June 2005 - Humanities, Languages and Social Science ...

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End of Term!
June 2005
Association for Creative Writing and English launch
At a very entertaining and well attended event to celebrate
the launch of the MMU Association for Creative Writing
and English (ACWE), an audience of around 100 English
teachers, tutors and LEA advisors from across the North
West heard Carol Ann Duffy and other MMU English staff
and students read and perform their work. The launch
took place at the Geoffrey Manton building on 26 April.
Professor Janet Beer, Dean of the Faculty, introduced the
evening and, in between readings and performances,
guests heard details of the Association’s planned
programme of events for the coming year from organisers
Alf Louvre and Kaye Tew.
The World’s Wife. The evening concluded with a
performance of classic American songs by English tutor
Les Berry accompanied by guitarist Roland Jones. They
will be featured in an evening of words and music which
the Association hopes to host in the future.
Principal Lecturer, Lifelong Learning for the Faculty, Alf Louvre,
said,“The performances reflect the diversity of creative work
that goes on here in the English department and its range of
expertise. We hope that schools, colleges and LEAs will
collaborate with us to help foster creative writing by young
people across the region.”
Professor Sue Zlosnik, Head of English, was delighted by the
turnout and by the responses of the teachers attending the
readings. “The aim of the Association for Creative Writing and
English is to share the resources of our English department
and our Writing School and host events for teachers and
pupils in schools and colleges in an effort to break down
barriers between HE and further and secondary education.”
Kaye Tew, Alf Louvre, Les Berry, Julie Wilkinson and Roland
Jones
The readers and performers were much enjoyed: MA student
Avril Heffernan read a piece of work which was published in
MUSE2, the English Department’s creative writing journal;
dramatist Julie Wilkinson, who teaches on the English
department undergraduate writing courses, read from her
recent play Scorcher and poets Jeffrey Wainwright and
Carol Ann Duffy read from their works, Out of the Air and
In this issue...
Creative Writing Association launch page 1
Research Institute launched
in Nordic style page 2
Combining Forces page 3
Accessing the Faculty page 3
Around the Faculty pages 4-7
You’ve Got Mail! page 7
Pastures New page 8
On the evening, a large number of teachers and LEA advisors
signed up for masterclasses in creative writing which will run
in June as part of The MUSE Project, the first Association
activity. Many also took posters to publicise the writing
competitions in schools. The MUSE Project has been funded
by the Arts Council England, North West and is a creative
writing competition for young writers from North West
schools and colleges. Winners will see their work printed
in special editions of MUSE and will be invited to attend
creative writing workshops at MMU.
The competition isn’t just about
the young writers selected for
publication. All schools who
participate in the competition
will be invited to a
celebration event in
November to hear their
peers’ work, read
alongside that of
professional writers
like Paul Abbott and
Melvin Burgess.
Competition organiser Kaye
says, “We hope that the competition
give all participants the opportunity to write
pleasure, without the normal pressures of time
Tew
will
for

2 discovers that they have a talent or
that they enjoy writing, then the
project will have been a success.”
Details of the Association for Creative
Writing and English and the MUSE
Project competition can be found on
the Association website:
www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/english/acwe
Kaye Tew
Research Institute launched in Nordic style
The Manchester European Research Institute (MERI) was launched
internationally on 3 May at a conference attended by a government minister
from Norway and the Director of the Nobel Institute. The day was completed
by MERI’s Director, Professor Clive Archer, giving the Inaugural MERI Lecture.
MERI is one of the four research institutes in the Faculty and it concentrates on
sustaining and enhancing research potential on European issues or those
involving Europe’s relationship with the rest of the world, especially in the
cultural, economic, literary, political and social fields.
At its May meeting, MERI
hosted a conference on the
topic ‘Promoting Peace’. It
had a distinct Nordic flavour
as it was also the first in the
series of the Nansen
Seminars which are being
held in Britain to mark the
occasion of the centennial of
Norwegian
Clive Archer and Vidar Helgesen
independence.
The whole day was organised in cooperation with the Norwegian Embassy
in London and was attended by about 50 researchers, together with
current and retired practitioners and representatives of business and
commerce. The audience was international with participants from the
Netherlands, Germany and Poland, as well as the Nordic and Baltic
states.
