LU Text

› Contents: news; people; Lancaster in the news; notices; what's on; ads

There will be no editions of LU Text during August. The next issue after today 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.

Greetings to all Muslim readers for the upcoming festival of Eid-ul-fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. For more information about the festival see here.

The new £20m Sports Centre is to open its doors at 7am on Monday August 1st. The state-of-the-art centre will be open to staff, students, schools and the local community. Opening times are 7am to 10pm Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 6pm on Saturday and 9.30am to 6pm on Sunday.
The existing Centre for Sport and Recreation will officially close at 7pm on Sunday following a 24 hour sponsored treadmill walk for St John’s Hospice by Suzanne Wareing from Bowland and Sharon Wilson.

NEWS

Promotions

Congratulations to all staff who received a promotion this year. The following academic colleagues will be promoted from 1 August:

• Promotions from Lecturer Grade 7 to Lecturer Grade 8

  Dr Graeme Burt Engineering
  Dr Stephen Monk Engineering
  Dr Nadia Mazza Mathematics and Statistics
  Dr Anne Krossa European Languages and Cultures
  Dr Mark Butler Law School
  Dr Charlotte Baker European Languages and Cultures
  Dr David Tyfield Sociology
  Dr Zhan Pang Management Science

• Promotions from Lecturer Grade 8 to Senior Lecturer Grade 9

  Dr Melissa Allen Psychology
  Dr Jos Barlow Lancaster Environment Centre
  Dr Alan Blackburn Lancaster Environment Centre
  Dr Vadim Cheianov Physics
  Dr Michael Denton Physics
  Dr Mark Garnett Politics, Philosophy and Religion
  Dr Michael Ginger Biomedical and Life Sciences
  Mrs Olga Gomez-Cash European Languages and Cultures
  Dr Colin Green Economics
  Dr Bob Lauder Biomedical and Life Sciences
  Dr Niels Laustsen Mathematics and Statistics
  Dr Utz Roedig Computing and Communications
  Dr Richard Rushton Institute for the Contemporary Arts
  Dr Sandra-Ilona Sunram-Lea Psychology
  Dr Andrew Sweetman Lancaster Environment Centre
  Dr Edward Venn Institute for the Contemporary Arts

Tenth National Teaching Fellowship Award for Lancaster University

Economics lecturer Dr Jill Johnes from LUMS has been awarded a National Teaching Fellowship worth £10,000 by the Higher Education Academy. Dr Johnes is the tenth member of staff from the University to have received the award, which is a mark of excellence in higher education teaching and support for learning. Full story

Business Process Review

The Business Process Review (BPR) has been working to identify areas of administration that could run more efficiently and effectively. Significant numbers of staff have already contributed their expertise and experience to the BPR programme both through responding to information gathering requests and participating in workshops, or directly through joining project teams. Current projects have been established in finance and procurement, student administration, undergraduate admissions, and in marketing support. In addition, process improvement activities are also taking place in finance, human resources, marketing & recruitment, information systems services, and student based services. A review of the impact of International Partnerships on our administration has also been undertaken.

Over the coming months, we will start to plan how best to implement agreed changes from the projects and staff will be kept fully informed.

More information on the progress of the projects will be circulated in September or please contact the project manager, Dr Paul Rodaway, 01524 60422. All Lancaster staff can access the Business Process Review information page.

Flexible benefits

Car Parking – All staff on permanent or fixed term contracts must select their permit through Flexible Benefits this year. This is the only way of obtaining a permit. Staff on honorary contracts or variable hours contracts must go straight to the car park office.

Sports Centre – By selecting your membership through Flexible Benefits and sacrificing part of your salary each month for 12 months, you can save 30% (approx) on the membership, through tax and NI savings.

• Bronze Membership: £200 if paying upfront to the Sports Centre. Save £64* over the 12 months by joining through Flexible Benefits.
• Silver membership: £250 if paying upfront to the Sports centre. Save £80* over the 12 months by joining through Flexible Benefits.
• Gold membership: £300 if paying upfront to the Sports Centre. Save £96* over the 12 months by joining through Flexible Benefits.
• Platinum membership: £350 if paying upfront to the Sports Centre. Save £112* over the 12 months by joining through Flexible Benefits.

