152 buzz October/November 2014 Life and Environmental Sciences welcomes new Head of College 2 VICE-CHANCELLOR’SNEWS VIEW BIRMINGHAM GLOBAL: USA Vice-Chancellor’s view Working together to build a better future A century ago students and staff arrived Universities develop over decades, for the start of the 1914 academic year indeed centuries. They shape themselves under the shadow of what became through their own ambition, their own ‘The Great War’. Fourteen years after the confidence, and their own integrity. University was established, and only five The great universities since classical times years after the formal opening of the Great have always stood for something. In a Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir David Eastwood Hall and the Aston Webb buildings, world where understanding is still fiercely the world was at war, and so much of what contested and knowledge generated at a the University was founded to promote was quite remarkable pace, standing for overshadowed by what became a ‘second something and modelling that kind of YOUR BUZZ thirty years war’, and ended only in 1945 institutional integrity has never been when Europe was a very different place. more important. Next edition 3 December 2014 As we start an academic year a century Since our predecessors arrived in that Copy deadline 7 November 2014 on, we not only live in but have a continuing fateful autumn of 1914, this university has responsibility to shape the world that achieved prodigiously. The blue plaques Contact us emerged from that great conflict. which adorn our campus are one [email protected] In one profound sense, all members recognition of the great people and the Buzz online of the University are in a vastly different great things which have happened here. buzz.bham.ac.uk position from our forebears in 1914. Our graduates throughout the world attest Follow us on Twitter For us locally the spectre of war does to our continuing commitment to shaping twitter.com/buzzunibham not cast a pall over our university life. the finest minds and creating citizens rich Of course we live in a world which is still in responsibility. Those of us who are Find us on Facebook riven by conflicts and needs more than starting this academic year together have a facebook.com/buzzunibham ever the values of understanding, responsibility to nurture and indeed to internationalisation, and enlightened enhance that great tradition. tolerance which have always animated As the conflict of the Great War great universities and the quest for deepened, the Great Hall was turned over knowledge. None of us, staff and students to a military field hospital. In our Great Hall Edited by Rebecca Vowles alike, should resile from our responsibilities the injured were healed and lives, which [email protected] to build a better future. had been torn apart, through skill and It is often easy in university life to think kindness, began to recover health and Your details and to look parochially. For very good hope. When the Great Hall was returned Please let us know if you want extra reasons, we seek to promote our university; to the University in 1919, a moving copies of buzz or if you think we need and we compete for the most interesting inscription was etched in the marble above to amend your distribution details. students, the most outstanding staff, the main door. It reads, ‘From August 1914 and the finances that we need to underpin to April 1919 these buildings were used Views expressed in the magazine are all of our activities. This kind of competition by the military authorities as the 1st not necessarily those of the University and a preoccupation with the success of Southern General Hospital. Within these or a statement of University policy. our own institution is not ignoble. Indeed it walls men died for their country. Let those All submissions may be subject to is a prerequisite for everything that we who come after live in the same service’. editing. The Editor’s decision is final. should strive for. That said, the success of our university Let us together try to live up to this. is ultimately a means to an end and not an Front cover image: end in itself. We are here to study, to Vice-Chancellor, Professor Myra Nimmo, Pro-Vice- explore, to communicate, to challenge, Professor Sir David Eastwood Chancellor and Head of the College of and to be a beacon of something better in Life and Environmental Sciences a world which is often short-sighted and self-interested. NEWS BIRMINGHAM GLOBAL: USA 3 BIRMINGHAM GLOBAL USA Building Bridges with the USA The UK and the USA enjoy the most inaugural Chair. In addition, we will productive higher education relationship in be hosting two Fulbright Scholars: the world. Enhancing dialogue between US Dr Sharon Mastracci, Head of and UK partners offers a major opportunity College of Urban Planning and to build meaningful partnerships, promote Public Affairs, University of Illinois knowledge exchange, educate new and Dr Angela Eikenberry, Associate audiences and support global engagement Professor, Business Administration, on both sides of the