Campus News
Nottingham Reading Programme: UoN Against Slavery
June 7th, 2019
This year’s Nottingham Reading Programme saw approximately 20,000 students, staff and members of the public engage with the theme of modern slavery.
The Nottingham Reading Programme (NRP) gifts first-year students a copy of a book on their arrival to the University in order to provide them with a conversation starter and the opportunity to explore a topic they might not have been previously exposed to. This year the NRP collaborated with the Rights Lab and the Faculty of Social Sciences to deliver an expanded programme, ‘UoN Against Slavery’.
UoN Against Slavery included the gift of a book, Slave: The True Story of a Girl’s Lost Childhood and Her Fight for Survival by Mende Nazer, and a varied programme of events across the city. Slave explores several themes, the foremost of which is modern slavery.
The programme’s events included lunchtime talks, survivor Q&As, a photography exhibition, a fun run, film screenings and a concert. Almost 2,000 people attended the events and the Voice of Freedom photography exhibition remains on display in the Rights Lab in Highfield House.
A further 11,670 people have been reached online and through the media. The programme has been featured on local radio stations, and national and local platforms such as Left Lion and WONKHE.
Amelia Watkins, final-year undergraduate student and Director of the Rights Lab Reading Programme 2018-19, said: “I have been thrilled to see so many people across our campuses and city engaging with the prevalent and urgent issue of modern slavery. Through the Rights Lab, the University is producing world-leading research on the topic, so it is brilliant to also see this passion for abolitionism reflected in our student body.”
Tags: Mende Nazer, modern slavery, Nottingham Reading Programme, NRP, rights lab, Slave, UoN Against Slavery
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Fundraising book describes premature baby experience
June 7th, 2019
A colleague at the University of Nottingham is raising money for the QMC Neonatal ward through the sale of her book — The Waiting Game (The truth about a premature baby).
Jen Buck has worked for the University for the past 20 years and currently works as an Assistant Hall Manager at Lincoln Hall. Her book, described as a cross between “a diary and a self help book”, describes her experience of having two premature babies and has been written to help raise premature awareness, as well as provide help to parents who have had a premature baby.
Jen said: “Both my sons were born premature; my son Alex was born at 34 weeks (3lb 8oz) and Harry was born at 30 weeks (2lb 3oz).
“Harry has mild Cerebral Palsy as he had a bleed on the brain when he was born and has needed years of physio to be able to walk and carry out a normal life which has been more than a full-time job! On the 14 February 2019 I opened a bottle of prosecco to celebrate Valentine’s Day like many other people but on this occasion, it was extra special as a box of books were delivered to me. The books were my own book which I had written — called the ‘The Waiting Game’ (The truth about a premature baby).
“The book takes you on the incredible journey of my two sons. It covers from pregnancy, to birth and the early years up to five years old of my son Harry (who is 6 years old now) and also covers some of my son Alex’s life. The book takes you on a roller coaster of emotions of how I dealt with every stage of my son Harry’s life.”
Copies of the book are priced £5. All profit will be donated to Nottingham Hospitals Charity – QMC and City Neonatal units, to help fund lifesaving equipment.
If you are interested in buying a copy of the book, please email jenny.buck@nottingham.ac.uk or call into Lincoln Hall on a Thursday or Friday.
Tags: fundraising, Neonatal, premature baby, QMC, The waiting game
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Learn the secret of great leadership practice — join an LMA programme
June 5th, 2019
The world has changed. Leadership isn’t about the role you hold or having ‘leader’ or ‘manager’ in your job title, it’s about the way you act and react in everyday situations with those around you. In the complex and uncertain times in which we live, developing great leadership practice is more important than it’s ever been. But what’s the secret to making this happen?
The Leadership and Management Academy (LMA) is here to help answer that question, with its new suite of development programmes.
If you’re looking to enhance your leadership practice, build your confidence, and develop a great network of like-minded colleagues, the LMA’s development programmes are now open for applications. Completely refreshed for 2019/20 these programmes provide focussed development for all leaders and managers, at all levels.