*Figures shown are based on a member of staff paying 20% tax and 10.4% NI. Figures are approximate.

Retail Vouchers – This year we have added new vouchers including Mothercare, i-tunes, Vue Cinemas, Co-op/Somerfield and Leisure vouchers (click here to find out where and how to spend Leisure vouchers, inc ts and cs). By selecting retail vouchers you can receive between 4-8% discount on the cost of the voucher. For example £100 of Mothercare or Vue cinema vouchers will cost you £92.

• Enrolment opens 8 August
• Enrolment closes 12 September
• Benefits Effective 1 October

Enrolment information will be sent to home addresses on 8 August. Check your address details are correct at employee self service Helpdesk 01524 592157 or email c.hadwin@lancaster.ac.uk. Click here to go to the Flexible Benefits website.

People

Members of the university are welcome to attend the Philip Levy Memorial on Wednesday 21st September 2011, from 11.00am to 1.00pm, in the Masters Training Suite, Engineering Building. Ex-colleagues from the Department of Psychology (including Paul Harris of Harvard University and Harvey Goldstein of Bristol University) will discuss Philip's contributions to social science research in the UK, his work at Lancaster and his contributions to the RAE and ESRC. Please contact Charlie Lewis, if you intend to come. A buffet lunch will be provided.

Dr Nina Caspersen (PPR) was an invited speaker at the conference '20 Years on from the End of the Soviet Union’ held at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on 4 July. Her presentation focused on the state of the South Caucasus conflicts following the Russian-Georgian war in August 2008. More than 100 people attended the conference, including high-ranking officials from the FCO.

Dr Rob Graham (LEC) has been awarded a prestigious Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship worth €268,824 (£233,683). The project, entitled “LOCDIS—Safety in Numbers or Beware Thy Neighbour: Collective Motion and Disease Transmission in a Migratory Pest”, will focus on understanding the effects of population dynamics and behaviour on disease transmission and immune function in an important crop pest, the Australian Plague Locust. Rob will spend two years based at the University of Sydney, Australia, working in the lab of Professor Stephen Simpson FAA, and will then return to Lancaster to work again with Professor Kenneth Wilson (LEC).

Lancaster in the news

The graduation of the first medical students from Lancaster Medical School last week was featured on the BBC News website and on BBC One’s regional TV news bulletins on the morning of July 22. The Bay Radio covered the story and two medical students, Andy Henton and Naomi Fleming, were interviewed by BBC Radio Lancashire live from their house in Lancaster. See Lancaster in the News for further coverage on graduation.

Notices

Lancaster Leadership Programme

This Autumn will see the launch of the ‘Lancaster Leadership Programme’ (LLP), our new development offering for Academic and Professional staff. Targeted at Grade 8 and above (and for those who have at least two years’ experience at Lancaster) the programme has four key objectives which are to:

Within the programme (which will be modular in format and run over 18 months) participants will examine global change & trends and consider the implications for higher education & Lancaster. The journey will also include – Multi-rater review (360 feedback), external coaching, and working on live projects/issues. Participants will be encouraged to consider change, collaboration and communication throughout.

Heads of the major structures of the University (for example Deans & COO) will allocate places. The first cohort will run with 16 participants and participation will be via invitation. Further information on the programme will be available in due course.

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.

Electrical Works at the HR Building

On Monday 1st August it was planned that essential electrical works at the new HR building would take place. This work has now been cancelled and will take place at a later time.

Bus Improvements for 2011/12

Staff bus use at the University 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.

Improved express bus service from Morecambe & Heysham via Bypass and Morecambe Road Bus Lane.

Stagecoach are launching a new express bus service between Morecambe, Heysham and Lancaster known as Service 12. In partnership with Lancaster University, service 12 will continue onto the University in the morning peak (arriving 08:37) and will start from the University in the evening peak at 17:10. The service replaces the current X22 service that speeds up bus journey times between campus and Morecambe and Heysham.

To view the new timetable for the 12 service (commencing 15th August 2011) and obtain your free money-saving 12 service bus vouchers please click here to view the information on the Buses web page.

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 web pages please click here.

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

WHAT'S ON

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

ADVERTS

All adverts - posted by staff.