News
JNU and Essex – an institutional alliance
The Vice Chancellor, Professor Colin Riordan, has signed a landmark
agreement with the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, India.
This is now the University’s first member of its Global Alliance,
which is central to its strategic vision statement – to be a powerful
regional university with global impact.
Based fundamentally on overlapping and complementary research
interests, the alliance will also include opportunities for student
mobility and joint educational activities.
Professor Martin Henson, Dean of International Development, said:
‘Visiting JNU for the first time was like discovering that we had
discovered a long lost sibling. We have so much in common and it felt as
though we had a great deal to catch up on. During that first visit,
however, we took a deep breath and decided not to rush into an
agreement, preferring to first get our colleagues together for
exploratory workshops and meetings. The results nevertheless have taken
us all by surprise.’
Jawaharlal Nehru University in India
Four delegations from Essex have visited JNU, with members from
Linguistics, Philosophy, LiFTS, E15, the Essex Business School, Law, and
the Human Rights Centre. Further delegations from Sociology, ISER, and
Biological Sciences are now planned. Essex has hosted academics
from several schools at JNU, including Professor B B Bhattacharya,
the JNU Vice Chancellor, and we have now invited JNU faculty members to
a variety of workshops here during the summer, and to the Myth,
Literature, and the Unconscious Conference in September. Applications
for funding joint activities have already been submitted and others are
planned.
Professor Henson added: ‘My role has simply been as a facilitator.
Successes have depended entirely on the enthusiasm of individuals and
groups of academics engaging in activities that they have judged to be
worthwhile. This will remain the approach as we look to secure other
alliance partners in other parts of the world.
Graduate internships scheme flying high
The Graduate Internships Scheme launched by the University in
February has now attracted more than 50 offers of places from small
businesses in Essex and Suffolk.
Several graduates have already started their internships, ranging from
graphic design for a magazine to a marketing project which is being
undertaken from scratch for a small business in Essex.
Eighty graduates have so far signed up to the scheme, which aims to help
those who graduated in 2008 or 2009. The vast majority of employers have
specific projects which require enthusiastic, highly motivated graduates
to help boost business in specific ways. There is a high demand
for IT software and marketing and business graduates, and one business
is urgently seeking fluent German and English speakers for translation
work.
Unlike some other internships, which are unpaid, the University’s scheme
is for paid internships, and contributes funding to help small
businesses employ a graduate. The graduates also benefit from the
scheme, which offers CV feedback sessions and professional development
days. For more information contact the Graduate Internships Team,
telephone: 01206 872495 or e-mail
graduateinternships@essex.ac.uk.
Also in the printed June edition of Wyvern:
- Alumni are victorious
- Campus developments continue
- Work on child fitness praised
