Student Centre named in honour of landmark gift

Professor Saw Swee Hock, an LSE alumnus, has marked his long association with the School by making a landmark gift towards LSE's new student centre.

#askthedirector

LSE Director, Professor Craig Calhoun, will be taking questions live on Twitter on Monday 8 October. Ask him a question in advance using the #askthedirector hashtag.

Zoe Gillard

Zoe, who manages LSE's Centre for the Study of Human Rights and Scholars at Risk programme, would choose the original line-up of Guns N’ Roses as her top dinner party guests.

I hope you've all had an enjoyable summer and are looking forward to what the new academic year will bring.

I would like to say a big thank you to those of you who completed the Staff News survey earlier in the year. Your thoughts and suggestions help us to make sure that the newsletter is the best that it can be.

Please continue to send me your news and achievements, whether it be work related or something more personal; I really do want to hear from you. So whether you've won an award, have a new member of staff, are running a marathon or have recently got married, please get in touch. Remember, the newsletter is only as good as the information you send me!

Best wishes,

An LSE alumnus has marked his long association with the School by making a landmark gift towards a new student centre, currently under construction on the School’s campus. Professor Saw Swee Hock (pictured), who lives in Singapore, will celebrate the 50th anniversary of his graduation from LSE in 2013, the year when the Centre will open.

Of the gift, LSE Director, Professor Craig Calhoun, said: 'We are deeply grateful for Professor Saw’s generous donation to the School’s new student centre and are delighted to name the building in honour of his philanthropy. The Saw Swee Hock Student Centre will transform the extra-curricular lives of our students on the campus, greatly enhancing the student experience that we offer to our diverse and active student body.'

LSE has been awarded certification in the Top 30 Employers for Working Families for the third year running. The School also won the Best for Fathers Award 2012 and was a finalist for the Best for Carers and Eldercare Award.

The Top Employers for Working Families Benchmark and Awards is the definitive list of progressive UK employers who use pioneering approaches to improve working lives. To enter the awards, the School completed a robust benchmark survey, which examined the work-life balance policies and practices of employers. LSE is the only university to receive an award or certification.

Sarah Jackson OBE, chief executive of Working Families, said: ‘We congratulate the organisations who have gained a place on this year’s Top Employers for Working Families list, the Top 3 Small Family-friendly Businesses and the Special Award winners and commendations. These employers have demonstrated how they are developing innovative policies and practices to create flexible, family-friendly cultures that support individual wellbeing and high performance.'

#askthedirector - open Twitter session

LSE's new Director, Professor Craig Calhoun, will be taking questions live on Twitter from 3-4pm on Monday 8 October.

On Wednesday 17 October from 5.30pm to 7pm there will be a reception to welcome the new Director, Professor Craig Calhoun (pictured). All LSE staff and students are being invited to this reception; you should have received an email yesterday (Wednesday 3 October) inviting you. If the email has not reached you, please note the information below.

Unfortunately, as I am sure you can appreciate, we cannot physically accommodate the entire LSE community at the reception so if demand for places exceeds supply we will be offering places through a random ballot system. This will give all LSE staff and students who would like to attend this event an even chance of doing so. In the case of a ballot, both successful and unsuccessful applicants will be notified.

LSE Garrick
8am-7pm Monday-Friday

Fourth Floor Restaurant
9am-7pm Monday-Friday

Fourth Floor Café Bar
11am-8pm Monday-Friday

Plaza Café
9am-9pm Monday-Thursday
9am-6pm Friday
12 noon-6pm Saturday and Sunday

Café 54
8.30am-6pm Monday-Friday

NAB Mezzanine
10.30am-4pm Monday-Friday

Staff Dining Room and Café Bar (members only)
Café Bar 10am-4.30pm Monday-Friday
Dining Room 12.30-2.15pm Monday-Friday

George IV
12 noon-11pm Monday-Friday

IT support service desk
A new service desk has been set up as your first point of contact for support. It will include members from each of the existing academic and admin support teams, and will:

