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Around 25 youngsters spent theday at the Hendon campus,taking part in the competitionwhich pitted schools againsteach other to find the mosttalented young Scientist orEngineer. Academics MehmetKaramanoglu and SerengulSmith along with a large groupof very enthusiastic volunteerstudents helped the childrenthrough workshops and judgedthem on their performance
www.intra.mdx.ac.uk
MARCH 2009
M i d d l e s e x
WORLD
Each month Middlesex World brings all staffnews and progress on the University’s newdirection and current activities. For daily newscoverage, events listings and classified adsclick on the intranet at
www.intra.mdx.ac.uk/mdxworld/index.html
Junior scientists and engineers turned up at Middlesex a fewyears early on Saturday 7 March. A group of 10 and 11 yearolds from Barnet primary schools were taking part in theUniversity’s Young Scientist and Engineer competition whichwas held to celebrate National Science and Engineeringweek. The event was organised by Marta Torpornicka and heroutreach team from BIRO.
Ourscience studentsare getting younger!
Work-Life Balance
–there’smoretoitthanyouthought
Professor Suzan Lewis was inspiredto research work-life balance andits impact on employees after shefound a letter sent to her late fatherfrom his employer. It was the late1930s and Suzan’s dad haddecided he wanted to get hisyoung family out of London incase of war. So he wrote to askhis employer for a transfer toanother branch. The reply,which was the letter thatSuzan came across, agreed tothe transfer but noted that ‘youput your wife and child beforethe firm’.
As a new Professor ofOrganisational Psychology atMiddlesex, Suzan delivered herinaugural lecture on 16 March at theHendon campus, to an audience ofher colleagues and family. Entitled‘Will work-life balance survive the
Anna Kyprianou, SuzanLewis and Waqar AhmadMehmet Karamanoglu lines up with the young Scientists andEngineers and some robots in the Cafe Storm workshop
...work-life balance
MIDDLESEX WORLD MARCH 2009
PAGE 2
...science students
recession’, Suzan startedwith a brief review of researchundertaken on work-lifebalance, making the point thatin the 1970s this focussed verymuch on working mothers andthe possible effects of theirwork on their children. Mentionof a 1979 research study intowhether women’s employmentwill cause stress for theirhusbands generated muchamusement among theaudience. Moving on in time,and to address the skillsshortage, many companiesintroduced family friendlypolicies in the 1980s, but thesefell away to a large extent in theearly 1990s as recession hit theUK. Suzan would not be drawnon whether she believes thiswill happen again in the currentrecession.She did, however, outline twopossible scenarios that couldnow play out. Firstly, thosepeople who have held on totheir jobs in the recession worklonger hours and work muchharder, while their colleagueswho have been laid off have adifferent imbalance in terms oftoo much personal life. Thesecond scenario is a widespread reassessment of whatmakes the ‘ideal’ worker. Thiswould mean a criticalreappraisal of work-life balanceapproaches and assumptions.Suzan went on to dispel thoseassumptions, or myths. Thereare four of these. Firstly thatwork-life balance is just aboutregulation and human resourcemanagement policies. Suzansays that many organisations,and indeed human resourcemanagers believe it’s just aboutputting these policies in place.She disagrees and says what isimportant is how these policiesare applied in the workplace.The second myth is that work-life balance is just aboutwomen. Suzan dismissed thisidea, pointing out that this is a‘male’ model of work andassumes that men do not havecaring responsibilities.According to Suzan it is vitalthat we change theseexpectations. Thirdly thatgetting your work-life balanceright is about making the rightchoices for you. Nonsense,says Suzan, choices are alwayssocially embedded, and shegave the example of a Parisianperfume company she studiedthat gave workers theopportunity to work a four dayweek at a reduced salary butstill expected the five dayworkload to be delivered. LastlySuzan put paid to the myth thatwork-life balance is about time.She talked about visible andinvisible time, for examplepeople who start work early butleave work early are often notas valued as those that startlater but can be seen to beworking late into the evening.Suzan concluded her lecture bytelling the audience that in thecurrent economic crisis, both inthe UK and around the world,the time is now right foremployers and employees toask and seek answers toimportant questions about howwe can reorganise work, whywe work and what we are tryingto achieve.at games design, sports scienceincluding flexibility testing,robotics and building their owncomputer. They worked ingroups through these differentworkshops, which were run inboth in College Building andHatchcroft.As well as the workshops, theOutreach team, along withMiddlesex students andTeaching Resources, organiseddemonstrations such rocketlaunching, the missiles for whichoccasionally put the Quad’sglazed roof in danger!The winners – 10 year-oldIbraheem Chugtai and 11 year-old Henry Lee – both attend AllSaints School in Cricklewood.They won robot making kits anda £100 voucher for their schoolto spend in the MiddlesexTeaching Resources shop. Thechildren were delighted to winand ran up to receive theirprizes and a round of applause.Marta Torpornicka commented:“Our Young Scientist andEngineer competition this yearwas an outstanding success. Werun the competition every yearto encourage children to getinterested in these subjects andconsider them when they aredeciding on further study”.National Science andEngineering Week is a ten-daycelebration of science,engineering and technologywhich this year ran from 6 to 15March. It is coordinated by theBritish Science Association andthe Government’s Departmentfor Innovation, Universities andSkills.
