Perfect Day – Melissa springs to double gold 15/12/10

A University lecturer taught her rivals a lesson when she picked up two gold medals at the British veterans’ trampolining championship.

You might wonder why Melissa Day, who is only 28, is taking part in a veterans’ event but she explained it was the description given to competition for trampolinists and gymnasts who have stopped competing at international level.

Melissa, who lectures in sports psychology at Chichester University, travelled to the British championships in Lowestoft, Suffolk, with team-mates from the Kingston Trampoline Academy in Surrey. They won team gold - and Melissa took an individual gold.

“I certainly wasn’t expecting to do that well,” she said. “It was a great experience. I don’t compete much these days, I spend more time coaching, and it was nice to be able to show the young people we coach that we still have what it takes to win medals.”

Melissa took up trampolining when she was nine and competed for more than a decade, rising to a standard where she did well at national contests. She is now involved on the sports pyschology side of the England trampolining squad.

And Melissa is already starting to think going back to defend her title at the vets’ championship next year.

“It would be nice to do that, although now I’ve won gold and the team have too, the pressure and expectation will be on us to win again.”

Article reproduced with permission of the Chichester Observer Series, Thursday 9 December 2010.

University academic to feature in BBC documentary on Victorians 10/12/10

A senior history academic at the University of Chichester will feature in the final part of a BBC 2 documentary series by Ian Hislop about the Victorians.

Dr Sue Morgan, Reader in Gender History, will be appearing on The Age of the Do-Gooders at 9pm on Monday 13 December, where the pleasures and perils of booze and sex are the focus for the final episode of Ian Hislop's series about Victorian reformers, campaigners and philanthropists.

Drawing on Sue's specialism in 19th and early 20th century gender history, she will be talking about how the Victorian imagination was challenged, appalled and intrigued by prostitution, as well as how the Contagious Diseases Act worked.

The TV appearance will mark the conclusion of a busy year for Sue – in May, she published her sixth book, a major edited collection entitled Women, Gender and Religious Cultures in Britain, 1800-1940 (Routledge), which was an international collaboration of British, US and Canadian scholars.

It was the publication of this book that led Wingspan Production to approach Sue to advise on the documentary. The series has examined a number of influential Victorian reformers and their attitudes to child welfare, sex and drink, re-evaluating their legacy for the 21st century. Sue's pioneering work on late-Victorian campaigns around prostitution and male sexuality, particularly the flurry of Church and State interventions on the subject during the 1880s and 1890s, formed the basis of the final programme in which Sue will appear.

Sue said: “It was a pleasure to be involved in this series as an advisor and as a talking head. My greatest delight was that a woman reformer, Ellice Hopkins, who led a huge populist movement on ‘social purity' in the 1880s, and who I had rescued from complete obscurity as a PhD student at the University of Bristol in the early 1990s, gets some major air-time in the final programme, where Ian Hislop reads from Hopkins's best-selling 1883 essay True Manliness. That was the most exciting and moving moment for me in the whole thing.”

National recognition for University staff 09/12/10

Two members of staff from the University of Chichester have received national awards, recognising their contributions above and beyond their normal roles.

Gianna Knowles, senior lecturer in primary education, picked up the top prize for her photography skills in the British Council's 2010 Erasmus Competition. As part of the Erasmus international exchange programme available to University staff and students, Gianna spent four weeks in April teaching trainees teachers from across Europe and America at the University of Jönköping, Sweden.

In her free time, she travelled around Scandinavia by train, including travelling to the Arctic Circle. The portfolio of prize-winning photographs was compiled from pictures taken while travelling and living the day-to-day life of a Swedish university lecturer and sought to illustrate the benefits of taking part in the exchange programme.

Gianna received her prize in a ceremony at the British Council offices in London alongside prize winners in a range of categories from other universities across the UK.

Gianna said: “I would urge anyone who has the chance to take part in the scheme to do so. Not only did it give me the opportunity to teach in a different University and work with students and colleagues from many countries, but it also broadened my knowledge and understanding about education generally.”

Venetia Allan, senior lecturer in music, has been honoured by the Noise Abatement Society for her voluntary work to raise awareness of noise induced hearing loss due to MP3 player misuse.

She received the Trude Adler Award for her work in developing the UK's first Key Stage 3 curriculum to help the Society to educate young people about safe listening and hearing health. She also worked with Chichester District Council this year to organise an awareness event at the University, spreading the message to an older audience. Venetia was presented with her award at a ceremony at the House of Commons.

Venetia said: “I am surprised and flattered by the award from the Noise Abatement Society - this is a very worthwhile campaign and it has been a pleasure to be involved with such a dedicated team of people.

