The Widening Participation Team welcomed the eleventh cohort of 16-17 year olds onto LSE CHOICE at a launch event on Thursday 11 August. A record number of recruits, 193 in total, across five subject streams (Economics, Maths, Government and Politics, Sociology, and History) were invited to LSE with their parents to celebrate the beginning of the CHOICE week long summer school on Monday 22 August and 18 Saturday teaching sessions from September to March.
It was clear there was much enthusiasm and anticipation about starting on the CHOICE programme. "I'm looking forward to experiencing the teaching styles and atmosphere of university life and LSE in particular," said one participant, who felt CHOICE gave them the opportunity "… to interact and mingle with people I otherwise perhaps would have never met."
The School has recently appointed Professor Charles Stafford from the Department of Anthropology as the new Vice-Chair of the Appointments Committee (VCAC). Professor Stafford starts his new role on 1 September 2016.
All staff should note that the national pay award for 2016-17 continues to be in dispute and the School is therefore unable to implement any uplift to the salary scales from 1 August 2016 at this point in time. As soon as we are able to, the School will implement the pay award and this will be back dated to August 2016 for all staff.
Andrea Ledwig Andrea, Taught Programmes Manager in the Department of Philosophy, would like to change places with Ginger Rogers: "so that I get to dance with Fred Astaire".
LSE IDEAS has launched a new project in collaboration with the British Academy and Russian Academy making archive documents from the early Cold War available online.
Documents from the UK and USSR 1943-1953, including details of meetings between Churchill and Stalin have been translated, transcribed, and annotated. Browse them at the Cold War Archives online.
New Mladena and Dianko Sotirov Visiting Fellows at LSE IDEAS
LSE IDEAS welcomes two scholars as part of its Mladena and Dianko Sotirov Visiting Fellowship scheme, which fosters the study of Bulgaria and the Balkan region.
Sielke Beata Kelner will be working on Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu’s policies towards the Middle East, 1978-1989. Dr Hristo Berov will be examining the economic recovery of Balkan states after World War I, 1919-1925. The Sotirov Fellowships are made possible by a generous endowment of Mladena and Dianko Sotirov.
The 2012 Olympic Games caused a marked increase in happiness among Londoners, according to new LSE reserch which shows for the first time that there are significant intangible effects to hosting the event.
Reducing the asylum waiting period for refugees could improve their employment chances and integrate them into their adopted country more quickly, a new analysis of refugee data from Switzerland shows.
An LSE alum has launched their own start-up enterprise that combines fitness and food.
Speaking after The Tasty Games’ first event on 14 August, Social Psychology graduate Sean Farran said: "There’s not much we love more than keeping fit and eating well, and we are not alone. We are all at a very exciting time in the meeting of food and fitness and the combinations available in forming a healthy lifestyle. Our aim with The Tasty Games is to help navigate that choice by showcasing the most fun and innovative exercise groups alongside creative restaurants from across the capital, providing visitors with taster classes and taster dishes of the best available."
LJ Silverman of LSE Careers, who attended on Sunday, said: "The Tasty Games were an enormous success (and a lot of fun)! It was a real privilege to watch one of our entrepreneurial alumni transform his dreams into a reality within such a short space of time. Hopefully, it will inspire current and future LSE student entrepreneurs to follow suit, to work hard developing their ideas, and to launch equally as innovative initiatives as Sean has done this weekend."
More information about The Tasty Games can be found on their website. If you think you know of a student who could benefit from speaking to someone about their entrepreneurial ideas, please contact Generate at LSE Careers.
Update from Professor Julia Black, Interim Director
The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Taskforce has reached the end of its first year and the progress it has already made is very impressive.
The establishment of the EDI Taskforce is a vital element in embedding the School’s values of equality of respect and opportunity in our teaching, research and all aspects of life at LSE. It is only through an open and welcoming culture which values diversity that we can continue to be a world leader in education and research.
Statistically the number of black and ethnic minority students at undergraduate level has risen across all UK universities; however the representation at staff level is still shockingly low. At LSE there is currently one Black professor employed; in the UK as a whole there are only 85 out of 18,500.
LSE has committed to examining and changing this, by funding a project entitled ‘Race in the Academy’ investigating why so few black and ethnic minority academics are employed by LSE and why it struggles to retain black and ethnic minority academic staff. Click here to read the project's five key research aims and its progress of date.
The team are very keen to involve as many academic staff as possible. If you would like to take part in the project or would like more information, please get in touch with Akile Ahmet.
Following the successful launch of the e-Recruitment portal for professional services vacancies in April this year, LSE HR is rolling out the system to cover academic and research positions.
A pilot with the Grantham Research Institute (using their recent Research Officer vacancy) is currently underway. Meanwhile, the project team is undertaking final testing before going live in September.
Applications are invited for the role of Director of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA). The IPA Director will provide strategic academic leadership to advance the mission and objectives of the Institute, developing a programme of work to optimise the position of the IPA that enables it to become a world-leading centre for public policy.