The State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Norway, Mr Vidar Helgesen, gave
the keynote introductory speech, “Promoting Peace in Practice, a
Government’s Experience”. Professor Geir Lundestad, Director of
the Nobel Institute and Secretary of the Nobel Committee,
provided a fascinating account of the Nobel Peace Prize in a talk
entitled “What can the Nobel Peace Prize Achieve”. He reflected
on the consequences of winning the prize for an individual or an
organisation and examined the cases of some of the controversial
recipients such as Kissinger and Arafat.
Vidar Helgesen, Dame Alexandra Burslem
and Clive Archer
STOP PRESS!
Dave Olive of the English
department is retiring this year,
and the department has
organised a farewell to be held in
the Mabel Tylecote Green Room
at 1pm on 21 June.
We would like to wish Dave the
very best in the future and a piece
on his farewell and years here at
MMU will be in the next issue.
Espen Barth Eide, from the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs,
spoke on “Making Peace Stick” and addressed the difficulties in
having effective peace agreements. Some of the wider
problems of peace and security in Africa were dealt with by Tanja
Schümer of The Commission for Africa which has advocated stronger
African involvement in preventing conflict in the continent. Alyson Bailes,
Director of the Stockholm Peace Research Institute gave a critical
appreciation of the day’s proceedings and a panel discussion was chaired
by Sir David Ratford, formerly British Ambassador in Oslo.
The Inaugural MERI Lecture, given by Professor Clive Archer, Director of the
Manchester European Research Institute, was entitled “No More Mr/Ms Nice
Guy The Nordic States after 9/11”. In this, he set out the case for identifying a
special approach to international relations by the Nordic states, that of
‘generous providers’ and he outlined the threats to this role after the events of
11 September 2001. In conclusion, he called for research on the areas of
international policy where the Nordic states could cooperate more closely.
Professor Archer drew on more than thirty five years of research in the
Nordic region for his talk.

Accessing the Faculty
3
On 16 March an Open Day was held
for Level 2 Access students here in
the Geoffrey Manton building. The
day was organised in response to
requests from Access tutors at local
FE colleges, many of whose students
had enjoyed the Level 3 Open Day
held last November. Access tutors
were keen that their students -
relatively early in their return to study
- should see what our university offers
and hear from MMU tutors with a real
enthusiasm about what mature
students bring to our courses.
These Open Days - for Level 2 in
Spring and for Level 3 in Autumn - are
to be annual events, getting the
message to students at local colleges
that we want them to study on this
Faculty’s degrees.
Around 40 students (and their tutors)
from five local centres - City College,
MANCAT, Manchester Adult
Education, Tameside FE College and
Hopwood Hall heard from Alf Louvre,
Kaye Tew, Dave Hodgkinson and John
McHugh - and from a panel of current
and recently graduated mature
students who had come to MMU
from Access courses.
The emphasis of the day was on the
range of courses they could choose
from, the flexibility of subject choice
(especially within the new Combined
Honours programme) and the
strength of the tutorial support on
offer from staff, many of them wellversed
in dealing with the problems
mature students encounter. The
stress, too, was on the huge record of
success enjoyed by mature students
on our degrees over the past 20 years.
As ever, the contributions of current
and recent MMU students were
particularly telling. Their honesty,
enthusiasm and no-nonsense
assessment of what studying for a
degree had really meant to them was
what visiting students most wanted
to hear.
The new Faculty Lifelong Learning
website with information on student
achievement, support available,
course options and information on
admissions was in active use during
the day. Visiting students left with a
better understanding of what the
Faculty has to offer - and, we hope,
with an increased interest and
confidence in moving through to
Higher Education.
For further information see
www.hlss.mmu.ac.uk/lifelonglearning
Alf Louvre
Combining Forces
As part of the Faculty Lifelong Learning initiative, several
departments are getting together to consider providing
innovative courses for Greater Manchester Police.
