Written by Ruby Martin

2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Credit: Paulo Araujo

Edinburgh: the final comedy frontier. Ever since I’d heard about UCLU Comedy Club‘s yearly venture to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, I wanted to be a part of it. After a lot of hard work, perseverance and loitering around after sessions, I was invited to go as assistant director and cast member of the sketch comedy show Gower Rangers, produced and performed by sketch troupe the Gower Line.

Preparations start well before the Fringe, as scripts are written and edited, auditions are held, rehearsals take place and preview shows are performed in London. It’s during this time that camaraderie between us is formed, especially having endured many hot days in stuffy classrooms practising scenes!

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Written by Luke Davis, Communications Manager (Education)

On a balmy Monday evening (9 June), all 22 winners of UCL’s two teaching award schemes headed to the UCL Institute of Child Health on Guilford Street to receive their well-earned teaching prizes.

The ceremony, which drew an audience of more than 200, gave colleagues, family and friends a welcome opportunity to hear more about the winners’ work and why they had impressed the judges.

UCLU Education & Campaigns Officer Keir Gallagher took to the stage to introduce the Student Choice winners, while UCL Vice-Provost (Education) Anthony Smith was on hand to review the achievements of the Provost’s Teaching Award winners.

The summaries painted a vivid picture of the scope and scale of work underway across the university, with several themes beginning to emerge.

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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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Members of the event panel
Photo: Rachna Kayastha

Written By Jamilah Jahi (UCL Medical Student)

After three years of studying at UCL, I can count the number of black lecturers who have taught me on one hand: zero.

Perhaps this is not alarming, after all, black people are a minority ethnic group in the UK. Surely we should expect low numbers amongst our teaching staff too. Is it, therefore, acceptable that only 0.4% of professors in the UK are black? At least six black academics disagree.

On 10 March 2014, UCL hosted the live panel discussion, ‘Why isn’t my Professor Black?’ It was clear that many were longing for an answer to this “interesting but depressing” question. Due to popular demand, the event had to be relocated to the Cruciform lecture theatre, which holds just under 350 people.

Professor Michael Arthur, UCL’s President & Provost, chaired the event. Sitting on the panel were black academics from across the UK, including UCL’s Dr Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman, who organised the event.

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