LU Text

› Contents: news; death notice for Professor Ian Bellany; people; Lancaster in the news; notices; what's on; ads

There will be no editions of LU Text during August. The next issue (after the 29th July issue) will be published on Friday 2nd September 2011. Please ensure you check the Facilities campus works website regularly as there is a lot of work taking place across the campus that might affect you.

From Monday 25th July for a period of four weeks there is the possibility of disruption to the strength of signal for Orange and T Mobile users - See notices for further information.

NEWS

Honorary Degrees 2011

Lord Smith of Finsbury (former Cabinet Minister Chris Smith) and the Chief Medical Officer for England Sally Davies are among five people distinguished in their field who have been awarded honorary degrees by Lancaster University at the graduation ceremonies this week. The others included the nuclear expert Dame Sue Ion, former England football captain Jimmy Armfield and palaeoclimatologist Professor Lonnie Thompson. Full story

The honorary degree for the Chief Medical Officer for England was awarded at the inaugural graduation ceremony for the first students from the new Lancaster Medical School. A total of 31 students graduated as doctors, with several opting to stay and train in local hospitals. The students follow the Liverpool University curriculum but study entirely at Lancaster and take their clinical placements in the local area. Full story

Flexible Benefits

The Flexible Benefits scheme offers 16 benefits and you can choose the ones that matter most to you. The scheme gives you the following advantages:

• Benefit from the University’s buying power to gain access to competitive rates (eg private medical and dental insurance, retail vouchers)
• Spread the cost of benefits over 12 months from your salary (with the exception of professional fees)
• Take advantage of tax and National Insurance (NI) where available (check website to see which benefits you can make tax and/or NI savings on).

For example, if you normally spend £100 per week at Asda, by selecting retail vouchers through Flexible Benefits you can save up to £260 per year. Click here to find out more about retail vouchers.

Benefits available: subsidised staff unirider bus pass - car parking - Sports Centre membership - retail vouchers - season ticket loan (non-stagecoach) - childcare vouchers - cycle to work - private medical insurance - vocational training (Lancaster and non-Lancaster) - USS salary sacrifice - professional bodies membership - healthcare cash plan - dental insurance - Pre-School Centre fees - payroll giving.

For information on the benefits please click here.

Enrolment opens 8 August to 12 September. Information on how to select your benefits will be sent to University emails and home addresses around 8 August.

Commuting to Campus

This website has been updated with the latest information on car parking policies and prices for 2011/12 and information on car sharing, bus improvements for 2011/12 and other commuting information. Further updates will be added over the next week. To view the Facilities commuting to campus webpages please click here.

Bus improvements for 2011/12

Staff bus use has doubled since the Travel Plan was introduced in 2005. 19% of staff now commute to campus by bus. As the University continues to heavily subsidise staff annual bus travel for next year, a fleet of 12 brand new buses are now operating on routes 3 and 4 as part of the partnership between Lancaster University and Stagecoach. Also, the bus-stops outside the new Sports Centre are now open, and there are low-floor fully accessible vehicles operating on the X1 service.

See the Stagecoach website for further information on service improvements, commencing 14 August 2011. New timetables will be available on the Stagecoach website nearer to 14 August and paper copies be made available at the travel information stands in the Library, LUSU and the LICA building in due course.

Pure Research Information System

Pure, the University’s new research information system will go live in October in a new online research portal. This portal could significantly improve the visibility of your research, making it easier for potential collaborators, PhD students and publishers to find you. Over the next couple of weeks academic staff will receive information from faculties about how to access Pure. Since it receives live data from the HR database, pFACT, Agresso and LUSI as well as publications records from EPrints, when you log into Pure for the first you will find some data about yourself. Please take some time over the coming weeks to check that the information held about you in Pure is correct and up-to-date before the portal goes live in October. To find out more about Pure, please contact members of the Sophia Project Team: Yvonne Fox, Alison Sharman or David Harrison.

The new ESRC early careers scheme, Future Research Leaders

Potential applicants to this scheme should note the University internal deadline of Friday 19th August 2011. Potential applicants should discuss their proposal with the relevant HoD and forward the following documents to the RSO by the internal deadline:

• Draft pFACT costing – please provide the JeS submission report from pFACT
• Draft Case for Support – 3 A4 sides
• CV – 2 A4 sides
• Confirmation email from HoD of departmental support.

All the applications will be reviewed by an internal panel and those chosen to go forward will be notified as soon as possible after the deadline to allow the proposal to be finalised in time for the ESRC deadline on 15 September 2011. Further information on the scheme can be found on the ESRC website and on the RSO website.

Ian Bellany

We regret to announce the death of Professor Ian Bellany, who worked in Politics, Philosophy and Religion PPR until 2010. He trained at Oxford as an atomic physicist and began his career in the Arms Control Research Unit of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, working with Hedley Bull. He was on the faculty of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University in Canberra before coming to Lancaster in 1970. He was appointed Professor of Politics in 1979 and was the departmental head in 1985-6. From 1979 until 1990 was the Director of the Centre for the Study of Arms Control and International Security (CSACIS) at Lancaster.

