People, Prizes and presentations
Robin Lee Poetry Prize
Joint winners of this year's Robin Lee Poetry Prize are Chris Caudron, English undergraduate in CCS and Fay Marshall who has just completed the Certificate in Creative Writing course in CCE. Chris Caudron's poem Matrioshka is set out below. Next week we will publish Fay Marshall's winning poem, Ultima Thule.
Matrioshka by Chris Caudron
The small hours - and my couch of joy has hardened to a rack of pain
For - Mercy! - it's that time again when,
rebel in life's fiendish plan,
I fail (now near four hundred times) to manufacture man.
Yet, one of six, my last kept egg flirts in a pub on some far campus
While I, with tubes tied twice -
held in some vice and needing Pampers -
Bleed my rights to Nature's fame that they seem in a rush to claim.
Strung, clung to this last vestige of another life - and other loves -
I face the change now angrily,
in childish rage, unwillingly,
For fallow though my womb may be, the next stop's dry senility.
But you who make me share my pain and in whose arms I sleep again
Have my lost arts unused, untried;
all smug in spinster purity -
Teenagerless and toddlerfree - you guess at immortality.
What would I give for one male load to right this wrong,
To leave behind a cell of you,
the sum of us for all to see,
A set of fleshy Russian Dolls that open to infinity.
Watch out for the hat
LAURA MILES joins the Information Office as the new Graduate Intern. Laura, who graduated last year with a BSc in Psychology, will be publicising University activities via the media and reporting for Bulletin. If you have any stories for Bulletin or the media at large, please contact Laura on 8209 or by e-mail: L.Miles@sussex.ac.uk All photographs/news of University events gratefully received!
Exchange and Maitrise
A DIFFERENT kind of French exchange ended with six students netting BA degrees with Maitrise in Economics.
The students spent a fourth year at the University of Grenoble after each earned an Upper Second Class Economics degree. The additional year in France counts as a 'Maitrise', or 'Masters' credit.
Four of the students, Liz Smart, Leif Simon, Klaus Jennewein and Athina Markomichelaki secured 'mentions' or 'merits'. All six formally received their Maitrise last month.
The students from Grenoble spent their third year at Sussex, which benefits both parties, in that Sussex finalists spend a year with the exchange students before going to France.
Course convenor Dr Peter Holmes is delighted with the results. "The course offers a valuable French diploma as well as a BA after four years. It allows the students to fully integrate with the French system rather than just being visitors."
New Sabbaticals
Clockwise from top left: VP Education: Karen de Jong, VP Finance: Gabriel Hyman, VP Sport: Simon Cooper, VP Welfare: Jo Souter, President: Catherine Copenhagen and VP Communications: Jemima Kingsley.
The Students' Union is in Falmer House and the Sabbaticals' offices are on the second floor. If you have any queries please do not hesitate to contact them. According to President Catherine Copenhagen, the Union aims to combat the introduction of tuition fees. "USSU firmly believes in free education for all and the principle of widening access to higher education."
A Step Up
AN ELECTRONIC engineering student has won £250 in the regional final of the Shell STEP Awards.
The Shell Technology Enterprise Programme (STEP) links undergraduates with local small businesses. Students undertake a specific technical project during the summer holiday of their penultimate academic year.
Andrew Broadbent (left) took part in a work placement scheme with Field Electronics in Hove, where he produced a project on automated test rigs. His work has led to improvements in the reliability of data acquisition during manufacturing processes.
Nationally over 1600 students compete for the title of 'UK's Most Enterprising Student' with a prize of £1000. This year, Andrew won the regional final, with fellow Sussex students Jin Yee Chung and Babs Etti coming fourth and fifth respectively.
The STEP awards are beneficial to both students and businesses, as students bring their knowledge to companies and the companies offer students experience. Some students are offered jobs after graduating, including last year's local winner who now works full time for his work placement company.
Andrew said that he gained "real world experience" doing his project, on both a technical and personal basis.
Shirley Withrington, MD of Field Electronics added that she hoped to have the opportunity of working with Andrew again. The test rigs which Andrew developed started being used last month.