Essex performs well on degree
success
The University of Essex has an excellent record of achieving degree success for its
students, according to Government-sponsored figures announced on 3 December.
The University has top class ‘efficiency rates,’ according to the first
UK-wide official data on performance for universities, published by the Higher Education
Funding Council for England.
The ‘efficiency rates’ compare the time that students should ideally take to
obtain a degree to the actual time that they are expected to take. Essex shows an
‘efficiency rate’ of 91 per cent, compared to 85 per cent across the sector.
This places Essex 16th in the table of universities (excluding colleges) for
this indicator.
In addition, an average of 89 per cent of University of Essex students successfully
complete their courses and gain degrees (84 per cent at Essex and 5 per cent elsewhere).
This gives a non-completion rate of 11 per cent, compared to 16 per cent for the sector as
a whole.
New data on research output reveals that the number of PhDs awarded at Essex puts it in
the top 15 of all institutions. The University also has a very good record for the amount
of research grants and contracts it obtains – placing it 21st out of all universities
(excluding colleges). These figures are both relative to academic staff costs.
Hidden plight of
aboriginal communities in Canada
An Essex sociologist has revealed why the indigenous Canadian Innu people – a once
self-sufficient and independent people – suffer one of the highest suicide rate in
the world.
Dr Colin Samson’s report Canada’s Tibet: The Killing of the Innu was
launched by Survival International, a pressure group advocating for the rights of tribal
peoples, in London on 8 November.
The report, which has attracted worldwide attention, claims that as well as suffering
appalling rates of suicide, the Innu also suffer from destructive levels of alcoholism and
solvent abuse.
The plight of the Innu is blamed on the Canadian government policy of moving them into
villages and away from their traditional nomadic hunting way of life.
Dr Samson explained: ‘The Innu were nomadic hunters in the forests of the Labrador
peninsula until they were settled by the Canadian government 30 years ago. Since then
their society has started to fall apart. What is happening to the Innu is horrifying, and
urgently needs to be exposed to the gaze of world opinion.’
Survival is calling on the Canadian government to halt all development of Innu land
until their land claims conflict has been settled.
Dr Samson, said: ‘The Innu’s well being and cultural identity depends on
their continuing links to their land. The land claims procedures employed by the Canadian
government are dishonest and unfair as they mandate that the Innu (and other native
groups) must first give up title to their lands in order to receive rights on them. The
Innu have never signed away their land, yet the Canadian government refuses to suspend
massive ‘development’ projects that will destroy large parts of the Innu’s
territory.’
Ruling by Task Force - Labour's new elite
The explosion of Government task forces over the last two years is outlined in a new
guide from the Democratic Audit.
The study by
Anthony Barker (pictured left), of the Department of Government, is the first full study
and academic commentary on the approximately 320 external ‘task forces’ on
policy and implementation problems created by Labour ministers so far. The book also lists
details of some 215 internal policy reviews, adding up to a significant new aspect and
style of British government policy-making. Anthony Barker originated the slippery task of
sorting, listing and analysing the 3000-plus ‘outsider’ (non-ministers or civil
servant) memberships in January 1998. The Democratic Audit, a constitutional reformist
research unit based in the Human Rights Centre here at Essex, collaborated with him to
produce this full coverage, using Rowntree funding.
The external ‘task forces’ have brought nearly 2,500 outsiders into Whitehall
as temporary, unpaid advisers and discussants on policy reform ideas from Agriculture to
Youth Justice. Tony Barker’s commentary concludes that Labour’s task forces are
both a genuine new chapter in openness in policy-making and a clear attempt by ministers
and civil servants to stay closer to such committees of outsiders to gain better feedback
and control. The work and reports of new-style task forces are part of the current quest
in Whitehall for ‘joined-up government.’
Tony Barker presented the study at a House of Commons seminar specially convened on 24
November by Dr Tony Wright MP, Chair of the Select Committee on Public Administration. In
addition to committee members and other MPs, participants included senior civil servants,
political journalists and academic specialists on British government. The Sunday Times
of 21 November partly based a major feature on ‘Labour’s new elite’ on this
book.
Essex strongly
represented in new learned society
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ivor Crewe (pictured left),
is one of eight top social scientists with Essex connections to be named among the first
Academicians of a new Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences.
Professor Crewe joins ex Vice-Chancellor,
Professor Ronald Johnston, ex-academic Professor Howard Newby, and current academic
Professor Anthony King, as some of the 60 Founding Academicians of the Academy which was
launched in London last month.