New Scholarshipsto mark 10 yearanniversary of theIndia Regional Office
The Delhi Office was set up in1999 to create a ‘one-stopshop’ for prospective studentswanting to study at Middlesex.There are now seven officesin South Asia in total.Counselling offices were firstestablished in Chennai(previously known as Madras)and Mumbai, withAhmedabad and Hyderabadbeing the most recentadditions. In both Kolkata andColombo, an agent’s office isused as a RepresentativeOffice. All the offices provideinformation and advice onstudying in the UK,application procedures andqualifications – the Delhi,Chennai and Mumbai officescan also make admissionoffers. During 2009-2010,Middlesex hopes to expand thenumber of offices in India toten, including therepresentative offices.Joe Victor believes Middlesex’sreputation in South East Asia isexcellent. He thinks this islargely due to the range ofservices the offices provide. Hesaid: “We are famous! It isbecause of our network ofoffices as well as a well-established network of agents.Our staff respond veryefficiently to applications. Oncewe have received anapplication, it takes just threehours to process, so thelongest a student might wait toget a reply from us is threedays, and that's just if theyapply by post and we have topost our reply back”.The Regional Office in Delhiruns a very active marketingprogramme, which has helpedto build Middlesex’s profile asa major recruiter of studentsfrom India and South EastAsia. Joe explained: “Weattend almost every educationfair in the country, those runby the British Council andthose in local areas, whichmeans lots of travelling. Wefan out to other cities to coverevery significant higher
Joe Victor, Regional Director for South Asia
Middlesex was one of the first UKuniversities to set up offices overseas.Across the globe Middlesex now has15 Regional Offices, and this year theDelhi Office, one of the longest-established, will celebrate its10 year anniversary. We spoke to Joe Victor, Regional Director forSouth Asia, to find out moreabout Middlesex’s work in Indiaand South Asia.
MIDDLESEX WORLD MARCH 2009
PAGE 3
...India office
education fair too. We alsorun training programmes foragents”.Joe explained how the officeswork with agents. “Agentssource potential students forus from across the countryand the region. We train theagencies’ counsellors and visittheir offices to recruitstudents. Our turnaroundtime in dealing withapplications has encouragedagents to work with us”. Joeadded that during the 10 yearanniversary, the RegionalOffice planned to bring agroup of key agents on a‘familiarisation’ visit toMiddlesex. “We are veryagent-friendly!” he said.To mark its 10 yearanniversary, this year theIndia office will offer 10Scholarships, each worth£3,000, in subjects across allMiddlesex’s Schools. Vice-Chancellor Michael Driscolland Deputy Vice-ChancellorInternational Terry Butlandwill announce theScholarships when they visitIndia next month. TheRegional Office also hopes toidentify ten Middlesex alumnito be ‘ambassadors’ acrossthe country. A 10 year‘Anniversary Booklet’ isplanned for the autumn.Joe feels the best bit of hisrole is interacting with histeam of 20 staff and workingwith the agents. He said: “I'vehad 30 years of involvementwith British higher educationin India, including over 20years with the British Council.I’ve also worked as anindependent consultanthelping British universities toset up academic partnershipsand through this role, a chancemeeting with Terry Butland ledto me hear about the role ofRegional Director, which I wassubsequently offered in 2006.When I took over the role, thenumber of Indian studentsstudying at Middlesex'sLondon campuses was around300. I’ve already seen a growthin student numbers joiningMiddlesex from India to morethan 1,000 this year (2008-09)”. Joe also hopes to buildmore links with employers inIndia, with a view tobroadening recruitmentoptions for students returningto India once they havefinished their studies.With recent increases inattendance at education fairsthroughout India’s manyregions, it looks as thoughJoe’s team and their agentcolleagues will be kept verybusy over the next few months.Middlesex has a long history ofrecruiting Indian students,particularly at postgraduateand Doctorate level. Betweenthem, the Regional Office,Counselling andRepresentative Offices offercoverage from India toBangladesh, Nepal to SriLanka and the Maldives.Through their work, the trendat Middlesex for welcomingstudents from across the wholeSouth East Asia looks set tocontinue.
Left to right: Mike Cobb (IWBL), David Williams, Boris Johnson (Mayorof London), Professor Jonathan Garnett and Alex Mortimer (IWBL)
For further information about Work Based Learning contactbusiness@mdx.ac.ukor ext. 6172www.mdx.ac.uk/wbl
IWBLputsMayor of Londonunder the spotlight atLondonChamber of Commerce forum
Mayor of London Boris Johnson answeredquestions on London’s economy from over200 London Chamber of Commercemembers, at a unique forum supported byMiddlesex’s Institute of Work Based Learningand O2 in February. The event, held at theLondon Chamber of Commerce’s cityheadquarters, attracted Chamber membersfrom organisations across the corporate,SME and charity sectors and was alsofeatured on the BBC’s daily news bulletinNews at Ten.
Questions and debate focused on issues thatmembers felt were important in sustainingLondon’s economy, including environmentaltopics, measures to helpLondon businesses through therecession, the role of theOlympics and Olympics-relatedcontracts open to SMEs, andways of attracting more tourists,and therefore more spending,to London.Jonathan Garnett, Director ofthe Institute for Work BasedLearning, commented: “Thisevent has been a goodopportunity to hear the Mayor'sopinions in these difficulteconomic times. MiddlesexUniversity wants to supportbusinesses and individuals indeveloping skills that can helporganisations recover from theeconomic downturn”.David Williams, Head ofBusiness Development for theInstitute for Work BasedLearning, commented that theforum had enabled theUniversity to raise awarenessamongst London’s businesscommunity of what Work BasedLearning is and how it cancontribute to businesssuccesses. The event also gavethe IWBL team the opportunityto build links with newbusinesses and make themaware of the range of studyoptions that Middlesex and itsMODNet network partners isable to facilitiate.
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Improved Wireless Sensor Aid
Improved Wireless Sensor Aid:
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