The new offer includes four core leadership programmes – Executive Leadership, Senior Leadership, Operational Leadership and Stepping into Leadership – all of which are open for application now.
You can find out more and apply here: LMA Development Programmes
If you want to focus in-depth on specific areas of your leadership practice, such as digital leadership or taking a more coaching based approach to your leadership practice, a range of specialist programmes will be on offer shortly. You can apply for the specialist programmes in addition to core leadership programmes.
If bite-sized learning suits you, you can pick and choose subjects that you’re interested in with the Spotlight On… sessions. These two hour events held every month cover a range of practical topics and are led by experts from around the University.
The LMA also continues to offer coaching and mentoring opportunities for all staff, and will also shortly be providing guidance on job shadowing for those who wish to develop their skills and/or career.
You can find a wide range of online resources on the LMA Hub that give you the opportunity to develop at a time and pace that suits you. This includes specially selected articles, books, videos, diagnostics and interactive tools that can help you with your development.
Whichever way you choose to develop your leadership practice, the Leadership and Management Academy is here to help.
Tags: Leadership and Management Academy, LMA, Professional Development
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Project Transform and Organisational Effectiveness (Student Support) Review
June 5th, 2019
Project Transform – the programme to implement a new student support framework and student records system – has formally closed.
The Campus Solutions student records system has now fully launched. Admissions started to use the system in 2015 to process applications, make offers and manage confirmation and clearing. In 2017, China and Malaysia campuses began using the system for key administrative tasks in the student lifecycle – including graduation, registration and managing personal data.
The majority of Campus Solutions functionality was launched in the UK earlier this year. Finance functionality will come online in August – making Campus Solutions the official system of record for every student at the University – from application through to graduation.
Project Sponsor Professor Sarah O’Hara said: “This has been a very long and extremely difficult project which has tested the organisation at every level. I want to thank colleagues once again for their commitment, patience and the huge amount of work that has been put in to get us to this point.”
Now that Campus Solutions is successfully implemented, Information Services is fully supporting the system and committed to continually improving its functionality.
The Organisational Effectiveness (Student Support) Review recommended actions to improve student support delivered across the institution. Some progress has been made in developing joint working arrangements between Schools and Faculties, Student Services and other professional services departments.
This has resulted in increased collaboration in the recruitment, induction and management of staff; sharing best practice and ways of working; implementing Campus Solutions; and supporting new structures, such as setting up the Campus Solutions User Groups. There has been some positive feedback from staff and students reported through surveys, audits, student ambassadors and data from Student Service Centres.
Now that Campus Solutions is live, further improvements are in hand and these will be prioritised over the coming months.
Registrar Dr Paul Greatrix, who oversaw the review’s implementation said: “The OESS review process, led by staff, rightly identified key issues with student support at the University. The subsequent work has laid the foundations for better working relationships between schools and departments and made improvements to services for our students. While this is a good start, there remains much to do and the work to improve support for students and staff will continue.”
Student Services will now implement the remaining review recommendations as part of the department’s continuing work to deliver the best possible services to students.
Student Services is already working with colleagues responsible for processes, programmes or modules where it is appropriate to vary standard University processes or procedures. They will continue to identify and remedy any overlap or gaps in student support within individual schools or departments. The new Faculty Operations Directors will also be closely involved in this process of continuous improvement, working as part of the Professional Services senior grouping dedicated to improving staff and student support as well as with the Campus Solutions User Groups in each Faculty.
The new user group structures, together with new approaches to collaborative working across Student Services and central and Faculty-based professional services, will ensure that these issues continue to be addressed and services improved.
Tags: campus solutions, Professor Sarah O’Hara, Project Transform
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Email delays — keeping you informed
June 4th, 2019
The University was alerted to a Microsoft issue on Wednesday 22 May 2019 which resulted in inbound emails failing to deliver to internal recipients.
On Friday 24 May 2019 Microsoft had fixed the external email issue by which time it is estimated that there was a backlog of 200,000 emails left to be processed by the University’s internal email system.
As of Tuesday 4 June this backlog has now been resolved, and internal and outbound email is working normally.
