People

Student receives employment award

A Polish student who helped organise a recruitment trip to her homeland has received the institutional Student Employee of the Year Award.

Zosia Rutkowska, a Psychology undergraduate, was nominated by colleagues in the External Relations section, with whom she visited Poland earlier in the year.

Caroline Dimbleby, Recruitment and International Programmes Officer, said: ‘Zosia was vital to the success of our recruitment trip to Poland. She was able to provide interested students with a real insight into how a Polish student would feel at Essex and has played a significant role in increasing interest from the country.’

As a Student Ambassador, Zosia’s other duties included helping at visit days and giving campus tours.

The award is run by the National Association of Student Employment Services. Zosia will now be put forward for the regional stage of the competition.

Texas celebration of Latin American art

Professor Valerie Fraser attended the opening of the new Blanton Museum at the University of Austin, Texas, at the invitation of Essex Art History graduate Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro.

Dr Pérez-Barreiro, who was the first curator of the University of Essex Collection of Latin American Art (UECLAA), now holds the post of curator of the Blanton museum’s substantial holdings in modern and contemporary Latin American art.

Professor Fraser, of the Department of Art History and Theory, was the sole European representative at the opening, which coincided with a symposium entitled ‘Latin American Art in a Global Context’.

At the symposium, art historians, critics, curators, gallerists and artists addressed questions of teaching, displaying, promoting and creating art from the region, debating the usefulness - and the limitations - of the term ‘Latin American’.

Professor Fraser said: ‘As a university-based collection, closely linked to teaching and research within a department of art history, the position the Blanton holds in the Americas is similar to that of UECLAA in Europe.

‘When  firstsite:newsite opens in Colchester there will be exciting opportunities for further collaboration between the two institutions.’

Sociologists honour retiring colleague

The Department of Sociology held a one-day conference to mark the (semi) retirement of one of the University’s longest serving academics.

Professor Ted Benton joined the University in 1970 after a short spell as a secondary school biology teacher followed by a Philosophy degree at Leicester and further study at Oxford. The conference focused on his principle research interests: the philosophy of the social sciences, Marxism, and the sociology of nature and the environment.

Dr Rob Stones, Head of the Department, said: ‘Ted has been a central figure in the development and success of the Department over the last 36 years, and has also had an enormous influence on the development of sociology as a discipline.’

The conference attracted speakers from across the UK. To comply with Professor Benton’s wish that the conference should provide genuine intellectual debate, each session included speakers opposed to ‘the Benton line.’ Dr Stones added: ‘The grit this provided to the proceedings was appreciated by the large audience of staff and students from departments across the University.’

Also in the printed June edition of Wyvern:

• Night walk charity fundraising
• Retirements