• Be the point of contact for all staff IT queries
• Be staffed between 9.30am and 5.30pm (as a minimum) when someone will always be on hand to answer the phone, or call back as soon as a line becomes free
• Centrally administer all calls and emails and ensure that all are tracked to resolution
• Resolve as many issues as we can at this first point of contact and provide immediate support for quick fixes and queries that can be resolved in 10 minutes
• Provide enhanced services, incl. Mac support
• Escalate issues to the relevant support team member

To contact the service desk or for more information, email IT.Servicedesk@lse.ac.uk or call ext 5000.

Staff and student IT support walk-in centre
In addition to the service desk, a walk-in centre is available in St Clement's Building, room 198, and provides additional services:

• Face to face IT support
• Equipment and software collection
• Laptop Surgery
• Help with new user accounts
   

A reminder that the first deadline for heads of department and self-sponsored promotion candidates to submit documentation to Human Resources for consideration by the Promotions Committee is Tuesday 16 October.

A summary of submissions due can be found in Annex C2 of the Review and Promotion Guidelines for Academic Staff 2012-13, also available on the Human Resources website.

Below are links to the template forms that are due, where relevant:

• CV template G/2 (CV template instructions for candidates)
• Advance or deferral request for interim or major review form G/7
• Referees for major review and/or promotion form G/8

All template forms and guidance on the promotion and review process can be found on the Human Resources website. If you have any queries or for more information, email HR.ReviewandPromotion@lse.ac.uk or call ext 6217.
 

An updated version of The London School of Economics and Political Science: in short is now available. This handy little red book gives facts and figures about the School.

Staff accommodation availability

There is currently a range of rooms, studios and apartments available to let from Sunday 14 October for staff and visitors to LSE. These are suitable for short- or long-term lets starting from £45 per night. Book now to avoid disappointment.

New - short lease contracts until 1 September 2013
Rates just £227 per week and only a short stroll from London Waterloo.

Letting a property?
Forward your details along with a brief description, photos and monthly rate.

For any information about staff accommodation, contact Samantha Da-Costa on ext 7023, email s.e.da-costa@lse.ac.uk or visit Accommodation for staff and visitors.
 

LSE Equality and Diversity invites entries for the annual Diversity Calendar Photo Competition. The theme for the competition is 'Redefining Difference', encouraging participants to demonstrate out-of-the-box thinking about diversity in their photos.

The judging panel will select 12 winning entries to feature in the Diversity Calendar for 2013. The competition is open to all LSE staff and students.

October's LSE Perspectives gallery is now online. You can view the gallery online here.

The gallery features 12 striking images submitted by LSE staff and students. Each image reflects a unique perspective on a particular scene.

If you have taken any artistic images on your travels, in your home town, or even just here in London why not submit them for LSE Perspectives so that they can be shared with the LSE community.

More for less - take advantage of special offers for LSE staff

Barrecore, which is situated in Chelsea, is offering a 10 per cent LSE staff discount for classes.

Having started in the US, this is the first barre studio in London. The classes are high-energy and low impact, utilising the ballet barre to perform small isometric movements and your bodyweight as resistance.

Book a session over the phone or at the studio to receive the discount (please note that this special deal does not work in conjunction with their introductory offers). For more information, visit www.barrecore.co.uk.

As Orientation is in full swing, this week's photo features a stall on Houghton Street reflected in the window of The 3 Tuns, the LSE Students' Union bar in Clare Market Building.

For more images like this, visit the Photography Unit.

An LSE report summing up six years of research underlines that aid and other forms of external intervention need to be better directed in the so-called 'fragile states' of the developing world.

In the wide-ranging report titled, Meeting the Challenges of Crisis States, Professor James Putzel and Dr Jonathan Di John argue that confusion permeates Western aid programmes in countries where states either face mounting violent challenges or are attempting reconstruction and state-building in the wake of war.