Over the next few months specialist staff from Sociology,
Criminology, Politics, Philosophy and Law are collaborating
with each other and GMP staff to create course units on
Community and Evidence and Procedure. The intention is
for these to feature on GMP’s prestigious new Initial Police
Learning and Development (IPLD) programme, as part of
the comprehensive training offered to probationary
officers in parallel with their work on the beat. GMP are
co-funding course development work by MMU in these
areas to the tune of £10,000.
The IPLD programme is one of many being trialled across
the country over the next two years under the direction of
the Home Office and GMP are determined that their
training will set the standard nationally.
For many MMU staff, this collaboration offers the chance
to open up a new kind of work in the area of Continuing
Professional Development. The goal, as ever, is to make
the expertise and experience within the Faculty available
to as wide an audience as possible - and to maximise our
social impact.
Working with GMP will also mean developing new
‘intensive’ kinds of course delivery. It is expected that
some 300 officers will be recruited by GMP each year in
five cohorts of 60, each of which will join a ‘rolling’ training
programme. MMU teams are currently exploring the
potential of week-long, full-time, 9-to-5 modules,
supported by on-line archives of background and research
material. GMP’s own specialist trainers will participate in
aspects of course delivery and assessment. Assessment
tasks will focus on case studies, based on the officers’
professional experience following their classroom work.
As well as demonstrating MMU’s continuing commitment
to the community, this collaboration also provides practical
benefits for MMU students. Those with career interests in
the fields of criminal justice and policing will, we hope, be
able to access these specialist courses (and, indeed, other
elements of the IPLD programme), hence increasing their
insight into professional practice and helping prepare
them for careers. More broadly, the intensive models of
course delivery may be relevant to many students’ needs,
allowing them to construct study programmes that are
more flexible and economic.
Alf Louvre, Principal Lecturer, Lifelong Learning for the
Faculty, hopes that, in the longer term, MMU and GMP can
build on this initial work. “We hope to create study
pathways and qualifications related to GMP career
progression and offer specialist short-courses for senior
staff. This might lead to a dedicated Institute or Centre
facilitating long-term collaboration.”
Alf Louvre

4
Around the Faculty Around the Faculty
On 12 May the Faculty held an
Inaugural Faculty Stakeholder Event.
In celebration of Dr Stephen Whittle’s
OBE, the event showcased the All
Saints West building and enabled
stakeholder contacts to network and
see what the Faculty of Humanities,
Law and Social Science can offer. A
champagne reception with a string
quartet in residence set the mood for
a post-work opportunity to mingle
and network.
Dame Alexandra Burslem, Vice-
Chancellor, then welcomed guests
and Dr Whittle was introduced by
Christine Burns from Press for Change
before speaking on academy,
advocacy and activism – an address
which was warmly received.
Further events are planned and the
Stakeholder group continues to
develop. The group is under the
remit of both the Faculty Publicity,
Marketing and Recruitment and
Academic Enterprise committees
and input is welcome from all staff in
departments.
Dr Stephen Whittle and Sarah Rutherford
Professor John Vint, Head of the
Department of Economics has been
awarded the title of Honorary
Professor at Perm State University,
Russia.
The decision was made by the
Science Council of Perm State
University in recognition of the
substantial contribution Professor
Vint has made towards co-operation
between Perm State University and
Manchester Metropolitan University.
Professor Vint will travel to Perm in
September for the Honorary
Professorship Presentation Ceremony
and to attend the meeting of the
Scientific Council of Perm State
University.
The Department of Information
and Communications has been
involved with the launch of a toolkit
of resources for public library staff
through the work of CERLIM. The
Museums, Libraries and Archives
Council (MLA) has launched
LONGITUDE: a toolkit of resources for
public library staff to evaluate the
long-term impact of IT-based services
on users.
The toolkit was developed by the
Centre for Research in Library and
Information Management (CERLIM),
in partnership with Birmingham
Public Libraries and Cheshire County
Libraries, where the toolkit was
piloted.
Two part-time students within the
department in their final (fifth) year of
study have obtained professional
posts before graduation: Wendy
Molyneux - permanent appointment
as Service Development Officer at
Warrington Borough Council and
Ruth Walsh - appointed as
Information Systems Officer at
Cumbria Libraries.
