Yesterday was the longest day of
the year, or as it is sometimes referred to – the Summer Solstice. The day marks
the start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and the start of winter in the Southern
Hemisphere. It was celebrated here in the UK in many different ways, the most famous of these possibly being the gathering at Stonehenge where people celebrate the suns rising
(yesterday it was at 04.43). There were precisely 17:01:10 hours of daylight
yesterday. Seeing and being part of this annual spectacle is definitely one of the
things on my 'bucket list'.
There were lots of other things
to celebrate last week. My Social Work colleague
Gabi Hesk won the inaugural
Harold Riley Award for Community Engagement at our first
University Day
celebrations. Gabi’s work with refugee communities is inspiring and it was fabulous
to see her leadership of a committed team justifiably acknowledged and rewarded.
Likewise 3 of my Nurse colleagues
won the
Vice Chancellors Distinguished Teaching Award for their work with
Social Media. In a University that leads the way in its use of social media,
Moira
McLoughlin, Wendy Sinclair and
Neil Withnell have shown the rest of the University
what is possible. Congratulations to our prize winners, and all those that were
short-listed but, who on this occasion, didn't win – all your contributions
represent a great deal of creativity and commitment to enhancing our student’s experience.
Wednesday we had
Tommy on Tour
visit the School. Tommy Whitelaw had looked after his Mother
Joan for 5 years. Joan
had developed vascular dementia and Tommy became her willing carer. It was our
students who campaigned to bring him to the School, and they were able to hear
of Tommys
continuing work in campaigning for better services for those living with
dementia . It was good to see so many of our students making their
pledges to making a difference. Tommy lives in my adopted country of
Scotland, but
if you want to see what is going on more locally look
here.
Thursday I was at the
University
of Nottingham for a PhD viva. This experience was equally worth celebrating. The
student's study was on the
'presentation of self' in graduate entry student nurses.
She got through with flying colours, and it was a very enjoyable and very conversational
viva examination. The student's study connected me with my colleague and friend
Karen
Holland whose
work from 1999 was used as part the student’s context setting.
Today, I will be getting on a
plane to meet with Karen Holland, coincidently in
Holland. I will be there for
the
Nurse Education Today, Nurse Education in Practice conference.This is the No 1 international nurse education conference to go too. I will be presenting
a paper with Karen about our work around
'empowering nurses', and also a separate
paper with Moira and Wendy on our work on
'relevant chatter' in social media. I'm
very much looking forward to catching up with folks again.
What made me smile last week–
well it has to be the story on Farming Today about the
Black Faced Woolly
Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). This was the story of an experiment in
Scotland of using sheep to clear ground of the invasive and deadly
Hearacleum mantegazzianum
(Giant Hogweed to you and I).The sap of
this plant causes phytophotdermatitis in people, resulting in painful blisters,
and if it comes into contact with eyes, blindness. It has been recently discovered that the Black Face sheep can eat it
with relish clearing acres of ground with complete impunity, and the hogweed doesn't
grow back. Mother nature in balance - wonderful!
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