Others with Essex connections include Honorary
Graduates Polly Toynbee and Alan Baddeley, and Richard Mottram, Permanent Secretary of the
Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, who is the University’s
Civil Service link person. Ron Amann, who has been associated with the University in the
past and is now Director General of the Centre for Management and Policy Studies, Cabinet
Office, was also named.
Visit strengthens
Essex-Mexico ties
The University, already well-known in Mexico, has
further strengthened it ties with Mexican universities following a visit led by the
Vice-Chancellor (23-28 November).
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ivor Crewe,
travelled with Professor Ken Burdett (Economics), Professor Ernesto Laclau (Govt),
Professor Joe Foweraker (Govt), Professor Christian Anglade (Govt), Professor Kevin Boyle
(Law/HRC) and Dr Jane Hindley (Sociology). The focus of the visit was a colloquium at UNAM
(the National University of Mexico) - Mexico’s oldest, most prestigious and by common
consent ‘national’ university with more than 275,000 students.
Officially UNAM was on strike but that did not
prevent the joint UNAM-Essex colloquium, held over 3 days, in the Tamayo Museum, from
attracting audiences of 200.
In addition to the colloquium, Professor Crewe
visited CONACYT, the state postgraduate scholarship funding agency, the British Council,
and a lecture at the Institute for Federal Elections (IFE) on electoral reform in Britain.
He also visited two other major universities in Mexico City: UAM (Autonomous University of
Mexico) and the Mexico City campus of ITESM (Instituto Technologico y de Estudios
Superiores de Monterrey) to discuss possible student and staff exchange programmes. During
the visit, he also appeared on Mexican breakfast TV and radio to discuss the forthcoming
presidential election in Mexico.
Other members of the group had their own personal
programmes of visits and delivering lectures. The Vice-Chancellor, said: ‘Since its
foundation the University of Essex has welcomed a large number of students from Mexico and
we now find that we are well known in Mexico. This very successful visit further
strengthened relationships between the University and leading universities in
Mexico.’
During the visit an alumni association
‘Mexico-Essex Graduates Association (MEGA)’ was launched at a reception.
Buildings revamp
over the summer
Square Four......
.....before
...after
It has been a typically busy Summer vacation and
Autumn term for the Estates Section, with a full programme of building works, planned
maintenance and room moves taking place.
The new accommodation for the Law Department on
Levels 5 and 6 of the Physics Building is nearing completion, with just four offices and a
common room remaining to be converted. When works are completed, Law will be fully located
on Levels 5 and 6, with the remainder of the Physics Department relocated to Levels 3 and
4. The space vacated by Law on Floor 5 of the Maths Building is in the process of being
converted and occupied by, among others, postgraduate students in the departments of
Government and Accounting and Financial Management (AFM), as well as providing a new home
for the Arts Office. The Vice Chancellor and Registrar and Secretary have moved into their
new suite of offices, also on Level 5 of the Physics Building, leaving space on Level 7 to
be converted to a video-conferencing suite and two new seminar rooms.
‘Phase one’ of a two-part project to
refurbish research laboratories in Biology has been completed, with design work currently
ongoing on ‘phase two.’ This work is jointly funded by the Higher Education
Funding Council for England (HEFCE) under its refurbishing research laboratories
initiative. The undergraduate teaching laboratory in Biology was also enlarged and
refurbished over the summer.
The refurbishment of Square 4 is now completed,
with just the finishing touch of two seating areas, in the corners by the campus shop and
Barclays Bank, to be fitted in the period leading up to Christmas.
Part of the Department of Biological
Sciences has been relocated to central campus, now occupying the suite of offices vacated
by the Arts Office. The plan is to eventually relocate the entire department to central
campus from the John Tabor laboratories and it is hoped that this will be completed during
2001.
In August, a new 106 -place open access
computer laboratory was completed in space formerly occupied by water storage tanks in the
Physics Building (see September’s Wyvern).
Summer start for new accommodation
The third phase of the South Courts student
accommodation development. The final phase of the student village will see the creation of
a further 512 study bedrooms and work will continue throughout a twelve month contract
period.
The money
will be used to expand the University’s new Business and Regional Office (BRO) –
formerly known as the Industrial Liaison and Commercial Office. Two new posts will be
created: a Regional Development Officer and an Intellectual Property Rights Manager. In
addition, it will promote the commercialisation of research through the setting up of a
business incubation unit, which will form part of the planned Research Park.