teaching has almost certainly been influenced by the work of the team based there.

The centre, founded by Professor Afzal Ahmed, has an international reputation – and is unique in the UK as a research and consultancy unit, based in Arran House on the Bognor Regis campus. It’s a dynamic.

UK mathematics resource that has developed renowned expertise during 23 years of sustained work in the area.

Coordinator Alison ClarkWilson says: “That frees us up to respond flexibly to projects and initiatives. If anything major is happening in the teaching of mathematics, we’ll be involved in one way or another. We seek to support schools, colleges and Higher Education Institutions to raise achievement in mathematics.”

It has links to more than 30 countries – including France and Portugal – and has provided consultancy to government and other agencies in the Far East, Australia and New Zealand.

Said Alison: “In the University, our role centres around the Masters degree in Mathematics Education programme, which has 98 students, mostly full-time teachers and advisers who meet at weekends.”

One of the centre’s guiding principles is a maths-for-all approach that does not treat the subject as elitist. “We work with and advise agencies such as local education authorities, the Mathematical Association and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) on in-service research and curriculum development.

Main projects being worked on currently include: ■ Developing the regional work of the National Centre of Excellence for Teaching Mathematics ■ Bowland Maths – a new approach to making maths more fun for 11–14-year olds in the UK. ■ A new technology hand-held device for secondary maths – called TI-Nspire, funded by Texas Instruments. The centre is responsible for the English evaluation pilot. Alison is just back from presenting the research results at the International Congress on Mathematical Education in Mexico.

Looking ahead, a new specialist in primary education has been recruited to enable the centre to respond creatively to the Williams Review, which has recommended significant professional development for teachers in the UK’s 20,000 primary schools over the next few years.

The Bognor-based, Mathematics Centre team

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Step change…

TWO PERFORMING dance companies operate in the University. 3-Fall is made up of undergraduates on the BA Dance students while MA students have the opportunity to join mapdance, a company that tours parts of the UK. Professor Sarah Rubidge, from the Dance department, said: “We’ve been very fortunate to have the famous choreographer, Shobana Jeyasingh, working with mapdance. The company is the primary mode of study – one of four routes – for many of our MA students. In their early 20s, they have a year of professional dance training to supplement their undergraduate degree. They will be touring for half of their year.”

3-Fall is made up of students in the final year of their undergraduate studies and have worked with many different choreographers.

A scene from a recent mapdance performance

■ GREEN TOURISM University tourism specialist Dr Andy Clegg is helping to turn the South East tourism industry green.

Andy, subject leader for tourism management, has set up The Green Training Company – with University backing – with local B&B provider Sandra Barnes-Keywood. It provides a step-bystep approach to green accreditation in the Green Tourism Business Scheme, the largest such UK and European scheme with more than 1,400 members.

“Sandra is a national green business champion and a gold medal holder in the GTBS,” said Andy.

“Her practical expertise and my background in sustainable destination management add to the credibility and legitimacy of our training.”

Contracted by Tourism South East, in its first year, nine courses were delivered to a total of 68 businesses – with around 25 per cent now signed up to the GTBS. “Accreditation is a slow process – in the South East region alone there are only 112 GTBS businesses. There’s a big barrier about what green tourism actually means. Some businesses see it as a complicated process – with a lot regarding it as all to do with energy efficiency.

“The main aim of the training is to demystify the concept of green tourism, and to relate green tourism to achievable, realistic and practical actions.”

Going green can provide tourism businesses with a marketing advantage. The new business is working with Visit Britain to provide training in the East Midlands this autumn.

“This work fits into the University’s wider employee engagement remit,” says Andy, who is also a national master trainer for Tourism South East. “It raises the University’s profile, leads to new contacts and enhances the credibility of our degree course. Spin-offs enhance the student experience during their time with us as well.”

Dr Andy Clegg with local B&B provider Sandra Barnes-Keywood

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Moving forward…

PROFESSOR SARAH RUBIDGE is just back from five weeks in Australia – returning to Brisbane, where she presented a major multimedia work global drifts.

Sarah, who’s worked at the University for more than 10 years, is a Research Professor in the Dance department, specialising in choreography and new media.

Sarah’s role is a very new kind of dance professorship – a practitioner scholar, one of just two or three to be appointed in dance in the UK. “It means I am both a practising artist and an academic,” she said.

“I write and work collaboratively with other artists on interactive installations and digital choreography, an expanding field incorporating digital images that may or may not be derived from human movement – instead of using live dancers.”

Sarah, who has also had work shown in Los Angeles, admits to working at the cutting edge of choreography. “I work with composers, computer programmers, neuroscientists, mathematicians and, more recently, geographers,” she said.

“The last will stretch the boundaries of dance – and perhaps the boundaries of geography too!

“My work is a long way from theatre dance. I am interested in ballet and contemporary dance, and was a dance

critic, but my real interest lies in inter-disciplinary work – and always has. I create and work with digital imagery that is installed and distributed around anything from a small room to a whole campus. If I work with, say, nine projection screens, I work just as if I was working with nine individual dancers in terms of structuring movement in time and space.”

Chichester has long been renowned for its engagement with inter-disciplinary work – and that was what first attracted Sarah to the University. The dance department, which allows students to focus on digital media and choreography, currently has around 200 undergraduate students, another 25 on MAs, most being members of mapdance, the University of Chichester’s graduate dance company, and 10 PhD students.

“We have a very good cohort of mature PhD students, and attract a growing number of international students,” she said. “Most are professional, practising artists who come to us to do a PhD that is led by their choreographic practice – that’s something of which we’re very proud.”

Chichester is already highly respected in the world of dance, and Sarah hopes to see that profile heightened as current plans to establish an Arts Research Centre develop.

■ For more information about Sarah’s work, go to www.sensedigital.co.uk

Flashback to Christmas in August

■ SUMMER SPECIAL International English teachers from around the world are improving their English, and professional teaching skills at the University.

This year, more than 250 have attended short-term courses, of up to 13 weeks.

In 2008, the University has organised six short courses with Spanish teachers from Madrid and Barcelona as well as servicing three contracts with teachers from the Korean capital of Seoul. The city’s neighbouring province of Gyeonggi also sent 25

secondary school teachers on an inservice teacher education programme. In addition, five contracts with China are on hold after this year’s earthquake in the south west of the country.

Co-ordinator Steve Corcoran says feedback from participants also puts the experience of English culture near the top of the agenda for the participants on these programmes.

In order to facilitate this, one popular outcome is that course members sit down to a Christmas lunch in August – complete with Christmas pud and party hats!

■ LECTURE LAUNCH Launched in October by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, right, talking on A Church of the nation or a Church for the nation?

Bishop George Bell and the Church of England, the Distinguished Lecture Series provides a platform at the University for preeminent speakers in their specialist fields.

Designed to provide an intellectual contribution to the community, other lectures include contributions from David Willetts, MP for Havant and Shadow Secretary of State

for Innovation, Universities & Skills, and Baroness Deech of Cumnor, an academic and bioethicist.

Guests attending the complimentary series of lectures have an opportunity to hear the very latest views and join in a question and answer session.

contact

At Chichester University of Chichester, College Lane, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 6PE At Bognor Regis University of Chichester, Upper Bognor Road, Bognor Regis, West Sussex PO21 1HR For general enquiries 01243 816000 For Admissions enquiries 01243 816002 or Email: admissions@chi.ac.uk Or go to our website www.chiuni.ac.uk

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