Atlantic. Here at the University of Nebraska. University we fully recognise the value of Given the scale of the country transatlantic partnerships and have invested and self-reliance of its elite institutions, significantly in growing academic building reputation in the US and been launched that staff at the University engagement with the US as a key strategic developing genuinely productive linkages are encouraged to apply to; there are international territory. is particularly challenging, the need for a two deadlines a year, the next being 15 We are currently working with 30 more strategic institutional approach October 2014 and 28 February 2015. institutions across 23 States to provide towards managing transatlantic Our focused approach to building exciting transatlantic exchange relationships is thus widely recognised. meaningful international partnerships opportunities. The US remains the most As you would expect, Birmingham places us in a strong position to leverage popular destination for our students and academics enjoy wide-ranging research external funding, such as the British we’re always looking for new partners. relationships right across the US and there Council’s US–UK Global Innovation Partnerships based on academic is a North America Travel Fund available Initiative (GII). The GII aims to strengthen relationships are always the most productive, to support them. Yet we have also Science, Technology, Engineering so if you have academic connections that sought to strategically focus academic and Mathematics (STEM) research might facilitate an exchange relationship, engagement on Birmingham’s sister between the UK and US with universities please do get in touch. city Chicago and the state of Illinois. in Brazil, China, India and Indonesia. We regularly participate in best practice Over the last four years we have Following success in 2013, we are exchanges with US administrators. Last developed an innovative platform approach hoping for a positive outcome this year. year we hosted the Fulbright Administrators involving civic, academic and cultural The closing date is 31 October 2014. programme and this summer we welcomed engagement initiatives to enhance our 34 North American Fellowship Advisers profile in the region and facilitate Further information: during their UK study tour. The event signature partnerships with world-class For more information on the showcased the US graduate scholarships institutions. Most recently we have formed opportunities outlined above we have established in collaboration a unique strategic alliance with the please contact: with the Fulbright Commission, Marshall University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign Commission, Banco Santander and our (UIUC), one of the US’s leading public Dr Erica Arthur, North America North American Alumni Foundation. research-intensive universities. Development Manager at: Our links with Fulbright have created The BiRmingham–Illinois Partnership [email protected] new avenues for US researchers to engage for Discovery, EnGagement and Education with the University on a longer-term basis. (BRIDGE) aims to deepen wide-ranging or visit: intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/ We’re proud to be one of only three UK connections that have flourished over external/international/relations/ universities to host the prestigious Fulbright the last four years and develop wider North-America/Collaboration- Distinguished Chair award. This autumn faculty networks to progress collaborative with-North-America.aspx. we welcome Dr David Stoesz, Professor teaching, learning and research initiatives. of Social Work, University of Illinois, as our A joint BRIDGE Seed Fund has just 4 NEWS College of Life Barber Institute and Environmental to display Sciences News A new dinosaur species from South Picasso painting America has been identified by an international team of scientists, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts including Dr Richard Butler from will be displaying Pablo Picasso’s the School of Geography, Earth and Woman Sleeping in a Chair, until March Environmental Sciences. Laquintasaura 2015. Cubist Picasso is considered to walked on two hind-legs and was be one of the most important artists of about the size of a small dog. It is Photo Credit: Pablo Picasso, Woman Sleeping in a the last 100 years and the painting, thought to have been largely Chair,1927. © Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan. which is on loan from Japan’s Yokohama herbivorous, but long curved tips on Museum of Art, is the first of his artworks some of its teeth suggest it might have to go on public display in the city for Fluβbaulandschaft (River-engineering also eaten insects or other small prey. more than 50 years landscape). The 200 million year old fossils are from Also coming to the Barber this autumn the La Quinta Formation in Venezuela, will be Johann Zoffany’s A Life Class at Find out more at: www.barber.org.uk/ making this the first dinosaur find in St Martin’s Academy and Paul Klee’s major-loans-gallery the north of South America.