There will be a memorial service on Tuesday 26 July at 3pm in the Chaplaincy Centre followed by a reception.

People

PALATINE closes its doors

PALATINE - the Higher Education Academy's Subject Centre for Dance, Drama and Music - will close on 31 July. The Higher Education Academy's recent restructuring has withdrawn funding for the entire network of 24 individual Subject Centres. The staff Ralph Brown, Barbara Hargreaves, Paul Kleiman, David Pearson and Lisa Whistlecroft are leaving the University. In its eleven years of work, PALATINE has organised 100 events attended by over 3000 colleagues from 192 institutions and 148 external organisations. It has provided about £400,000 in funding, via 78 Development Awards made to individuals and groups in HE, to enhance learning and teaching. If anyone would like to stay in touch with any of the PALATINE staff, please email or phone before 31 July for new contact details.

Professor Cary Cooper (LUMS) has been re-elected as Chair of the Academy of Social Sciences for another three year term.

Andy Harrod (Lancaster Environment Centre) is running the Great North Run for Mind in September. Andy is hoping to build on last year’s run with a faster time and more money for Mind - to help with work for mental health awareness and support. You can sponsor Andy here or see him in his office (B48, LEC III).

Lancaster in the news

Follow link to see a list of people in the news.

Drugs research carried out in London clubs by Drs Fiona Measham and Karenza Moore (Applied Social Science) has been reported widely in The Daily Mail, The Guardian and also on many international media websites including the New Zealand Herald.

Notices

Development opportunities

The Organisation and Educational Development team are currently producing the next edition of Development opportunities for staff 2011-2012. The new guide will be distributed in early September. For details of development opportunities over the summer please visit: www.lancs.ac.uk/oed/guide

Applications are now welcome for:

• Postgraduates Who Teach (Supporting Learning Programme). The Supporting Learning programme is designed to provide a framework for the academic and professional development of those who hold posts which involve some duties and responsibilities for supporting the development and/or delivery of learning opportunities. For further information and application form please visit.
• Survival Skills. This one-day induction course is designed to help postgraduates, researchers and others involved in modest amounts of demonstrating or seminar teaching to address some of the basic skills and understanding they will need for their work. It assumes that participants have little or no previous teaching experience. For further information and to reserve your place please visit. If you are making Survival Skills or SLP mandatory for your GTAs, please advise us as soon as possible about the number of places you may require oed@lancaster.ac.uk. For more information about these educational development opportunities please visit.
• Certificate in Academic Practice (CAP) is an in-service programme designed to support and accredit the academic development of a range of staff who teach and support student learning at Lancaster, including:
  • lecturers and teaching fellows who are new to HE teaching, to Lancaster or to UK HE
  • lecturers with considerable experience who are wishing to develop aspects of their teaching and curriculum design,
  • part-time teaching staff
  • some research associates and postgraduates who have substantial teaching duties and prior professional accreditation

For further information and application form please visit.

Bowland Tower mobile mast

From Monday 25th July for a period of four weeks there is the possibility of disruption to the strength of signal for Orange and T Mobile users on campus due to work on Bowland Tower roof. Mobile signal strength should not be affected outside buildings, however you may experience a weak signal inside buildings. Facilities apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Electrical works at the HR Building

On Monday 1st August essential electrical works at the new HR building will mean that there will be 2 x 30 minute periods when the Security Lodge and Chaplaincy Centre will be without power supply. Only electrical appliances will be affected within the building, fire alarms, telephones etc will be backed up on the existing battery systems. Further information on times will be issued closer to the date.

Swimming Pool closure times

The pool will be closed at the following times during the week begining Monday 25th until Thursday 28th July:

• 9.00-10.30am and 2.30-4.00pm, and on Friday 29th July 9-10.30am and 2.00-3.30pm.

The pool will remain open between 8-9am, Monday 25th to Friday 29th July for early morning swims.

Race for Life

Race for Life at Lancaster University was a fantastic event and thanks to everyone who took part or supported the participants, as well as the wonderful volunteers who helped make the event happen. Now the big day is over, Cancer Research UK needs the women who took part to return their sponsorship money. There are three ways to return sponsorship money:

• Online at www.raceforlife.org.
• By phone by calling 0871 641 1111
• By post. Send a cheque, payable to "Cancer Research UK", to Race for Life, PO Box 442, Northampton, NN3 6UU.

Until 30 September, everyone who crossed the finish line at Lancaster Race for Life can buy a pre-paid place for next year’s event, at a specially reduced entry fee of £10.00. Participants will receive a voucher code so they can book a place as soon as the Race for Life website goes live in January. Visit or call 0871 641 1111 mentioning ‘I want to be an early bird’.

Ascentis external moderators

Ascentis are looking for enthusiastic dedicated professionals to join their Access to Higher Education External Moderator team As a minimum, External Moderators should be specialists in their subject area, hold a teaching qualification or equivalent and have experience of internal and / or external moderation. To request an application pack, please contact Joanne Fagan. For all other enquiries please contact Liz Cook. The closing date for applications is 22 July 2011.

WHAT'S ON

For a full list of all events, please see Events.

ADVERTS

All adverts - posted by staff.