Spring 2004 - University of Kent

University news
Sciences and Ethics. Vice-
Chancellor Professor David
Melville said: ‘The Transmanche
University is the first of its kind
on both sides of the Channel.
We are creating a real
transfrontier higher education
institution, so it is particularly
fitting that we are opening our
doors to our first students in the
centenary of the signing of the
Entente Cordiale.’
The Transmanche University is
being jointly funded by education
departments in France and the
United Kingdom, as part of a
£1.4m education accord signed at
the Anglo-French summit in Le
Touquet between Prime Minister
Tony Blair and President Jacques
Chirac in 2003. It will be
developing undergraduate
programmes in addition to the
postgraduate courses already
offered, and there are plans to
introduce lifelong learning
initiatives and professional
development programmes. The
Transmanche University will also
contribute to the economic
development of regions on both
sides of the English Channel.
Kent student wins prize
University of Kent Film Studies
student, Mike Walden, who made
Two DICE students observing an endangered gold
eyelash viper from Costa Rica
the best short film on last year’s
undergraduate filmmaking
module, Moving Image
Production, was presented with
the Cranbrook Golden Windmill
Award by the Cranbrook Film
Society at a special public
screening of his film on 24 March.
He received
a cheque for
£250 for his
film, 250/251.
The panel of
judges
included two
BAFTA judges, a film lecturer and
a filmmaker.
Mike’s short, about a footballcrazy
boy and his relationship
with his father, competed against
work by numerous talented
student filmmakers from
universities and colleges in the
region. He hopes to write and
direct films professionally and is
currently applying to MA courses
in filmmaking. Catherine Grant,
Director of the Kent Film Studies
programme said ‘We are
delighted for Mike. He has
produced an accomplished and
beautiful short film of rare
intensity that will clearly have a
life beyond the university course
for which it was produced. We
think the prize is well deserved.’
Jersey Zoo
Links between the
University’s Durrell
Institute of Conservation
and Ecology (DICE) and
the Durrell Wildlife
Conservation Trust
(DWCT), formerly
known as Jersey Zoo,
have recently been
strengthened. Eighteen
third-year
undergraduates in the
Biodiversity and
Management and
Conservation BSc
programme attended
workshops and
presentations on
overseas conservation
efforts by Jersey staff
over a two-day visit to
People
Paul Allain is now Professor of Theatre and Performance. Peter
Brown is Professor of English. Professors Davina Cooper,
formerly Professor of Law and Research Dean, and Didi
Herman, formerly Professor of Law and Social Change, both at
Keele University, have joined the Kent Law School. Professor
Tim Jordan, formerly of the University of Nottingham, is now
Professor in Cognitive Psychology at Kent. The first Head of the
new Medway School of Pharmacy is Professor Clare Mackie,
from The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. Professor Mackie
holds the prestigious new Pfizer Chair of Pharmacy. Professor Ian
Marshall, previously Research Leader, Autonomous Systems at BT,
took up the Chair in Distributed Systems in Computing in January.
Dr Mark Van Vugt, currently Senior Lecturer at
the University of Southampton, will take up the
Chair in Social Psychology at Kent on 1
September. Professor John Baldock is the new
Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, succeeding
Professor Chris Hale. Dr Anthony Ward is
Clare Mackie the new Associate Dean for the University of Kent
at Medway; Dr Ward will also continue as Master
of Darwin College. Ian Black is the new Director
of Personnel. Professor Richard Burns
(Biosciences) was made Professor Emeritus in
January. Dr Richard Bodmer has been given
the Presidential Award for 2003 by the Chicago
Ian Black
Zoological Society. Dr Bodmer is Reader in
Conservation Ecology in the University’s Durrell
Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE)
based in the Department of Anthropology. The
Award has been made in recognition of his
‘personal work on the sustainable use of natural
resources by communities throughout South
Sally Fincher
America.’
Sally Fincher, Lecturer in the Computing
Laboratory, has been awarded the 2003
Undergraduate Teaching Award from the Institute
of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE)
Computer Society.
Simon Campbell Dr Elizabeth Mansfield, from the Institute of
Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science, has
been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. She is currently
looking at ways of synthesising software design that has in it the
principle of ‘optimisation’. An example of ‘optimisation’ is the
calculation of aircraft flight paths that use least fuel for a given wind
pattern, she explained. Dr David Oliver, Honorary Senior
Lecturer at the Kent Institute of Medicine and Health Sciences
(KIMHS) and Consultant in Palliative Medicine and Medical Director
of the Wisdom Hospice, has been awarded the Humanitarian
Award by the International Alliance of ALS/MND Associations. Dr
Simon Campbell, member of University Council, was appointed
as President Elect of the Royal Society of Chemistry in November.
the Trust. They also had a
behind-the-scenes tour of the
reptile house, where captive
breeding programmes are helping
many of the world’s most
endangered reptiles.
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