The zombies have come and LSE students will be their first victims...

Don't miss the premiere of Ruthless, LSE's student film, on Thursday 21 March at 8.30pm in the Old Theatre.

Last chance to tell us what you think

The Press Office has put together a short feedback survey for you to let us know how you feel about Student News.

Dr Nicholas Cron

Dr Cron loves music: 'I have about 400 LPs and CDs, covering Telemann to the Ting Tings and Bach to the Beach Boys.'

Thirteen LSE students who have been providing emotional support to fellow students in halls and elsewhere on campus, were rewarded with certificates and warm praise at a 'graduation ceremony' last week.

Richard Perkins, warden at Passfield Hall, said: 'I've been lucky enough to have a fantastic group of Peer Supporters. Not only have they been through a long and rigorous training, but they represent a generation that is committed to sharing and giving their time selflessly to others.'

Peter Howlett, dean of Undergraduate Studies, commented that peer support 'offers vital support to students who may arrive at university and have no one to turn to. It is now a key part of a range of different types of help available to new students, and I'm delighted to see it flourishing within the School.'

Reem Yassin, one of the graduates, said: 'Peer support has really been the best thing I have taken on all year.'

LSE's Student Counselling Service, which runs the scheme, is currently recruiting for next year's Peer Supporters. If you are accepted you will receive two weeks of intensive training at the end of Summer term in listening and responding skills, as well as regular supervision and support meetings throughout the year. For more information, visit lse.ac.uk/counselling/peersupport.

During the Easter holidays, you might be planning to travel to Europe. Travelling in Europe is usually safe, but we are aware that there has been an increase in the number of students who have had their passport stolen.

When travelling overseas, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office advise:

• Don’t travel without insurance
• Take copies of your passport photograph page, your UK visa and your travel visa
• Make sure you have enough money for emergencies or delays
• Be sensible and don’t take risks
• Don’t openly display valuables e.g. cameras or phones
• If you need to carry your passport and money because your accommodation is not secure, consider getting a money belt or a secure pouch.

If your passport and visa are lost or stolen when you are overseas you should immediately inform the Police and your embassy. You should also refer to ISIS’s webpages on what to do if your passport is lost or stolen to find out how to obtain a new visa.

Following the transfer of ownership of The Women's Library to LSE earlier this year, the relocation of the collection will be completed by July. The collection will be open and available for use from Thursday 1 August, with the reading room service located in the Library’s present archives reading room.

Plans for The Women's Library @ LSE include the creation of a new reading room and exhibition area. As construction work has progressed it has become clear that the project will take longer to complete than originally envisaged, and it is too disruptive to continue while students are preparing for exams.

Library building work update

The Library is pleased to announce that additional study spaces will be made available to LSE students visiting the Library during April and May.

From April, the meeting room R301 on the third floor will be turned into a temporary silent study area for LSE students, providing an additional 30 study spaces.

In anticipation of the busy examination period, the Library has installed 37 extra study spaces for LSE students across all four floors.

The building work currently taking place on the lower ground floor is scheduled to end on Thursday 18 April, when 29 study spaces will become permanently available to LSE students.

For more information, email Peter Carrol at p.carrol@lse.ac.uk.
 

Strict planning regulations in US cities, such as San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, are partly driven by powerful property owners protecting their own interests, rather than by considerations about quality of life only, says new research from LSE.

According to the forthcoming paper in the Journal of Urban Economics, because desirable places have become more developed over time, homeowners and landlords who own the developed land are in the majority and are more influential than people who own land that has not yet been developed. Developed land owners then use their power to vote and lobby local planners to restrict further building.

A huge thank you to everyone who gave or bought cakes at last week's Comic Relief Bakeoff. A fantastic £766 was raised, and much fun was had by all.

Academic Registrar and Director of Academic Services, Simeon Underwood (pictured), had the difficult job of judging the 'show stopper' cakes donated by various departments, but eventually settled on the Institute of Social Psychology's as the winner, with a special commendation for the Department of Management.

Tell us what you think - Student News feedback survey 2013

The Press Office has put together a short survey for you to let us know how you feel about Student News. It will be an important way for us to find out how we can improve the newsletter for you.

The survey is open to all students and should take no more than five minutes to complete. To take part, visit www.survey.bris.ac.uk/lsewebsite/student_news_2013.

The Student Recruitment Office is looking for international student profiles to put on the LSE website. We are specifically looking for profiles of students from the following countries (however we would be happy to receive profiles for any country):

• Argentina
• Belgium
• Chile
• Colombia
• France
• Greece
• Japan
• Norway
• Peru
• South Korea
• Spain
• Thailand
• Turkey

The LSE Student Counselling Service is looking for feedback from students who have used the Peer Support Scheme over this year. If you could spare a few minutes, click here.

There is a separate survey for students in residences where Peer Supporters are based (High Holborn, Passfield Hall, Rosebery Hall, Bankside House, and Carr-Saunders Hall). For this survey, click here.

LSE GROUPS is a great opportunity for undergraduates to take part in an original social science research project.

Working in groups of mixed disciplines and mixed years, with expert supervision, you will spend two weeks at the end of the Summer term working up a research question, carrying out research and writing up a paper for presentation at a research conference on the final day.

Adding chapter numbers into captions for figures, tables, etc in Word documents.

If you have numbered chapters in your dissertation, thesis or book manuscript, you can choose to add the chapter number to the caption for maps, photos, tables, diagrams, etc. Here is how:

1. When you insert a caption, click the Numbering button and tick Include chapter number.
2. Before you click OK, check that the Chapter starts with style box is set to the heading level you use for chapter names.

NOTE: For this to work, you must use a numbered heading style to format your chapter headings. Appendix 1.1 of LSE’s Word 2010 Format an Academic Paper course explains how.

