The event panel

I’m pretty new to UCL (two weeks in to be exact) so when I saw an event was being run on UCL 2034 – the new strategy to move the university forward over the next 20 years – I jumped at the opportunity to go.

I wanted to find out what questions the UCL community has about the strategy, which issues they think should be addressed and any thoughts that they have about how best to do so. Intrigued by what I might hear, I attended ‘Any UCL Questions?’ on June 5 and you’ll be pleased to discover that it didn’t disappoint.

Jonathan Dimbleby, chair of the event and UCL alumnus, reflected on his time studying here in the late ‘60s, back when there were only 4,500 students (can you imagine?!). He said that there have certainly been many changes, aside from increasing student numbers, since then, including more diversity and engagement with different communities, but added that there is still some way to go. This neatly opened the topic for discussion – what is UCL’s long-term interest? Where should we as a university go, and importantly not go, next?

Each of the panel, comprising Professor Michael Arthur (UCL President & Provost), Professor Dame Hazel Genn (Dean of UCL Laws), Professor Mark Miodownik (UCL Mechanical Engineering) and Vimbai Dzimwasha (UCL student), spent a tightly regulated two minutes describing what UCL means to them and those aspects of the strategy that they’ve identified as important.

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Written by Alice Salmon, Senior Access Officer (Museums and Academic Skills)

Harshad Karia and Jazib Mahboob

The UCL Widening Participation and UK Undergraduate Recruitment Department welcomed first year students who have previously attended prospective student activities at UCL at a celebratory event on Tuesday 1st October.

The  students and staff enjoyed an informal reception and presentation. This gave them the opportunity to catch up with friends made from our programmes, share their experiences of their first week and celebrate becoming UCL students.

Students who attended the event have participated in a variety of sustained engagement programmes designed for prospective students. Examples of these include the Year 10 Horizons Saturday School, Year 11 Explore UCL Summer School, Mature Student Masterclasses, Sutton Trust Summer School, and the Language and Study Skills Summer School, to name just a few examples.

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UCL students and staff taking part in the ‘Aid
for Health’ negotiations at the Institute for
Global Health

Written by Rebecca Seglow Hudson (BSc Anthropology undergraduate).

UCL’s Institute for Global Health (IGH) was the site of some heated negotiations on Saturday 8 December.

A collection of 72 students, with an enormous range of experience and disciplinary backgrounds, spent the day simulating the discussions behind international aid deals.

Students represented organisations such as the World Bank, USAID, UNICEF and governmental departments of the simulation country, Malawi. Three parallel simulations took place in three separate rooms, with each room reaching a different conclusion on the use of the $200 million that donors were offering to improve Malawi’s health system.

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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.

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