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8 October 2009 |
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 News
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• Focus
on quality not quantity, says new strategic plan
The latest version of LSE’s Strategic Plan 2009-14, which the Council of
the School approved over the summer, is now available, click
here. In his Director’s Statement, Howard Davies explains: ‘In
implementing our vision and our core values over this planning period, the
overarching principle is that the School’s focus in the coming years should
be on quality not quantity. In some areas, of course, the quality of what we
do is high already, notably in research. But in some other areas we are less
content.’
The plan is a new statement of the School’s purposes, aspirations and
intended actions between 2009 and 2014 and is designed to guide every member
of the LSE community. The School’s vision for the next five years include
plans:
- to deliver challenging, stimulating and research led degree
programmes in an environment that supports learning and the development
of independent thinking among students
- to ensure that our teaching and research remain at the forefront of the
social sciences
- to be among the most internationally-oriented centres of social
science excellence in the world
- to extend the School’s engagement with society across the full
academic portfolio and into key regions of the world
In his introductory letter, Howard Davies says: ‘The plan has changed
quite a lot. Clearly the environment in which we work has altered - not
always for the better - over the last twelve months. It also reflects a lot
of constructive debate internally on the School’s overall mission, culture
and performance. I think you will find it worth a few minutes of your time.’
Paper copies of the plan will be distributed next
week to most managers, with the intention that their staff get to see a
copy. Further hard copies and alternative formats can be provided as
required. For more information, email
Planning.Unit@lse.ac.uk
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• LSE’s longest serving staff member
Thank you to everyone who got in touch with us regarding LSE's
longest serving staff member. We had a fantastic response and found out
that many of you have been connected with the School for more than 50
years! Here are some of the responses we received:
- Jim Thomas came to LSE as an evening student in October 1956,
graduated in the summer of 1960 and joined the staff the following
October. He retired from full-time service at the beginning of October
1999, but continued in a part-time capacity as warden of Carr-Saunders
Hall and departmental tutor in the Economics Department until January
2002. Since December 2001, he has been a research associate in STICERD
- Professor Basil Yamey was an LSE staff member pre-war and regularly
comes back to visit the School
- Emeritus Professor Ailsa Land became a member of the Economics
Research Division immediately after graduating in 1950 and has been on
the staff until her retirement. She has been at LSE without any major
interruptions since she came to the School as an undergraduate in 1946
- Emeritus Professor Frank Land also joined the Economics Research
Division in 1950, but went into industry in 1952, coming back to LSE as
a member of the staff in 1967
- Simon Roberts in the Law Department joined the School in October
1959, as an undergraduate student
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• Support charity by giving as you earn
Three years ago, LSE PhD student Morten Skovdal and his friends set up
WVP Kenya, a small non-profit
organisation in Western Kenya that works with and for children in difficult
circumstances.
The charity started when a small group of Europeans and Kenyans
met in the Bondo district of Kenya. They had all been working with local
non-profit organisations in the area and shared a vision. Not satisfied with
how most non-governmental organisations and charities went about supporting
the vulnerable children in the area, they decided to get together and set up
a community-based organisation.
WVP Kenya aims to improve the health and wellbeing of children and youth
affected by poverty and disease. To do this, they work in partnership with
local community based organisations and implement a number of health and
life-opportunity enhancing activities with children in their catchment
areas. These activities range from sports and health education, provision of
scholarships and providing community groups with the social and financial
resources to provide adequate care and support of vulnerable children.
Morten says: ‘By January 2010, we will have a total of 400
children on scholarships, but there are many more children in need of
support. We can promise that 100 per cent of private donations will reach
some of the most vulnerable children in Western Kenya.’
As LSE staff members, you can support this and other charities through
the Give As You Earn (GAYE) scheme. GAYE allows you to give directly from
your pre-tax salary, so money that would normally go to the taxman goes to
charity instead. You just decide how much you want to give each month - it
could be a couple of pounds, or hundreds or thousands - and who you want to
give it to. Then your donation comes out of your pay packet before the
taxman touches it.
You can join GAYE by picking up a form from HR.
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• LSE
Masters in Management ranked fourth in the world by Financial Times
LSE has maintained its ranking as fourth in the world for Masters in
Management programmes in the Financial Times this week. LSE also
comes
fourth out of 50 institutions for its MSc in Management. It is the only UK
institution in the top 10 and is placed third highest overall in alumni
salaries. For the third year in a row the programme is ranked as the top
single-institution one year MSc.
Professor Saul Estrin, head of the Department of Management at LSE, said:
'I am pleased that our degrees continue to be ranked so highly and it was
nice to see us twice in the top five. With the expansion of our programmes
recently this is very pleasing and further testifies to our high
international standing.'