Nominations are invited for the award of a Queen’s Honour (which include MBE, OBE, CBE etc).

Do you know someone working at LSE who has:

• made a real impact on the School
• gained the respect of their peers
• changed things for the better at the School
• demonstrated innovation
• brought distinction to British life and enhanced its reputation through their work at the School?

A full explanation is given here but please bear in mind that awards channelled through the School should be for services to higher education, with particular reference to the School. The deadline for receipt of suggestions is Friday 19 April.

Nominations for Honorary Doctorate are invited from LSE students and staff.

The LSE Council may confer an Honorary Doctorate on an individual who has demonstrated outstanding achievement and distinction in a field or activity consonant with the work of the School and with its mission to improve society and understand the 'causes of things'.

Unlike Honorary Fellows, Honorary Doctorates do not need a direct connection with the School.

Please note that following a recent review by the Nominations Committee, the criteria have been revised.

The deadline for the receipt of nominations to be considered is Wednesday 1 May. Any Honorary Doctorates awarded would be conferred in December 2013.

Skip fit lessons

Security officer and former boxer Daniel Beckley is running skip fit lessons for all staff and students at LSE. Build up your fitness, burn calories and increase your stamina, all within an hour.

The next lessons will take place from 1-2pm at the Badminton Court, Old Building, on Tuesday 23 April, Tuesday 30 April, Tuesday 14 May and Tuesday 21 May. Please note, the Badminton Court will be closed from 3-21 April so the lessons due to take place on Tuesday 2 April and Tuesday 9 April have been cancelled.

Just turn up on any of these dates with your own skipping rope. All lessons are free.

For more information, email Daniel at d.beckley@lse.ac.uk.
 

LSE student to climb Mount Kilimanjaro

Corina Mavrodin (pictured), a doctoral candidate in the Department of International History, is planning to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in August to raise money for Amani Children’s Home.

After her trek, Corina plans on visiting and volunteering at the children’s home, which is located in Moshi at the base of the highest free-standing mountain in the world. Amani, named after the Swahili word for ‘peace’, provides primary care, counselling and outreach options to the region’s most vulnerable street children. Their numbers have rapidly increased in the last few years due to poverty and the effects of HIV/AIDS. Amani offers them a safe environment, where they can grow, learn, and be treated for various psychological or physical afflictions.

Corina’s target is to ‘sell’ the 5,895 metres that she will trek to Kilimanjaro’s peak, for £1 each. Any donation stands to have a huge impact, considering that £16 is enough to feed one child at Amani for a month, while £230 covers a child’s care, including education, for a year.

New event - Leading Change: perspectives from GM chairman and CEO Dan Akerson

On: Thursday 11 April from 6.30-8pm. The venue will be confirmed to ticketholders.
Speaker: Daniel F Akerson (pictured), chairman and chief executive officer of General Motors.

In just over two years, LSE graduate Dan Akerson has led the transformation of General Motors from its historic IPO in the United States to a global, product-driven resurgence unlike any experienced in the company’s 104-year-old history.

Join Mr Akerson as he shares the importance of strong leadership in times of great change; his views on the current global economy; and how LSE helped prepare him for his business success. In addition, you will have the opportunity to pose your own questions to Mr Akerson.

Other forthcoming LSE events include....

China's Growth: the making of an economic superpower
On: Thursday 21 March at 6.30pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Speaker: Dr Linda Yueh (pictured), director of the China Growth Centre and fellow in economics at St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford.

The Power of Lies
On: Thursday 21 March at 6.30pm in the Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House
Speaker: Hilary Lawson, director of the Institute of Art and Ideas and the author of Closure, Dr Parashkev Nachev, senior clinical research associate at the Institute of Neurology, UCL, and honorary clinical lecturer at Imperial College London, and Dr Jaime Whyte, former Times columnist and University of Cambridge philosopher.

The Art of Thinking Clearly: better thinking, better decisions
On: Thursday 11 April at 6.30pm in the New Theatre, East Building
Speaker: Rolf Dobelli (pictured), Swiss writer and entrepreneur.
 

On: Thursday 21 March at 8.30pm in the Old Theatre, Old Building.

It’s Thursday afternoon at LSE. The UGM is in full swing. The AU is sporting crippling headaches from last night's Zoo Bar. Students everywhere are settling down to an afternoon's work... and in a maintenance alley behind Tower Two, something evil is stirring...

...the zombies have come, and LSE students will be their first victims.

Ruthless is a 20 minute short film, made up entirely of original content from LSE students, a creative collaboration between LooSE TV, and the Drama and Music societies.

On: Friday 22 March from 6.30-8.40pm in the Senior Common Room, Old Building

The LSE Taiwan Research Programme will be holding a launch and wine reception in partnership with scholars from University College Dublin (UCD), to celebrate the publication of a special issue of the journal Taiwan in Comparative Perspective on the groundbreaking subject of Taiwan and Ireland in Comparative Perspective.

This publication brings together specialists on Taiwan and specialists on Ireland to begin the work of developing a new model of comparative interaction. Area studies can tend in approaching Ireland and Taiwan, as other places, to rehearse certain forms of scholarship, privilege certain questions and exclude others. Asking 'Irish questions' of Taiwan, and vice versa, this interdisciplinary collaboration breaks exciting new ground, drawing on material presented at a recent symposium at UCD entitled 'Small Islands, Big Issues'.

On: Wednesday 17 April from 6.30-8pm in the Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House

Are you in London over the Lent term break? If so, join LSE Arts for a talk by Canadian brothers Colin and Ryan Pyle (pictured) as they recount their epic and world-record-setting motorcycle journey across China.