Please visit the IT Status page for all the latest information.
Tags: email, Information Services, IT Service Desk, IT Services, Microsoft
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New Health and Wellbeing Suite opens at University of Nottingham
May 30th, 2019
Staff and students are invited to book a free taster session at the brand new Health and Wellbeing Suite at the David Ross Sports Village on University Park campus.
A key addition to health and wellbeing facilities available for the University community, the new Suite sits within the existing 25m swimming pool complex. The area offers the perfect environment to unwind with a Finnish sauna, steam room, arctic ice fountain and ice–cold bucket showers and will be open to UoN Sport and Fitness members from the end of May.
The Suite is the latest in a range of projects from University of Nottingham Sport focussing on wellbeing and responding to the changing landscape of the health and fitness sector.
Key developments include the addition of several new Mind and Body classes to the popular group exercise programme across all three campus sports centres, reflecting the increased demand for sessions that focus on reducing physical and mental tension as well as burning off calories. New classes include a wider range of Yoga disciplines as well as an extended Pilates offer. New campaign Men’s Health Active builds on the success of the Girls’ Night In project to offer students new forums to stay active and take care of their wellbeing.
Also based at David Ross Sports Village, the Sports Injury Clinic offers a range of treatments including physiotherapy, massage and hydro pool based therapies with members offered preferential rates.
Director of Sport Dan Tilley commented;
“Recent research and insight in the health sector has really highlighted how important not just physical, but mental health is to our overall wellbeing. It’s really important for University of Nottingham Sport to invest in facilities that meet the needs of our community and this facility allows us to grow and diversify our offer.”
“The new Health and Wellbeing Suite is a fantastic addition to the state-of-the-art facilities at David Ross Sports Village and we’re delighted to officially open it to our UoN Sport and fitness members.”
Free taster sessions are available between Monday 3rd June – Sunday 9th June for the first two hours of each day and between 5pm-7pm.
For more information please visit https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/sport/davidrosssportsvillage/health-and-wellbeing-suite.aspx or contact our team at sport@nottingham.ac.uk.
Tags: Finnish sauna, health and wellbeing, University of Nottingham Sport
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LILAC national information literacy conference takes place at Nottingham
May 30th, 2019
The University of Nottingham was pleased to host the 15th annual LILAC national information literacy conference last month, with more than 300 international delegates in attendance.
The LILAC conference is run by the Information Literacy Group of The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP). It’s aimed at aimed at librarians and information professionals who teach information literacy skills, are interested in digital literacies, and want to improve library users’ information seeking and evaluation skills.
Professor Sarah O’Hara, Pro‑Vice‑Chancellor for Education and Student Experience, welcomed delegates during the conference, which took place 24-26 April at University Park.
Keynote speakers at the event included:
- Sandeep Mahal (Director, Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature), who gave a talk titled Love Literacy, Love Libraries
- Ruth Carlyle (Head of Library & Knowledge Services and Technology Enhanced Learning for the Midlands and the East of England), who spoke about Health literacy: information literacy for life
- Allison Littlejohn (Dean (Learning & Teaching) of the College of Social Sciences, University of Glasgow), who talked about [Un]intended consequences of educational change: The need to focus on literacy development
For further insight into a number of the talks, visit http://information-literacy.blogspot.com/search/label/lilac19?m=0
For more information, presentations and reports from the 2019 conference, visit the LILAC Conference website.
For details of UoN Libraries’ programme of information literacy support for students, visit https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/library/about/teams/teaching-and-learning.aspx.
Tags: Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, CILIP, Information literacy, LILAC
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The Augar review of post-18 education
May 30th, 2019
Following much speculation, the government has published the report from the independent panel to the review of post-18 education and funding, commissioned by Prime Minister Theresa May in February 2018.
There are some welcome measures recommended by the panel which the University has joined its Russell Group colleagues in lobbying for, for example, proposals to restore maintenance grants for those students most in need.
However, the report has confirmed the expected headline reduction in the tuition fee from £9,250 to £7,500. It has recommended the government replace, in full, the lost fee income by increasing the teaching grant, leaving the average unit of funding unchanged at sector level in cash terms.