More
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• LSE
academic appointed a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
Dr Martina Viarengo, research officer in the Centre for Economic
Performance, has been elected a fellow of the
Royal Society of Arts (RSA). The
fellowship was awarded in recognition of Martina’s research on education
policy and economics and also to acknowledge her recent award of the Newton
International Fellowship.
Martina said: ‘I am
very grateful to the RSA for honouring me with the fellowship. For over 250
years, RSA has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for
social progress. I will be happy to participate to the activities of the
society and will do my best to contribute to its mission of social
innovation and commitment to social inclusion in the area of education.’
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• ICEF
graduation ceremony
On 10 September, Dr Laurie Bristow, deputy ambassador to the Russian
Federation, hosted the ninth graduation ceremony of the International
College of Economics and Finance (ICEF) in Moscow. ICEF was established in
1997 as a joint venture between LSE and the Higher School of Economics in
Moscow, with LSE sharing responsibility for academic management and the
appointment of teachers.
The School was represented at the graduation ceremony by LSE pro-director
Professor Janet Hartley, Ancillary Programmes Board chairman Neil Gaskell,
ICEF project director Professor Richard Jackman and director of External
Study Rosemary Gosling. This year nearly 60 per cent of the ICEF graduating
students were awarded first and upper second class honours degrees by the
University of London and many of them will be pursuing postgraduate studies
in the west or in Russia. In addition the ceremony also celebrated the
graduation of the first cohort of ICEF masters students in Financial
Economics. For more information about ICEF, visit
www.hse.ru/icef/en/ or e-mail
lse.icef@lse.ac.uk |
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 Notices
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• Staff
portrait dates
Nigel Stead, School photographer, will be holding two staff portrait
photo sessions on Tuesday 20 and Thursday 22 October. The sessions will
be held in room A22 from 11am-1pm and 2-4pm on each of these days.
New staff (or old staff who need to update their existing pictures) can
turn up at any time in the given time slots and there is no need to book.
All pictures are in a digital format and will be supplied to each
department/centre on a CD. Hard copy prints will not be provided. Pictures
will be sent after post production, which can take up to two weeks after the
shoot.
The cost is £15 per head charged to the department/centre and staff are
asked to bring their budget codes with them on the day. There will be other
portrait dates in November. For more information, contact Nigel Stead at
n.stead@lse.ac.uk
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• Promotion
and review workshop
An informal workshop aimed at outlining the procedures to be followed by
academic staff scheduled for interim/major review, or wishing to be
considered for promotion to Senior Lecturer, Reader and Professor will take
place on Thursday 15 October from 12.30-2pm in room 109, New Academic
Building. Professor George Philip, vice chair of the Appointments Committee,
will be available to answer any questions. A sandwich lunch and refreshments
will be available.
Please also note that this will be the final workshop of the current session
and the last opportunity for HR to answer any queries that you may have
about the promotion and review process.
The Promotion and Review Guidelines for 2009-10 are also available on the
Human Resources website. Any queries should be directed to Dominic
Smith, deputy HR manager, at
d.smith1@lse.ac.uk or ext 7782.
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 Research
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• Research
opportunities
Candidates interested in applying for any of the opportunities below should
contact Michael Oliver in the
Research and Project Development Division at
m.oliver@lse.ac.uk or call ext 7962.
The Research and Project Development Division maintains a regularly
updated list of
research funding opportunities for academic colleagues on their website.
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• RPDD
Research e-Briefing
Click
here to read the Summer edition of the RPDD newsletter. To sign up
for research news, recent research funding opportunities, research awards
that are about to start, and examples of research outcomes, click
here. The next issue is out
at the end of October 2009.
More
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 Events
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• Save
the date - LSE Christmas parties
* Director and Secretary’s reception for administrative,
departmental, library and research staff
Friday 11 December from 6-11pm in the SCR and SDR, 5th Floor, Old
Building.
* Director's Christmas party for children of staff
Saturday 5 December from 2-5pm in the SCR and SDR, 5th Floor, Old Building.
Further details and invitations will follow soon.
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• Lord
Dahrendorf Memorial Service
A service of thanksgiving for the life and work of Lord Dahrendorf, will
be held at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey at noon on Tuesday 3
November. To apply for tickets, please write enclosing a stamped addressed
envelope to: Mr M. Arnoldi, Room 3, The Chapter Office, 20 Dean’s Yard,
London SW1P 3PA. Tickets will be posted by 23 October. All are welcome to
attend. |
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 60 Second Interview
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•
with..... Michael Brown, designer and creator of LSE's new installation Bluerain
Michael was born in California
and has lived in San Francisco for
almost 25 years. He considers
himself a 'maker' and has been an
artist for most of his life. He has
a degree in film making but moved
towards sculpture and installation
work in his final year of college.
What is Bluerain? And
what inspired you to create this
artwork?