Bob Glass has initiated the Centres for
Excellence in Teaching and Learning
(CETL) Team at MMU that includes
Alison McKenzie (Library), Margaret
Kendall (Senior Learning and
Teaching Fellow), Sirji Virkus (PhD
student), Emma Flynn (LSU) with help
from Peter Brophy (CERLIM) and Ann
Barlow (University of Manchester).
Equipment should start arriving over
next couple of months. The
LearnHigher Collaborative CETL will
produce web based re-useable
generic learning objects for staff and
students. There are 16 members and
19 learning areas: MMU covers
Information Literacy. The project runs
over five years with £10,000 capital
funding and £15,000 recurrent
funding over five years. This is the
only CETL bid that MMU won.
Margaret Kendall attended ‘From
Cottage Industry to Mainstream’, the
second annual seminar of the
e-learning research centre, held at HE
Academy in York in March. She also
attended the launch of a special issue
of Aslib Proceedings focussing on
e-learning at University College
London in May, to which she had
contributed a paper.
Seamus Simpson represented the
Library and Information Research
special interest group of the
Chartered Institute of Library and
Information Professionals at ‘The
World Summit on the Information
Society: Towards Equitable
Information Societies’ Discussion Day
in May. He also co-organised with
Professor Amit Schjeter (Pennsylvania
State University) an expert panel
session on ‘Facing the Regulatory
Challenges of Converging
Communications Technologies and
Markets in the 21st Century:
Perspectives from Asia, Europe and
America’ at the International
Communication Association annual
conference in New York in May giving
a presentation entitled, ‘Regulating
Internet Commerce in the European
Union: Convergence or Divergence’.

Around the Faculty Around the Faculty
5
Department of History and
Economic History
The Manchester Centre for Regional
History organized a highly successful
Conference entitled ‘“The Greatest
mere village in England”: Networks,
Religion and Politics in Early Modern
Manchester’ in April 2005. The
conference attracted speakers from
as far afield as Japan and will result in
publication of the papers in a special
volume of the Manchester Region
History Review in 2007.
Dr Stephen Bowd has been
appointed external examiner for the
Undergraduate History Programme at
Roehampton University.
Terry Wyke has edited a specially
commissioned collection of essays to
mark the 100th volume published by
the Lancashire and Cheshire
Antiquarian Society. The volume
includes contributions from a number
of historians who studied on the MA
in the History of the Manchester
Region and was published in January.
(D. Brumhead and T. Wyke (eds),
Moving Manchester: Aspects of the
History of Transport in the City and
Region since 1700 (2005).
Professor David Nicholls presented
the paper ‘The Employability of
History Students’ at the University of
Oxford in April. Publication (by the
History Subject Centre) of Professor
Nicholls’ report entitled ‘The
Employability of History Students’
was timed to coincide with this
conference.
Professor Nicholls has also
interviewed numerous celebrity
history enthusiasts (about 30 in all
over the last six months including
Melvyn Bragg, Al Murray and Joan
Bakewell) as part of his project for the
National Teaching Fellowship award.
Professor Alan Kidd, on behalf of the
Manchester Centre for Regional
History, has secured sponsorship for a
PhD studentship in the History of
the Built Environment which
commenced during the Spring
Term 2005. The sponsorship from
English Heritage is valued in
excess of £20,000 over three
years.
Professor Neville Kirk was awarded a
Visiting Scholarship, School of
Business, University of Sydney,
January to March 2005, where he
conducted research into Class, Race,
Nation and Empire in Britain and
Australia from 1901 to the present.
Professor Kirk has also been invited to
attend a workshop of international
scholars entitled “World Economies,
Local Communities: Setting an
Agenda for a Global Labour History”
to be held at the Indo-American
Centre for International Studies,
Hyderabad, India, in July and August
2005.
Francis Salt, a PhD student,
conducted the research for a BBC
Radio 4 programme ‘Before Jarrow’
which traced the history of a march
to London by 250 blind men from
Leeds, Manchester and Newport ‘for
justice not charity’ in 1920. The
programme was broadcast on 8 April
2005.