The post is available for a four-year term. For more information, click here. The closing date for receipt of applications is Sunday 21 August.
UniForum Benchmarking Project - Drop-In Support Sessions
If you are a Primary Contact or Respondent for the UniForum Benchmarking project and you need some support with your data submission, why not make use of the drop-in sessions with the Programme Team. You can drop in at the following times; there is no need to pre-book:
Friday 19 August, 14:00-15:00, STC.S.08
Tuesday 23 August, 11:00-12:00, STC.S.08
Thursday 25 August, 13:00-14:00, STC.S.08
Tuesday 30 August, 11:00-12:00, TW2.4.01
Thursday 1 September, 14:00-15:00, TW2.4.01
Tuesday 6 September, 11:00-12:00, TW2.4.01
Thursday 8 September, 14:00-15:00, TW2.4.01
The team will be on hand to show you how the system works and to answer specific questions around the staff and supplier collections.
Don’t forget that you can also contact the team through Uniforum@lse.ac.uk or see the information on the webpage.
LSE Research Festival - call for submissions
LSE’s Research Festival is an annual celebration of the innovative and ground-breaking research in the social sciences by our staff and students.
Can you, your staff or students submit the findings of your research projects presented as a photograph, poster or headlined abstract? To mark the centenary of the death of Charles Booth we particularly invite projects with a theme of poverty and inequality.
An exhibition of the submissions and prize-giving for the winners will take place at the LSE Research Festival on Thursday 3 November.
Pay with sQuid and get 5 per cent extra free - LSE Catering is delighted to announce the re-introduction of our popular loyalty reward scheme from Tuesday 30 August.
Use your LSE ID Card, which incorporates sQuid, instead of cash to make convenient and secure contactless payments at ALL LSE Catering outlets and earn an amazing 5 per cent loyalty reward. Using your card for payments will also make you eligible for future special offers and promotions.
Simply register your card at www.squid.com/lse, load it with funds and start using it.
2016 Hellenic Observatory Newsletter
We are pleased to announce the publication of the 2016 Hellenic Observatory Newsletter. It includes all of the HO activities, events, staff research and publications from the 2015-16 academic year.
Yes, it's time again to test your skills as the new Jurgen “the sun don’t shine here anymore” Klopp or be the same old Arsen “where did I put my wallet” Wenger in the Fantasy Premier League called LSE La Liga.
Joining the league couldn't be easier. Simply use the following link and you'll be added automatically after you've entered the game: sign up to LSE La Liga
You shouldn't need the league code, but just in case here it is: 351901-293481.
UNISON Meet and Greet Days!
UNISON is one of the UK's largest trade unions, representing 1.3 million members across public services. Want to know what LSE UNISON is up to? Would you like to meet other members of the UNISON community at LSE? Wondering what benefits UNISON membership can offer you? Or just fancy a chat? And most importantly, do you like cake?
Your UNISON branch will be outside the Saw Swee Hock on Sheffield Street for the next two Wednesdays - dates and times below - so please come by and say hello! We look forward to seeing you there.
Wednesday 24 August 12-3pm
Wednesday 31 August 12-3pm
Update from…
Web Improvement Programme
LSE’s work on the development of the new website is now almost done; the Content Migration Team is in place, and across the School, over a hundred editors and many more content contributors are preparing to move pages from the old CMS, to the new environment.
Our old site has served us well, but the new improved version, revealed at our ‘Digital Show and Tell’ event late in May, changes things quite dramatically. But challenging conventions, designing for multiple devices, and packing in editorial options outside of the CMS’s ‘out-of-the-box’ capability, has resulted in unforeseen niggles. And in the latter stages of technical delivery, the external development team has had to work especially hard to ensure compatibility across the many different devices available to users.
As a result, we’re slightly behind where we’d like to be, but with so many of our visitors using mobile devices to access our content, it really is important that we get this aspect of the delivery right.
We had hoped to initiate page migration by the beginning of July but an early September start to the process should ensure that we have many of our key new sections live for the world to see later in October.
If you’re an editor, the Content Migration Team will be in touch very soon to schedule your training and reconfirm your migration slots, which will now be extended until the end of December.
If you require further information, please contact the WIP team at webreview@lse.ac.uk.
What’s on
Newly announced events for the autumn
Anti-Semitism in the Modern Age Wednesday 7 September, 6.30pm, CLM 3.02, 3rd Floor, Clement House Speaker: Professor Yehuda Bauer (pictured)
If you have some news, an achievement, or an aspect of LSE life that you would like to share, we would love to hear from you - get in touch at communications.internal@lse.ac.uk or on ext 7582.
The next edition of Staff News is on Thursday 1 September. Articles for this should be emailed to us by Tuesday 30 August. Staff News is emailed every Thursday during term time and fortnightly during the holidays.