Bluerain is a whole bunch
of blue light emitting diodes
(LED’s) attached the side of the
Library. When research is being done
in the Library, we capture the
information (searches to the online
card catalogue, and titles of books
as they are checked in and out) and
scroll the layers of text down the
wall of LED’s. It almost appears as
unreadable shifting hieroglyphics,
but by turning your head you can
decipher the words by following one
block of text at a time.
When I first visited LSE, I was
inspired by the Library’s open
atrium, allowing you to see the vast
amount of information and research
happening inside. I was told the
Library was not so easy for students
to find, so the idea of creating an
artwork that could also act as a way
finder, seemed important. I’ve been
using LED’s for a while, but not as
a tool to display text, more for
making interactive light sculptures.
I liked the idea of using words but
felt the need to treat them
differently, still readable but
requiring the viewer to engage to
actually 'read' them. The corner of
the building was screaming for
something and seems ideal to cascade
the words down the long brick corner
of the building. The colour blue, so
lovely, reflecting the idea of
water, and as it so happened there
were blue LED’s already embedded
into the plaza, so it was the
obvious choice. Standing just below
the corner forces all the words to
compress and basically disappear so
it looks like rain drops falling.
Stepping slightly away from the wall
and the letters start to become
visible slowing becoming words the
farther you move away.
What is it about interactive
artwork that you like so much?
It is more engaging as it often
requires the participants to get
involved. Interactive work also
becomes a collaborative experience,
which often inspires strangers to
engage with each other. I like to
make strangers talk to each other.
How did you come to know the
donor, Darril Hudson?
As an artist, one often has a
'day job'. I was a handyman who
Darril hired to do some repair work
on one of the buildings he owns in
San Francisco. As an avid
appreciator of art, he learned I was
an artist and our discussions led
to our friendship. His love of LSE
inspired him to ask me to design a
piece for his alma mater.
What happens if one of the
23,520 bulbs blows?
Each 'pixel' in Bluerain
is actually made up of 15 LED’s in a
cluster. If one goes out there are
14 remaining so the loss of one
failing will not be noticed. If a
number of LED’s fail, a four-foot
long section of the display (module)
can be easily replaced with one of
the extra modules included with the
project. Eventually when all these
extra modules have been used up, the
parts can be swapped and recombined
to keep Bluerain functioning.
The great thing about LED’s is that
they last an incredibly long time.
The estimated life span of the LED’s
used in Bluerain are 50,000 hours of
continuous illumination. You will
notice that for most of the time,
the LED’s are actually 'off' or
dark, only glowing when a letter
rolls by.
Why did you choose the colour
blue?
Cause it is pretty!
Is it true that the entire
display uses less power than a 100
watt light bulb? How did you make
this possible?
Actually the total consumption is
about 60 watts. I was pretty blown
away when we first measured it. I
knew it would be low, but 60 watts
was completely impressive,
especially when I saw how bright my
studio was when I had it running. I
had to cover it all with cardboard
just so I could sleep!
Do you think it is important
for universities to have artwork
like this? And if so, why?
Artwork is important anywhere. It
inspires, enlightens and amuses. A
student campus is one of those
magical places where minds are
supposed to be expanded. Being
exposed to art allows one to see
different points of view or just see
things from a different perspective.
Where in London would you most
like to display one of your pieces
of art?
The Tate Modern, of course! What
an awesome space.
Bluerain was formally
unveiled at LSE on Tuesday 6
October. For more information,
click
here.
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 Training
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• Academic,
personal and professional development courses for staff
Courses on offer next week include:
- Monday 12 October
Moodle next steps training
Excel 2003: database features
- Wednesday 14 October
Creating a reading list in Moodle
- Thursday 15 October
PowerPoint 2003: creating a presentation
Moodle basics training
- Friday 16 October
Teaching with Moodle
For a full listing of what is available and further details, including
booking information, please see
www.lse.ac.uk/training
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• First
aid training - one day course
Friday 16 October
Would you know what to do if someone collapses on your train? This is a
great opportunity to gain practical skills such as administrating emergency
resuscitation, and dealing with an unconscious person.
To book a place or for more information, email
Health.And.Safety@lse.ac.uk |
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 Media
bites
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• Times
(8 October)
Times MPC says Bank should hold tight on policy changes
'The Monetary Policy Committee should do nothing, say nothing and break
early for coffee and biscuits' said Charles Goodhart, professor at LSE.
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• Guardian
(7 October)
Wrong-headed calls for a 'bill of rights'
Article by Francesca Klug, Professorial Research Fellow at LSE.
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• Digital
Journal (4 October)
Socialists on
course for election victory in Greece
Kevin Featherstone, director of LSE's Hellenic Observatory, pointed out
to CNN that corruption has long been a problem in Greek politics and
suggested that tackling it was another challenge for the incoming
administration.
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