Dr Mark Fenemore has been awarded
a highly prestigious Kluge Center
Fellowship for six months from
September 2005. The Fellowship, won
against international competition,
provides a stipend for residential
research of $4,000 per month at the
Library of Congress in Washington
D.C.
Department of Languages
It has been a busy year in the
Department of Languages! It started
with an international conference on
Mediterranean crime writing last July
and a conference on European film in
September; preparations are
currently under way for international
conferences on bande dessinée,
French film (jointly with Manchester
University) and the conference of
the Association of Italian Studies
(jointly with the universities of
Manchester and Salford) next
academic session. Speakers were
invited from around the UK to
participate in our Research
Seminars on European Literatures
and Cultures.
The department organised six 6th
Form Days in November and May,
bringing over 2,000 students from
schools and colleges around the
North West and parts of Yorkshire into
the University over the course of the
six days. Although such events are
primarily an important marketing
opportunity for the department, they
also form part of a much wider
debate at a regional and national
level on the importance of languages
to the national interests. Startling
statistics on the loss of trade within
the UK due to lack of employees with
language skills has prompted the
Government to develop a national
languages strategy in order to
address the problem. The House of
Lords has warned the Government
that British business will be severely
hampered in the global market place
because language skills in the UK are
falling so far behind those of its
competitors (The Guardian, 14 April
2005). The Languages department is
working with schools and colleges
across the region to promote the
message to students that knowledge
of a language can seriously improve
their employment prospects.
The department also participated in a
Languages project, run jointly with
Salford University and co-ordinated
by Liz Marr. The project, which was
funded through Aim Higher, involved
over 100 Year 8 and 9 pupils from the
Greater Manchester area, their
teachers and a number of language
specialists from MMU and Salford
University. Over the four events, held

6
Around the Faculty Around the Faculty
sampled the delights of European
cuisine, and were encouraged to
appreciate and understand other
cultures. On 6 July, the department
will host an event for 100 Year 9
students from Knutsford High School
and Philips High in Whitefield, who
will attend classes in French, Spanish
and German, and experiment with
on-line language learning here at
MMU. Italian classes will be offered to
students participating in the Faculty
Summer School on 4 July. Closer to
home, we have also organised a series
of Taster Sessions in Italian and
Spanish for MMU staff across the
university which have been so
popular that we currently have a
waiting list for the next round of
classes.
In terms of curriculum development,
the department has launched a new
three year European Film route on
our BA (Hons) Languages Programme
as well as a new, much broader,
portfolio on the Combined Honours
scheme. This is part of a general
strategy of diversification of
languages provision. The department
also dedicated a whole Away Day to
online learning in order to take this
agenda forward with very positive
results in terms of engagement by all
members of the department. One
colleague has already benefited from
the Faculty mentoring scheme for
Web CT and a further two projects
were recently approved for support
from the Learning and Teaching
Committee. The department is now
fully committed to the development
of a Virtual Learning Environment
which will involve all colleagues
engaging with Web CT and some
colleagues developing online
modules.
Last, but certainly not least, the
Department of Languages is currently
preparing to welcome large numbers
of international students to MMU to
take part in our annual English as a
Foreign Language summer
programme. This is an intensive
English language programme with a
varied and exciting cultural
dimension involving regular trips to
places of interest around the UK as
well as visits to local museums and
cultural events. Some of our own final
year students will be involved in this
initiative as student helpers and
animateurs, thus giving them their
first taste of ‘working life’! From
September, the department will run
English Language support classes for
international students across the
whole of the university, thus
providing a much needed service for
this important sector of the student
population.
Within the School of Law the
‘Cutting Edges: Surgery, Identity and
the Body’ national conference took
place in March. Speakers included
Professor Marie Fox, Keele University;
Dr Melanie Latham, MMU; Dr Stephen
Whittle, MMU and Del la Grace
Volcano, Queer Photographer.
Within the Sociology Department
Professor Sandra Walklate has been
appointed to the sociology Research
Assessment Exercise (RAE) sub-panel.
She was nominated for it by the
British Society of Criminology and is
the only person from a ‘new’
university on the panel.