“I hope that the award will help to get the message of the campaign out there - that it is a positive thing for young people to love their ears! Through the adoption of the curriculum programme by schools, I hope that we can let as many people as possible find out about safe listening times and levels for personal music players.”

To find out more about the Noise Abatement Society, visit http://www.noiseabatementsociety.com/.

University of Chichester rejects UCU ‘Universities at risk’ report 08/12/10

The University of Chichester strongly rejects the attempt by the University and College Union (UCU) report to classify the university as at ‘high risk’ of serious impact from the Browne Review proposals.

Professor Clive Behagg, Acting Vice-Chancellor, said: “I trust that people will not be misled by this report which completely fails to gauge the capacity of a university to thrive in the new framework. It fails to take into consideration the current financial position of universities, the impressive track record of institutions in managing change, or their capacity to replace the lost Government funding with fees.

“We do not accept the assumptions, methodology and conclusion which have been arrived at with the sole purpose of influencing the House of Commons vote tomorrow night. The data has been specifically handpicked and conflated to purposely produce a result that sees the maximum number of universities classified as ‘at risk’ in UCU’s self-invented scales.

“It is absurd to list the University of Chichester as being ‘at risk’.

“Chichester’s applications are up by 40 per cent against a national rise of 12 per cent. Student satisfaction scores and completion rates are amongst the highest in the modern university sector. We clearly have a desirable product that students want to purchase and they will do so in the new framework.

“Chichester is financially sustainable, now and in the future. HEFCE stipulates universities should retain 30 days of cash in reserve - Chichester has 104. We achieved a surplus this year of £2.2m over an income of £37m (our highest ever), we have £9.5m in reserves and are currently investing £13m in new capital projects that will make us one of the best placed institutions to deal with the challenges of the future.

“There have been many wild speculations on the future since the publication of the Browne Review. UCU should reflect upon the unnecessary damage it could do to confidence in institutions, that are as successful as they are stable, by its unfounded crystal-ball gazing.”

Awards recognition for English students and lecturers 07/12/10

The high quality of work produced by the University of Chichester's English and Creative Department has been underlined once again with national awards for current students and lecturers.

Chichester put its stamp on this year's Bridport Competition, which bills itself as ‘the richest open prize' with a total prize fund of £14,000 and attracting almost 15,000 entries in three categories: short stories, flash fiction and poetry.

Two of the University's postgraduate students won supplementary prizes in the short story competition. Honoria Beirne, who is in the final stages of an MA, received a prize for her story Shake Me, Shake Me, and Katherine Orr, currently studying for a PhD, received her prize for The Human Circadian Pacemaker.

Senior lecturer Dave Swann was long-listed in the poetry category, while associate lecturer Jane Rusbridge was the guest writer at the Bridport Literary Festival, at which the winners of the Bridport Competition are announced.

Jane has another reason to celebrate, as her novel The Devil's Music has been nominated for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the world's most valuable annual literary prize for a single work of fiction published in English. Nominations to win the first prize of 100,000 euros come from libraries around the world – Jane's novel was nominated by a library in Finland. The shortlist will be announced in April 2011.

More information on the Chichester winners at the Bridport Competition can be found on the Thresholds website.

Further student success has come courtesy of Jac Cattaneo, who has won the Royal Academy of Arts short story competitions 2010. Jac, studying for an MA at the University, won the prize for her story Lessons in Tightrope Walking. Further information can be found in an article on the Thresholds website.

Adverse weather – information for staff, students and visitors 05/12/10

Poor weather conditions have affected much of the UK, including Sussex and Hampshire. This has affected the day-to-day running of the University of Chichester, and this page is designed to provide students, staff and visitors with the latest information.

Monday 6 December

The University will be open for business as normal on Monday 6 December after the disruption caused by the snow last week. There has been no significant damage from the thawing snow.
Below freezing temperatures (-4c) are forecast overnight, and so the estates department will be out early on Monday morning to grit campus roads and paths.

As a result, students, staff and visitors are advised to wear appropriate clothing, including sturdy shoes or boots, and take extra care when moving between buildings, especially on the untreated roads and paths.

Students and staff should also take particular care if parking on either of the non-University car parks that the institution has use of during the week. (Chichester Rugby Club car park and the London Road car park in Bognor Regis)

The inter-campus bus service is expected to run as normal. This page will be updated if we are notified by the bus operator of any timetable changes because of the weather.

Student assignment deadlines

Information has been published by the Academic Quality and Standards Unit about what students should do if an assignment was due in on Thursday 2 or Friday 3 December. Students should check their University email accounts for information.

Taking care in adverse weather

The Highways Agency has published advice on how car drivers should be prepared during the severe weather, which can be accessed by visiting the Highways Agency website.

For those who travel by train, details of any amended rail services can be found on the Southern Railway website or the National Rail enquiries website.