News
Essex author publishes Darwin notebooks
UK Data Archive Business Manager, Gordon Chancellor,
has co-authored the first full edition of Darwin’s Beagle notebooks.
Charles Darwin’s Notebooks from the Voyage of the
Beagle, co-authored with John van Wyhe of the University of Cambridge,
contains complete transcriptions of the 15 notebooks which Darwin used to
record geological and general observations.
They record the full range of his interests and
activities during the five-year voyage, with notes and observations on
rocks, fossils, plants and animals, as well as the people he encountered,
along with maps, drawings, shopping lists, memoranda, theoretical essays
and personal diary entries.
Gordon said: ‘When I first realised, 30 years ago,
that Darwin's notebooks existed, I knew they just had to be transcribed
and published in full. They are an incredibly important historical
resource which have an immediacy not even found in his diary or letters
from the voyage. John [van Wyhe] and I, with a great deal of help from
Kees Rookmaaker, feel privileged to have been able to make the notebooks
available for the first time for all to enjoy.’
The notebook texts are accompanied by introductions
which explain, in detail, Darwin’s adventures at each stage of the voyage,
and focus on discoveries which were pivotal to convincing him that life on
Earth had evolved.
Published by Cambridge University Press, the book is
expected to hit the shelves June to coincide with the Darwin Bicentenary
celebrations.
Gordon Chancellor, who formerly worked at the
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, has published works on cretaceous
palaeontology as well as several papers on Darwin and the Beagle. He is
currently writing introductions to Darwin’s geological publications as
Associate Editor of Darwin-online.org.uk.
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Minister meets
students and robots
Higher Education Minister, the Rt Hon David Lammy MP, visited the
University last month, meeting students and high-tech robots.
The
Minister met Vice-Chancellor Professor Colin Riordan, and members of
senior management, to discuss higher education issues, before visiting the
robot arena in the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering
to view cutting-edge research. He saw a demonstration of a robotic
wheelchair, operated by slight head movements, which aims to enable
elderly and disabled people to gain mobility and independence,
and
met Rex, an intelligent - and very talkative – robot.
He
also viewed a demonstration of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP)
between the University and Ipswich-based business Active Web Solutions to
develop an intelligent electronic ‘personal assistant’ built into an
e-mail programme.
David Lammy meets students, from left,
Hilary Cook, Zenith McIntyre-Allen, Edward Taylor, Anna Da Costa and Lewis
Rodger, and Widening Participation Officer Lucy Watson
His
whirlwind tour of the Colchester Campus ended with a meeting with students
involved in widening participation outreach work to raise the aspirations
of local school pupils.
Professor Riordan said: 'We were able to demonstrate that a top quality
research university can be accessible to students from a wide range of
backgrounds,
and
show the Minister
some of the different activities taking place to fulfil our educational,
economic and social responsibilities.
We were
particularly pleased that he was able to meet students both from overseas
and from the local area.'
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DARO in the running for top award
The Development and Alumni Relations
Office (DARO) has been shortlisted in the first ever Times Higher
Education Leadership and Management Awards.
More than 250 entries were submitted by 111 institutions for the awards,
which are run in association with the Leadership Foundation for Higher
Education. DARO submitted an application in the Outstanding University
Fundraising Team category.
Dominic Boyd, Head of DARO, said he and his team were delighted to be
shortlisted after managing to secure pledges of £2.4 million in 2008. He
put their success down to a clear strategy and great team work: 'We have
seen a 20-fold increase in donations in 2008 compared with 2007 and we
anticipate that Essex will soon be recognised as one of the top
performing institutions in terms of return per pound spent.'
The THE has previously celebrated excellence across the whole range
of higher education activities, from widening access to cutting-edge
research, but this is the first time that an awards programme has been run
to recognise the skills of the staff who run universities.
The winners will be announced at a dinner in the London Hilton in June.
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Also in the printed April edition of Wyvern:
- Students vote to make a difference
- Employability event
- The economics of climate change
- Study law at summer school