Dr Helen Jones has been appointed
Senior Teaching and Learning Fellow.
The tenth conference on “Popular
Protest and Alternative Futures”
conference was held in March, aimed
at exploring the dynamics of popular
movements, along with the ideas
which animate their activists and
supporters and which contribute to
shaping their fate. Reflecting the
inherent cross-disciplinary nature of
the issues, participants in this
conference series (from over 40
countries) have come from such
specialisms as sociology, politics,
cultural studies, social psychology,
economics, history and geography.
The Manchester conferences have
also been notable for discovering a
fruitful and friendly meeting ground
between activism and academia.
The papers have been published in
three volumes, covering a wide range
of empirical matters, from
environmental campaigns in Poland
and Turkey to the unionization of sex
workers in London and from the
Scottish Enlightenment to cursing
rituals within Thai protest
movements.
Dr Shirley Tate’s new book ‘Black
Skins, Black Masks: Hybridity,
Dialogism, Performativity’ was
published in January 2005.
Dr David Bell (below) was appointed
as Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies
in January 2005, having previously
been Professor of Cultural Studies at
Staffordshire University. He has a PhD
in Geography from the University of
Birmingham.
His current teaching is on the unit
Key Perspectives in Cultural Studies
and the unit Popular Culture and the
City. For the next academic year he
will be developing a unit on Critical
Cultural Policy.

Around the Faculty
You’ve Got Mail!
7
His main research interests include
urban and rural cultures, sexuality,
consumption and lifestyle, science
and technology, and cultural policy.
David has also been appointed to the
AHRB’s Peer Review College.
The department has formed an
e-Learning Strategy Group (chaired
by Helen Jones) which has focussed
on staff development using WebCT
and on using the JISC Plagiarism
Detection Service. Out of this we are
implementing an innovative scheme
to require all student coursework to
be submitted electronically from next
term, with a staff development event
planned for the autumn term to
introduce staff to the scheme.
Dr Justin O’Connor visited Beijing,
Shanghai and Guangzhou in July
2004. With the support of the British
Council he discussed the
development of initiatives in the
creative industries.
Dr Helen Jones visited Mongolia in
March 2005. Together with Shani
D’Cruze she was invited as a guest of
the Mongolian Women Lawyers
Association (MWLA). The visit was
funded by a research grant from the
Committee for Central and Inner Asia
(CCIA) Faculty of Oriental Studies,
Cambridge. On their visit they met
with a range of organizations and
agencies including CEDAW Watch
Network Centre, the Mongolian
Women’s Federation, Lawyers Centre
for Legal Reform and the National
Centre Against Violence.
Dr William Johnston attended the
Council meeting of the University of
the Arctic, held in Oulu, Ostrabothnia
in May 2005, in his capacity as a
member of the UArctic ‘Arctic
Learning Environment’ team. He also
attended meetings of UArctic in
Lapland during the spring term of
2005 in connection with his Higher
Education Academy-funded research
on assessing quality in e-Learning.
STOP PRESS!
The Manchester Ethnography
Group - a seminar series jointly
organised by the University of
Manchester and MMU - has
recently held a very sucessful
international seminar series across
the spring and summer terms.
Speakers and topics have
included: Anthony King
(University of Exeter) The word of
command: communication and
cohesion in the military
Mark Rouncefield (University of
Lancaster) Gambits of compliance
Yoshifumi Mizukawa (Hokusei
Gakuen University, Sapporo,
Japan) Synchronized categories: a
study of instructed assistance for
people with disabilities
Ron Korenaga (Rikkyo University,
Tokyo, Japan) Practical
understanding of a commercial
film: making use of categories and
sequence to find out ‘the
message’.
The seminar series will be
concluded by Professor Mike
Lynch (Cornell University) on 5
July.
The seminar series has been coorganised
by Jacqueline Eke
(Associate Lecturer in the
Sociology Department, MMU) and
Christian Greiffenhagen
(Sociology Department, University
of Manchester) and supported by
the Interaction Research Group,
Sociology Department, MMU
(Covenor Dr David Calvey).
