People

Graduates support Essex students

The University’s Annual Fund, which is generously supported by alumni and staff, has this year awarded more than £35,000 to a range of projects across the University.

The Students’ Union received several awards, including a £5,000 donation to the Essex Blades Sports Teams. This will assist sports teams at the University with coaching and competition costs and will also help them to continue competing at the highest level within the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) leagues.

Other donations were made to assist with the progression of Students’ Union activities at the Loughton and Southend Campuses. The Students’ Union V-Team, which co-ordinates student volunteering activities, also received £500 towards the running costs of a Volunteers’ Fair as well as the Law Clinic and the SU Advice Centre, which was awarded £2,500.  

Other beneficiaries included: the Arts Office, where the award will fund a series of Artists' Lectures; the Model UN Conference 2009 which received £1,000; and the Widening Participation team in External Relations.

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Caribbean literary lights

A student from the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies (LiFTS) has just jetted off to the Caribbean to meet some of the literary legends she is studying for her PhD.

Leanne Haynes, who is completing her PhD as part of the Department’s AHRC–funded American Tropics project, will be visiting St Lucia and Trinidad.

Her trip coincides with Nobel Laureate Week in St Lucia which celebrates the island’s two most famous writers: Derek Walcott who recently received an honorary degree from the University, and Sir Arthur Lewis who won the Nobel Prize for Economics. The week includes performances and poetry readings but more importantly will offer Leanne the chance to meet and interview some of the great St Lucian writers that are the subject of her thesis, including Kendel Hippolyte, John Robert-Lee, Earl Long, Jolien Harmsen and Robert Devaux.

Leanne will spend time in the island’s capital, Castries, where she will make use of the Folk Research Centre, as well as Gros Islet, a fishing village towards the north and Soufriere where the iconic Pitons jut out of the sea. She explained: ‘Since the AHRC project is fundamentally about place, it is important to experience as much of the island as possible. Vieux Fort, in the south, for instance is a key historic site and a must-see. It was the base of the first English settlement in 1605, when a group of Guiana adventurers were blown off course and had to make a hasty landing.’

Leanne will also visit Trinidad where Derek Walcott spent much of his life. There she will visit the University of the West Indies which houses a special collection containing poems, scrap books, photographs and manuscripts documenting the Nobel Laureate’s time on the island.

Leanne’s trip comes shortly after another trip to the region made by fellow LiFTS PhD student Jak Peake, who recently returned from Trinidad and Tobago, also as part of the American Tropics project.

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Also in the printed January edition of Wyvern:

• Fond farewell
• New Dean of Health