Events

UCL’s Volunteering Services Unit is marking a decade of facilitating student volunteering with a photographic exhibition in the South Cloisters.

The VSU has also produced a document – Student Volunteering: UCL’s Commitment – that outlines the university’s ongoing dedication to voluntary services. Ben Davies was at the joint launch event on 30 January.

Twenty-two photographs currently line the walls of UCL’s South Cloisters. Taken over 10 years, they show a variety of seemingly mundane activities: individuals gardening, having a cup of tea and a conversation, or preparing some children for a game of netball.

The scenes depicted are of the everyday, but they are also hugely important, for they are scenes of the minutiae that many of us take for granted in our lives, and without which we would be lost: company, conversation, welcoming surroundings and fun.

For the past 10 years, UCL’s Volunteering Services Unit has harnessed and encouraged the energy of the university’s students in helping to provide these often underappreciated necessities to those, both in the local community and further afield, who cannot access them easily.

(more…)

Does science have a moral compass? UCL Second year History undergraduate Daniel Bowman discusses the highlights of a lecture by Lord Winston hosted by UCL Jewish Society on 18 February.

As the education director of the UCL Jewish society, my primary focus has been to invite and host successful figures in a variety of different fields to talk about thought provoking topics that are important to students. The hallmark of our talks has been the question and answer sessions, which often go well beyond the allotted time.

This was certainly the case with Lord Winston’s talk. The theatre was filled far beyond capacity, with students crammed into aisles and in the corridor, making the atmosphere of the talk especially exciting. It was without doubt the talk that I was anticipating the most, and it definitely surpassed all expectations.

(more…)

Adam Taylor, UCL Second year Economics undergraduate and President of UCL Jewish Society.

For the past two decades, the advertising business has been dominated by one man and the company that he built. WPP started in 1971 as a manufacturer of shopping baskets. In 1985, Sir Martin Sorrell bought a controlling stake in the company and, over the subsequent 30 years, transformed it through a series of audacious acquisitions into the largest advertising group in the world, with annual revenues of more than £9 billion. On 16 January, UCL Jewish Society hosted Sir Martin to address more than 200 people in the Cruciform Lecture Theatre.

The introduction promised the title of ’2012 and beyond’, but Sir Martin was quick to announce, to much amusement, that he had no intention of sticking to this. Rather, he would open the floor immediately to questions.

Nonetheless, Sir Martin was unable to avoid the title as the first question asked was for his predictions for the year ahead. 2012, he revealed, would be a special kind of year for advertising. The quadrennial occurrence of the US elections, the Olympics and the European football championships would ensure plentiful demand for the services of WPP’s numerous companies.

Beyond 2012, he predicted, things could look a little more uncertain. The potential shift in economic power away from the western world and towards the emerging economies would provide new sources of business across the world.

(more…)

Dan Martin, UCL Corporate Events, writes about this year’s scholarships reception.

Every year UCL celebrates the achievements of its scholarship recipients at an annual scholarships reception, and on 15 December, President and Provost, Professor Malcolm Grant and Vice-Provost (International) Professor Michael Worton addressed a packed auditorium of 350 scholarship recipients, their guests, embassy officials, scholarship sponsors and UCL senior staff.

Beyond the significant investment that UCL makes in its various scholarships, it is clear from the many organisations and individual benefactors in the audience – who through their generosity help the university’s exceptional students to take forward their studies – that many share and support UCL’s vision of excellence and global citizenship. Scholarship sponsor John Howe, a trustee for the Frederick Bonnart-Braunthal Trust, which since 2000 has been funding three-year MPhil/PHD scholarships at UCL, addressed the audience on behalf of the sponsors in the room, speaking very positively of his support for UCL and the funding of scholarships.

(more…)