Venta 5 - University of Winchester

BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
Paul Light joined King Alfred’s from Bournemouth University where he was
Pro-Vice Chancellor (Academic) carrying responsibility for educational
development, quality and innovation, and research development across the
institution.
Previously, Professor Light held posts with the University of Cambridge, the
University of Southampton and with the Open University where he was Professor of
Education and Director of the Centre for Human Development and Learning. He is a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the British Psychological Society, and has
served on its Council.
New man at the top
Professor Paul Light joined King Alfred’s as College Principal at the
beginning of November last year. In this article for Venta he
introduces himself and sets out some of the key issues, which face
the College over the next few years.
Married to Vivienne and with three
grown up children, I have lived at
Brook in the New Forest for many
years. My domestic interests are
practical as well as academic. I enjoy
my new job enormously, but I’m
never happier than when I can get
out on a tractor, or with a chain saw,
or best of all with a mechanical
digger!
My children are at the ages and stages
where higher education impinges on
Come rain or shine …
them. One is a graduate doing
professional examinations through
Oxford Brookes. Another is just about
to graduate from the University of the
West of England, and the third is
doing AS levels at a local FE College.
The range of different offerings
available in higher education today is
huge, so it is very important for this
College to be clear about what its
particular strengths are. Recent
external quality assessments of the
Keen eyed alumni in the South East region may have recognised a
familiar face cropping up on their TV screens in recent weeks…
Professor Light’s research work has included aspects of the social development of
pre-school children, the factors affecting children’s abilities in drawing, and the language
and spatial abilities of autistic and dysphasic children. His most recent work
has been the contextual factors affecting thinking, reasoning and learning in school
aged children and in university students especially in the context of
learning with computers.
College’s courses tell a very positive ability to pay, then we are going to
story; three ‘excellent’ grades in a row have to work hard on finding ways of
from the Quality Assurance Agency helping some of the students
and ever rising Ofsted grades mean financially.
we are certainly offering courses of
extremely high quality
King Alfred’s has prospered for 160
years, and has a real sense of
Our campus has been greatly
character and tradition as a result of
enhanced by the new Library and the that long history. It has changed and
West Downs Centre, both of which adapted over time, and will need to
offer wonderful facilities for students. continue to do so in the future,
But Winchester is expensive, and perhaps even more rapidly. The
indeed higher education anywhere is College’s continuity and distinctive
expensive these days. If we are to identity will be great strengths as we
continue to offer degree courses to confront these changes, and you, the
students on the basis of their ability alumni are an important part of that
and motivation, rather than their continuity.
Did you know ... BBC South East becomes the BBC's eleventh English region to split from BBC
London as a result of an extensive consultation exercise by the BBC, which revealed licence fee
payers favoured more locally-focussed news services.
Natalie Booker is appearing as
Weather Presenter for the recently
launched BBC South East Today
programme. She graduated from
King Alfred’s in Geography and
Mathematics in 1996, and initially
went into recruitment and training -
despite a long standing interest in all
things meteorological!
Having finally realised her ambition
by gaining a position with the Met
Office, Natalie moved to the BBC
Weather Centre at Television Centre
in London as a Broadcast Assistant in
1999. Here she supported the BBC’s
national forecasters and was
responsible for researching worldwide
weather stories, producing
broadcast-quality graphics and
maintaining the CEEFAX and Online
weather pages.
In her new role, Natalieis working on
the main 6.30pm and lunch-time
television slots as well as providing
regular weather information for
listeners to BBC Radio Kent.
Apart from being a familiar face to
BBC viewers Natalie is a keen rugby
and football fan. She is currently
keeping an eye out for a women’s
cricket team to join in the South East
– so any suggestions would be
gratefully received!
Issue 5 - Summer 2001 1