Past Events

Our latest meetings:

Friday 5th Octoberl 2007
The Origin of the Universe and the Nature of Reality

Cosmologists can now say with some confidence that our Universe consists of 5 percent of matter like that of which we are made, 25 percent of some other, still unknown, form of dark matter, and 70 percent of a still mysterious form of dark energy, which is controlling the fate of the Universe. The dark matter, commonly called Cold Dark Matter, is the dominant form of matter, yet must be quite unlike any form of matter yet identified on Earth. Recent astrophysical studies are allowing the first determination of the gross properties of reality. It seems that there is a fundamental role for the concept of 'nothing', which is not the same thing at all as 'not anything'.

Our Speaker Prof Gerry Gilmore grew up in Canterbury, New Zealand, where he studied physics and was awarded the first PhD in astronomy in New Zealand. He worked as Senior Research Fellow at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh for 5 years, until moving to Cambridge in 1984. He has been successively Advanced Research Fellow, The Royal Society Smithson Fellow at King's College, John Couch Adams Astronomer, and is now Professor of Experimental Philosophy and Deputy Director, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge University. He is Chair of the EC Coordination Network for Optical and Infrared astronomy OPTICON, Chairs the European Steering Committee for the next generation Extremely Large Telescope Design Study, is UK representative on the European Southern Observatory Governing Council, and is a member of many international management, review and editorial boards. He researches the nature of existence.

Friday 27th April 2007
Tramps in Jandals: How English is our English?

The talk considered the origins of English and identified some of the ways in which its development has been influenced by linguistic conflicts and contacts. The implications of the status of English as a world-wide language were examined, with particular reference to New Zealand English. The talk closed by addressing the consequences of technology and educational change for linguistic trends.

Speaker Professor Susan Irvine, currently at University College London originally hails from Dunedin. Having obtained her undergraduate degree at the University of Otago, she undertook research into medieval literature at Oxford, where she was awarded a DPhil in 1987. She has been teaching in the English Department at UCL since 1992.

Susan is tha author of Old English Homilies from MS Bodley 343, co-author of Repunctuating Beowulf, author of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: MS E and author of numerous articles on Old English poetry and prose.

Friday 6 October 2006
Herding Cats, The Challenges in Managing Universities

Universities are very peculiar places. They are professionally questioning and argumentative communities - more or less everybody is authorised to have an opinion about everything. As for the herding cats metaphor - the trick with cats (and with many, many academics) is that it is a lot harder to push them to a destination than it is to tempt them to a reward. The presentation will touch on issues of importance in managing a University including the idea of a University, academic freedom, the changing role of the Vice-Chancellor, governance and strategic planning. Sir Graham Davies, Vice-Chancellor of the University of London

Professor Davies is currently President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of London. He was Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow from October 1995 to September 2003. Prior to that he was from March 1991 until September 1995 Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England (and, previously, its predecessors the Universities Funding Council and the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council). He moved to the Funding Councils from being Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, a post he held from April 1986 to June 1991. Previously he was Professor of Metallurgy in the University of Sheffield having taken up that post in 1978 after 16 years in the Department of Metallurgy and Materials Science in the University of Cambridge where he was also a Fellow of St. Catharine's College. He was educated in the School of Engineering of the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Currently he is Chairman of the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils. and the Higher Education Policy Institute. He sits on the U.K. Board of Universities UK. He has held Visiting Professorships in New Zealand, Brazil, China, Argentina, South Africa, Israel and India.

Sir Graham Davies is uniquely qualified to speak on the subtle tug of war in administering Universities. He spoke to a fascinated audience - many of them academics themselves - outlining the background of how his work from the Higher Education Funding Council and subsequent years differs from the purely academic role, and the conflicts between the two perspectives. He certainly proved that it takes a certain type of person to manage the financial aspects of University life today from a funding and regulatory perspecitive, vs the personalities and perspectives of a very intelligent and trained to challenge nature of the teaching staff inside Universities.

The talk followed a filling buffet supper and catch up with those not seen since the earlier May 06 meeting. The AGM was also held in the October meeting.