Newsletter #8 (July 2015)

I am sitting on a patio, drinking coffee in the early morning sunshine in southern Spain, high up in the mountains but looking in the distance to the Med, reflecting on all that has happened recently and is set to happen soon.

First of all, this is the moment to again congratulate all our new doctors:

—- from the D Counselling Psychology: Dr Parneet Chahal and Dr Emily Cudworth (and the others in their cohort)

—- from the PhD Education: Dr Lou Harvey, Dr Eljee Javier, Dr Dimi Kaneva, Dr Achilleas Kostoulas, not forgetting their colleagues (e.g. Dr Dani White)

Such a fine crop of successful completions, such a generation of researchers and professionals now set to make a difference wherever they go …. (e.g. Lou’s proposed ‘scoping’ event on the use of the creative arts in research) … wonderful. (and soon, thanks to Volha, we’ll have a congratulatory poster honouring them all on our C2. corridor).

This makes me think of all those who are following close in their footsteps …

—- those entering the final few months (Su, Jaime, Helen)

—– and those entering the final year (Volha, Duygu, Susan, Fitri, Khwan, Diana, and others besides working with other supervisory teams).

I wish them all well in this coming “Year of Completion”.

“Success” and other researcher development can be ‘measured’ in other ways too …. this last couple of months has been a time of national and international paper-giving conference travel (Manchester, Lancaster, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Cordoba, Sevilla and others I’m forgetting I’m sure) and fascinating reflections upon these events as well as the time for another very successful “Bringing it back home” event, this year with added AdobaConnect functionality enabling participation from afar, many thanks to Susan and Gary and Lada for all their organisatory input here. for me, the combination of pre-, current, and post-doctoral contributions was a wonderful sign of the strength of this LANTERN community of researchers. Further signs of that strength can be seen in the submitted abstracts (Min, Viv, me) for IALIC in Beijing in late November.

It was a wonderful thing to host former PhD colleague Dr Nazmi Al-Masri (who graduated back in 1993 and whose profile is now added to this site), now a Professor at the Islamic University of Gaza, making a rare UK visit the siege of Gaza having been momentarily eased (with the brief opening of the border crossing with Egypt). A record of his session with us will appear here soonish once Kellie (camera-extraordinaire) and I have had time to liaise over the filmic product.

Nazmi’s visit encouraged me to float the idea of what might be called the LANTERN Lunch-time Talks (LLT), an ad hoc series of talks by our community with an online dimension enabling researchers in Gaza to participate or at least follow the discussions afterwards. This idea still being fleshed out but I hope we can start this in the autumn.

Very soon, we will be welcoming our new members – Lada and Nahielli for sure, and Olga maybe, alumni all – and in this way the success of our recent graduates  passes on to a new generation 🙂

So, taking stock, it seems like a good moment for our community. A feel strangely emotional as I reflect on all of this and look forward to our next steps together.

Did I miss anything out this time?

R