University of Chichester tops the list of universities on the South Coast for graduate job prospects

Chichester in top 10 in England for graduate employment. A new study has revealed that over 94.2% of graduates from the University of Chichester are in jobs or further study six months after they graduated making it the best university on the south coast for job prospects.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) study looked at last summer’s graduates and the national average was 91%. The figures for Chichester show that it is in the top 10 universities in England for overall graduate employment.Dr Andy Dixon, Head of the Research and Employer Engagement Office at the University of Chichester, said: “This is great news for the university and shows that our graduates have fared well compared to the national picture.

Although we are undoubtedly in tough times it shows that a degree is a strong investment which stands graduates in good stead for a long and successful career.”

The University of Chichester is also working which local partners including Chichester College, Arun District Council, Chichester District Council and West Sussex County Council to run the GraduateOn project.

This is funded by Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) through the Economic Challenge Fund and the package will provide support for 300 new graduates across 200 businesses, through personal coaching and mentoring, a two day motivational course, online networks, placement schemes, seminars, business support service and subsidised knowledge transfer partnerships.

Dr Dixon added: “We are committed to helping our graduates find work. GraduateOn will further strengthen the skills and employability of graduates in West Sussex and improve graduate retention in the county. This will contribute to sustainable higher-value economic recovery. The project will assist business to secure the skills it needs to succeed during this challenging time.”

Dr Elizabeth Pike co-authors first UK edition of the global best-seller ‘Sports in Society’ book

Dr Elizabeth Pike, a senior lecturer in Sport Development from the University of Chichester, has co-authored the first ever UK edition of the highly regarded ‘Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies’ book.

Dr Pike, who will be speaking about the benefits and barriers to involvement in physical activity for older people at the World Congress of the Sociology of Sport in Utrecht, the Netherlands from 15-18th July 2009, co-authored the book with Jay Coakley, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, USA.

In 2007 Professor Coakley’s work was recognised by the Institute for International Sport who selected him as one of the 100 Most Influential Sports Educators, and in the same year he became an Honorary Fellow of the University of Chichester in recognition of his outstanding leadership in the sociology of sport.

This new edition, published by McGraw-Hill/Open University Press, continues the legacy of the Sports in Society series written by Professor Coakley. Dr Pike worked with Professor Coakley to combine the book’s original structure and adapt new material to a UK audience which makes it essential reading for students in this subject area as well as for professionals working within the sports sector.

Dr Pike is also the current General Secretary of the International Sociology of Sport Association.

University of Chichester associate lecturer gains national recognition for locally born anti-apartheid activist.

Associate Lecturer David Rang, a post graduate researcher in gender history at the University of Chichester, has successfully lobbied the prestigious Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) to include an entry for Midhurst born anti-apartheid activist Helen Joseph.

Once the ODNB, a national record of people who have shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond, had agreed to include an entry on Helen they asked David to write the article, which was published in May. David studied the life of Helen (as part of his undergraduate dissertation in 2008 and to be invited to write an entry in the ODNB is in itself a recognition of academic merit.

Helen Joseph (1905–1992) was born in Easebourne, nr Midhurst in Sussex and first travelled to South Africa to convalesce after a riding accident in her 20s. She became increasingly involved in the anti-apartheid struggle in that country, enduring repeated banning orders, house arrests, and harassment by the South African police, and was eventually recognized as ‘the mother of the struggle’. At her funeral Nelson Mandela described her as being both ‘a South African revolutionary’ and ‘a lady of the British empire’; this was, he said, ‘a contradiction in the eyes of many but to Helen her own reality.’

David said; “I think she is one of the bravest and most principled people of the 20th century. The people of South Africa know this. Women's Day commemorates a demonstration in Pretoria on August 9th 1956 at which Helen was one of four leaders; there are many places in modern South Africa named after her and she was given the highest honour of the ANC for her part in the Struggle (one of only 19 such awards). However she is hardly known in the UK and is virtually unknown in her birthplace and I want to change that.”

David will be giving an evening talk on the life of Helen Joseph on September 11th as part of Heritage Open Days in the Methodist Hall, Midhurst. For more information please contact David on 01243 536558 or email davidrang@btopenworld.com.

About the ODNB It is a collection of more than 56,600 specially written biographies, which describe the lives of people who shaped the history of the British Isles and beyond. It is the first point of reference for anyone interested in the people who left their mark on the history of the British Isles.

About Helen Joseph Joseph [née Fennell], Helen Beatrice May (1905–1992), anti-apartheid activist, was born on 8 April 1905 at Easebourne, Sussex, the younger child of Samuel Fennell, a civil servant in the customs and excise, and his wife, Mary.

Helen Joseph was instrumental in organising a protest by 20,000 mainly Black women in front of the government Union Buildings in Pretoria on 9 August 1956, an event today recognised in South Africa as a public holiday, Women’s Day. She suffered the full weight of this evil regime’s oppression during the next 25 years and was awarded the highest medal in South Africa for her part in the Struggle. Nelson Mandela read a tribute to her at her funeral in Johannesburg in 1993.