The success of Team GB’s cyclists has been mirrored by an increasing participation in cycling in the UK, but there has been little research quantifying its possible influence.

Sky and British Cycling, via LSE Enterprise, commissioned keen cyclist Dr Alexander Grous of the Centre for Economic Performance to investigate. Dr Grous, who has previously undertaken a study quantifying the value of cycling to the UK’s economy, surveyed 1,000 people before and after the Olympics to determine whether Team GB's success had led to an increase in cycle use. He found that 52 per cent had been encouraged to cycle more, while 28 per cent had been inspired to buy bikes even before the Games had started.

A British Academy report finds that the current state of human rights law in the UK strikes a good balance between respect for democracy and the need to protect human rights, and attempting to recalibrate that balance may prove to be a difficult and thankless task.

Human Rights and the UK Constitution was written by Colm O’Cinneide, reader in law at UCL, with LSE professors Conor Gearty and Francesca Klug on the report’s steering group.

Findings include:

• Elected politicians have the power to opt out of the European Court of Human Rights, but any attempt to ‘de-incorporate’ convention rights from UK law and break the link with Strasbourg, will give rise to serious legal complications
• A new Bill of Rights could expand human rights protection, but this would be more likely to extend the role of the judiciary in protecting rights, rather than rein it in, as many critics of the Human Rights Act (HRA) would like
• The HRA was designed to give the courts a greater role in protecting individual rights while ensuring that the sovereign power of parliament to make law remained intact; the machinery of the act has functioned well over the twelve years in which it has been in effect

JSPS London postdoctoral fellowship for foreign researchers

This programme provides the opportunity for short-term visits for young pre- and post-doctoral UK researchers, and researchers from Europe and North America based in the UK, to conduct cooperative research with leading research groups at Japanese universities and institutions.

The programme is designed to provide researchers with first-hand experience of the research and living environment in Japan, whilst expanding academic exchange between Japan and the United Kingdom.

The closing date for applications is Monday 3 December. For more information, click here.

On: Monday 19 November from 4-5pm. The venue will be confirmed to ticket holders.
Speaker: Julian Castro (pictured), mayor of San Antonio.

The United States economy remains the world's largest. Demographic change is seeing Texas and other states increase their number of congressional seats and share of the US economy.

Mayor Castro's San Antonio 2020 programme details his vision for the city. How does one of America's young leaders see its place in the world?

Manifesto for a Post-National and Federal Europe
On: Monday 8 October at 6.30pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speakers: Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-chairman of the group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, and Guy Verhofstadt, member of the European Parliament.

Reinventing Europe: one crisis, many futures
On: Wednesday 10 October at 6.30pm in the Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Robert Cooper, former director-general for external and politico-military affairs at the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union, Richard Corbett, former member of the European Parliament and advisor to president Herman Van Rompuy, and John Peet, European editor of The Economist.

Distilling the Frenzy
On: Thursday 11 October at 6.30pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Professor Lord Hennessy, Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at Queen Mary, University of London.

Selling the Unsellable: bringing experiential and ephemeral works of contemporary art to market
On: Monday 15 October at 6.30pm in the New Theatre, East Building
Speaker: Dr Noah Horowitz (pictured), art historian and expert on the international art market.

Imagining the Internet: policy challenges
On: Tuesday 16 October at 6.30pm in the Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speakers: Professor Robin Mansell, professor of new media and the internet at LSE, Professor William H Dutton, professor of internet studies at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, and Professor Robert Wade, professor of political economy and development at LSE.

BJS 2012 Annual Public Lecture - Occupy's Predicament: the moment and the prospects for movement

On: Thursday 18 October at 6.30pm in the Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Speaker: Professor Todd Gitlin (pictured), professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University.
Respondent: Professor Craig Calhoun, LSE Director.

