College staff spend day looking at the environment

Staff across the College spent a morning working on how the College can be better in the area of environmental sustainability and then had lunch together and a tour of the University's botanic garden.

Principal's walk

The Principal led a group of over 50 students on a walk along Hadrian's Wall during the summer term after exams. This is part of a number of events which encourage students to experience the riches of the North East.

Borderlands Seminar

Our first Borderlands Seminar with Prof. Tom McLeish was a success with healthy participation from diverse groups around College, the University, and indeed the world, via the live web stream.  In fact, a number of you, who missed the event, expressed an interest in the recording from the web stream, which Pete Phillips from CODEC produced.  You may visit the following link to view the seminar:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/10879323

Principal to chat on-line on the 'unanswerable' question of God

Thursday September 30th 12noon-2pm

David Wilkinson, the Principal of St John's College, Durham University is one of the experts involved in the ‘Unanswerables’ activity which is running over 10 days to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Ask Jeeves.

Every day, Jeeves will highlight one of the top ten unanswerable questions within the popular ‘Question of the Day’ feature on the homepage, such as what is the meaning of life, do blondes have more fun, is there anybody out there and what is love?

Each day an expert/celebrity will respond to the ‘unanswerable’ question, as well as hosting a more general two hour chat with Ask Jeeves fans – about their work and the topic in general.

David Wilkinson will be taking part on Thursday 30 September with the question of ‘Is there a God?’. He is both an astrophysicist and Christian theologian, and is Principal of an Anglican college within Durham University.

A new microsite is being launched, www.ask.com/unanswerables on Monday 20 September, which will list the top ten ‘unanswerable’ questions which Jeeves has received over the years. As well as linking to the expert chat every afternoon, users will be able to offer their own thoughts on these questions; and then vote for their favourite response (the winner of each question to receive an iPad).

The expert will be promoted not only on this microsite, but also on the home page of Ask Jeeves (www.ask.co.uk) with a plug directing visitors to the interactive chat, detailing time, date and topic. This home page is visited by 500,000 people every day.

Careers Advice

March 2010.This term, John’s students organised the college’s first ever Careers Advice Week.

The week of talks and workshops involved undergraduates, postgraduates, tutors and Cranmer students, as well as external speakers. Students were able to discover more about a broad range of careers, alongside fundamental skills like CV writing.

Peter Shaw, management consultant and visiting lecturer at Newcastle University Business School, also ran a workshop entitled, ‘Leadership Skills in your Early Graduate Career,’ for final year undergraduates.

Future plans include forming networks with John’s alumni and local professionals. If you are interested in finding out more, please email the Joint Junior Common Room Careers Rep, at careers@johnsjcr.org.uk