The Government will decide how to respond to the report’s recommendations in the context of its Spending Review.
The expert panel was led by Philip Augar and has published 53 recommendations for Government in respect of both further and higher education. Read them here.
Read the Universities UK response to the report here, and the Russell Group response to the report here.
Tags: Augar review, funding, tuition fees
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University of Nottingham joins initiative to tackle higher education ‘care leaver crisis’
May 29th, 2019
With only 12% of care leavers under the age of 23 going into Higher Education (HE) – and those that do being almost twice as likely to drop out than their peers – the University of Nottingham is taking part in a new project launched to improve support for young people going into HE.
The National Network for the Education of Care Leavers (NNECL) and the UPP Foundation have today announced a new partnership to improve the support provided for young care experienced people.
Under the new scheme, universities and colleges will take positive action to tackle the sector-wide care leavers crisis by creating a framework ensuring young care experienced people get the personal and financial support they need.
A pilot project, funded by the UPP Foundation, will be officially launched at a reception in the House of Lords this week. Running until early 2020, the pilot scheme will develop and test a new quality framework to improve access, retention and the support for people who have been in care and now study at colleges and universities.
Commenting on the launch, Colette Fletcher, Chair of the Board of Trustees, NNECL and Assistant Vice-Chancellor, University of Winchester, said: “NNECL is extremely proud to be launching the new quality mark for institutions working with young care experienced people and are delighted to be partnering with UPP Foundation and the University of Nottingham to deliver this important project. The new quality mark will build on the gold standard criteria developed by the Centre for Social Justice and First Star Academies, the Department for Education’s ‘Principles to guide higher education providers on improving care leavers access and participation in HE’, the Care Leaver Covenant, and recent guidance published by the Office for Students, to create a working accreditation process that will improve the progression, retention and success of care experienced students in higher education.”
Richard Brabner, Director of the UPP Foundation, added: “We are delighted to be partnering with NNECL and the University of Nottingham on this important initiative involving so many Higher Education and Further Education institutions. As a Foundation we fund innovative projects that support underrepresented students go to and succeed at university. As the statistics show, care leavers are one of, if not the, most disadvantaged group in the system. This is a sector-wide initiative that we hope will make a tangible difference over the long-term to the outcomes of care leavers.”
The educational institutions involved in the pilot include the University of Bradford; Edge Hill University; the University of Exeter; Halesowen College; Kingston University; the University of Lincoln; the University of Nottingham and Oxford Brookes University.
Tags: Care leaver crisis, National Network for the Education of Care Leavers, UPP Foundation
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Nottingham Advantage Award module of the year – ‘A Student’s Guide to the Future’
May 29th, 2019
Every year our Nottingham Advantage Award students can vote for their Module of the Year by nominating an Award module which has had a strong impact on their personal and professional development.
The Module of the Year Award is a great way to officially recognise the efforts of our module teams in module design and delivery.
Students can nominate any staff members who have been involved in module design and delivery. All nominations received are considered by the Award Steering Group, which then votes based on the quality of the nominations received.
This year 83 nominations were made, covering more than 20 modules.
The 2019 winner is an online module that was convened by two University of Nottingham graduates with Learning Technologies. Titled ‘A Student’s Guide to the Future’, it introduces students to the impact of emerging technologies on learning, politics and work, informs students of the most important debates in this area and enables them to apply critical thinking to the current and future role of technology in their lives and in society more widely.
Ollie Bream McIntosh, one of the module convenors, explained: “The University’s technical support was vital to getting this project off the ground, but ultimately, without any staff involved in the delivery of the module, we relied on students believing in us and in the project for the module to work.”
One student commented, “Having the knowledge about AI and the effect of technology will give me an edge over other candidates in the recruitment process”, with another adding, “As a student in the 21st century being aware of future trends is a must and will help in terms of knowing the kinds of skills employers are looking for”
The team behind the module has been invited to the Nottingham Advantage Award Celebration Event in June where they will receive a certificate signed by the Vice-Chancellor.
Tags: Nottingham Advantage Award
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