Imagine forming a pen pal
relationship, being given topics to
discuss with someone in Florida and
getting credit for it on your
undergraduate degree. Sounds a
doddle doesn’t it but this is just what
some Criminology students have
been up to in the Sociology
Department this year.
The project was called
‘Communicating across the Atlantic:
US and British students discuss
criminal justice issues’ but it was
better known - this side of the pond -
as the ‘Florida project’ and - you’ve
guessed it - the ‘British project’ by our
partners in the US.
This project formed part of a strategy
to integrate e-learning across
criminology degree routes. In the US,
students from the University of West
Florida (UWF) partnered our students
in Sociology in an e-communication
project. Although containing material
relevant to the field of criminology,
the format is readily applicable and
transferable to many disciplines.
Essentially the e-communication
approach can enable and facilitate
students’ participation in a borderless
community and enhance skills in
many diverse areas. In this project
students in each university followed
their own course of study determined
by their tutors. Although lectures,
seminars and associated study
materials in each university shared
common themes, they were not
identical in content or presentation.
The students’ common experience
was in relation to the
e-communication project.
Students were paired up and each
week a different topic was delivered
to them by email. They then had until
the following week to complete
discussion of the topic. This included
two emails per individual (four
responses per pair) per week.
Students on both sides of the Atlantic

8
took the project seriously, putting a great deal of time and commitment into
conducting extra reading around the topics to meet all requirements in a
timely manner.
Pastures New
You may have noticed something
missing from reception in Manton
recently – Jayne McCreery, a familiar face
over the last nine years has now moved
onto pastures new within the University.
The Faculty would like to congratulate
Jayne on her promotion to House
Foreperson at the Ormond building.
The project group
So what did the students think of the project One student remarked “this was
the most difficult and also the most rewarding experience of my university
career”. This was echoed by the majority of students on their evaluation forms.
Another student stated “I thought it would be really easy. Instead we were
writing almost a mini essay each week but I really enjoyed it and I feel much
more confident in talking about crime now”. There are plans to develop the
project further and if this has sparked your interest in using e-communication
as a tool of assessment and you want to find out more, then all you need to do
is send me an email!
Helen Jones
h.jones@mmu.ac.uk
Upcoming Events
Jayne started on the MMU ladder at the
Mabel Tylecote building, driving the
MMU van. She then became receptionist
at the Geoffrey Manton building when it
first opened in 1996, meeting the Queen
in the process!
During her time with the Faculty Jayne
has worked hard to achieve certificates
including NVQ in Customer Services, ILM
and various computer courses including
the European Computer Driving Licence.
As part of the New Horizons programme
Jayne also spent time job shadowing in
the Conference Office in Loxford, gaining
experience of the conference organising
systems.
Year 11 Summer School
The Year 11 Summer School will take
place from 4-8 July this year, with
students studying with the Faculty for
four days before presenting on their
experiences on the final day. The
summer school has proved to be an
enjoyable and fulfilling experience for
both staff and students over the last
two years and we hope this year will
be more successful than ever. See the
next issue for a round-up of how the
week went!
Graduation
Student award ceremonies within the
Faculty will take place on Saturday 16
July at the Bridgewater Hall on Lower
Mosely Street.
10.30 am ceremony:
Sociology
Languages
Law
2.30 pm ceremony:
Economics
History and Economic History
English
Information and Communications
Politics and Philosophy
Humanities and Social Science
There will also be a drinks reception
for all graduates and their guests in
the Geoffrey Manton atrium from
11am to 2.30pm.
STOP PRESS!
Final-year English student
Jennifer Hoffbrand will become
the editor of Pulp, the MMU
student newspaper, having
fought a successful election
campaign in the spring term.
Jennifer will take up this yearlong
sabbatical position after a
summer gaining experience with
national newspapers in London.
We would like to take this opportunity to
wish Jayne every success for the future in
her new role, and to let her know she will
be missed.
Kate Sweeney
Contributors: Tony Adams, Clive Archer,
Peter Brophy, Dave Calvey, Sharon Handley,
Bill Johnston, Helen Jones, Alf Louvre,
Christine Simmonds, Kate Sweeney, Kaye
Tew, Jonathon Willson.