Erupting in September 2011, Occupy Wall Street was jump-started by a radical core who devised a form of action, occupation, that combined face-to-face with electronic elements. In an election year, the ingenuity of the original core has been overshadowed by the momentum, the stakes, and not least the money of the presidential campaign.

Whether an Occupy movement takes shape and endures, focused on transformation of a political system overwhelmingly shaped by plutocrats, depends on the actions of many networks that were mobilised within and around the Occupy moment.

Carers Research - NIHR SSCR workshop

On: Wednesday 7 November from 1.30-4.30pm on the LSE campus.

LSE will host the next themed research workshop focusing on SSCR-funded research on carers.

Programme:

• 1.30pm Registrations and refreshments
• 1.40pm Welcome and introduction
  Professor Jill Manthorpe, associate director, SSCR
• 2pm Social Care Practice with Carers: an investigation of practice models
  Jo Moriarty and Jill Manthorpe, King’s College London
• 2.20pm Recent Survey Evidence about Unpaid Carers: implications for social care practice in England
  Ann Netten, University of Kent
• 2.40pm Carers and Personalisation – what is the role of carers in assessment, support planning and managing personal budgets, especially for people with cognitive or communication impairments?
  Caroline Glendinning and Wendy Mitchell, University of York
• 3pm Unpaid Care and Employment in England
  Linda Pickard, LSE
• 3.20pm Improving Employment Opportunities for Carers Identifying and Sharing Good Practice
  Alice Sinclair, Institute for Employment Studies
• 3.40pm Overcoming Barriers: unpaid care and employment in England (follow-on study)
  Linda Pickard, LSE
• 4pm Discussion
• 4.30pm Close

Podcasts of public lectures and events

Cities: places to live, places to work
Speakers: Ben Akabueze, Professor Paul Collier, and Professor Tony Venables
Recorded: Monday 24 September, approx 100 minutes
Click here to listen

A Universe from Nothing
Speaker: Professor Lawrence M Krauss
Recorded: Monday 24 September, approx 68 minutes
Click here to listen

Courses scheduled for next week include:

• General Manual Handling
• Evacuation Chair Volunteer Training
• One-To-One IT Training
• An Introduction to Learning Technologies: how they can benefit your courses

The Centre for Learning Technology is pleased to welcome Professor Diana Laurillard from the Institute of Education to give the first seminar in this popular seminar series which explores the role of technology in education.

Professor Laurillard’s talk is entitled ‘Teaching as a Design Science’ and will be held on Wednesday 10 October at 3pm. For more information and to book your place, click here.

Below are some of the vacancies currently being advertised to internal candidates only, as well as those being advertised externally.

• Chair/reader of economics, Economics
• Chair (criminal law), Law
• Chair (international law), Law
• Data librarian, Library: academic services
• Departmental manager (library services), Library: research and innovation
• Donations and finance manager, ODAR: operations
• Graduate admissions administrator (two posts), ARD: graduate admissions
• HR partner, HR
• Head of press and information, External Relations
• Lecturer in development studies (economics), International Development
• Lecturer in economic geography, Geography and Environment
• Lecturer in environment, Geography and Environment
• Lecturer in international development, International Development
• Lecturer in international development (MPA), International Development
• Lecturer in urban geography, Geography and Environment
• Lectureship in finance, Finance
• Post-doctoral research officer (philosophy), CPNSS
• Professor of human geography, Geography and Environment
• Research support services manager, Library: academic services
• Senior project manager, IT Services
• Senior student services adviser and assistant to the dean of undergraduate studies, Academic Registrar's Division
• Student records systems' support officer, Academic Registrar's Division

Nicole wants to hear from you!

Do you have some news, an achievement, or an aspect of LSE life that you would like to share? If so, then I would love to hear from you, contact me at n.gallivan@lse.ac.uk or on ext 7582.

The next edition of Staff News is on Thursday 11 October. Articles for this should be emailed to me by Tuesday 9 October. Staff News is emailed every Thursday during term time and fortnightly during the holidays.