Full history
of St Mary’s
to be charted
ahead of major
anniversary
What’s on at
St Mary’s University
April 2017 | Spring Issue 2
St Mary’s University marks its 170th
anniversary in 2020. The milestone
for London’s Catholic University will
be celebrated by the production of a
book chronicling the full history of the
establishment.
St Mary’s University would like to invite you take part in the public consultation programme on our
proposals to develop our Strawberry Hill and Teddington Lock campuses.
Initial proposals for the development of the Supplementary Planning Document for the St Mary’s estate were shared at the recent Strawberry Hill
Village Planning event, attended by many local residents. Our ambition is to accommodate planned growth in student numbers and academic
activity to ensure the future viability of the University, whilst ensuring that we manage our environment effectively and become more accessible to
the local community.
Historian and writer Joanna Bogle has
been appointed Visiting Research Fellow
at the University and will be working on
the project over the next three years,
under the guidance of St Mary’s Pro
Vice-Chancellor for Academic Strategy,
Prof John Charmley.
Prof Charmley commented, “In
launching our Vision 2025 strategy last
year, we set out how we were building
on the foundations and achievements
of St Mary’s past to meet contemporary
and future challenges and, in that spirit,
we are proud to announce that we have
commissioned the well-known Catholic
writer, Joanna Bogle, to write our official
history.”
Joanna Bogle is the author of some
20 books, including several historical
biographies. She writes regularly for the
Catholic press in Britain and the USA,
and leads history walks around London.
She holds an MA in Theology from
St Mary’s. n
We have already received feedback around our initial proposals from residents and statutory consultees, and are addressing many of the issues
raised in our latest plans to be shared at the drop-in sessions outlined below, and online.
How to comment
We have extended the timescales of our consultation and provided an extra drop-in event to give as many people as possible the opportunity to
view our plans and provide feedback.
Community drop-in events
• Monday 24th April, 6pm until 9pm: Shannon Suite, Strawberry Hill campus
• Saturday 6th May, 10.30am until 4pm: Shannon Suite, Strawberry Hill campus
Comment online
Our students’ behaviour
Our initial plans are available to view online at www.stmarys.ac.uk/yourstmarys/masterplan.htm. We will update these plans to reflect feedback
received from the community. You can view and comment on the revised plans from 6pm on Monday 24th April until 6pm on Monday 22nd May.
T
o help lower the impact our students have on the local area,
our security team undertakes patrols on our busiest social
nights. Our housekeeping staff also perform a sweep of local roads
to collect litter in the early hours to minimise disruption.
The statutory consultation on St Mary’s Supplementary Planning Document will be organised by the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
later in 2017.
If you want to let us know about our students’ behaviour, either
good or bad, then please contact [email protected] or
020 8240 2330, or 020 8240 4335 in an emergency.
St Mary’s Students’ Union SIMMStock
Saturday 29th April 2017
For SIMMStock we have employed additional security staff and
are working in partnership with the local Safer Neighbourhood
Police Team to ensure that our event is safe and trouble-free.. n
To find out more
information for local
residents and the
wider community
please visit our
website
www.stmarys.
ac.uk/community/
overview.aspx
4 | St Mary’s University Newsletter
Latest news
Visit www.stmarys.ac.uk/news for our latest updates.
Top contacts at St Mary’s
Department
Sport St Mary’s
Chaplaincy
Drama
Sport and Health Services
Security
Students’ Union
Careers Service
Conferencing
Jobs at St Mary’s
Email/Website
[email protected]
[email protected]
dramastmarysreservations.weebly.com
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Phone
020 8240 4334
020 8240 4002
020 8240 4040
020 8240 4070
020 8240 2330
020 8240 4312
020 8240 4055
020 8240 8219
020 8240 4000
Newsletter design: www.fredd.co.uk
St Mary’s Students’ Union will be
holding SIMMStock on the 29th April.
SIMMStock is a community festival
showcasing the best talent that
St Mary’s students have to offer.
We will have a number of stalls
on site to provide food and
entertainment, and will be holding
daytime activities on the Priest’s
Lawn from 12pm until 7pm, to which
we invite our neighbours and their
families to join us for free.
Please email
[email protected]
for information about free tickets to
the event.
St Mary’s University Newsletter | 1
New website
St Mary’s in the news
Should there
be freedom of
dissociation?
D
4th May 2017, 6-7.30pm
• Geographic personalisation, allowing us to present tailored content to users in different
countries/regions
St Mary’s University, Room D101
Tea and coffee served from 5.30pm
• Fully responsive website optimised for tablet and mobiles
Guest lecturer:Prof David Oderberg University of Reading
Liberal, democratic societies all
recognise freedom of association as a
fundamental right. Broadly, every person
is free to associate with whomever they
want, as long as such association is not
a danger to society, to form whatever
organisations they wish.
What, however, about the obverse?
Why should there not be freedom of
dissociation – the right to withdraw
one’s association from any organisation
or body one wishes, as long as one is
not a danger to society? Why should
one not have a right to be, as it were,
left alone? n
For more information contact:
[email protected]
2 | St Mary’s University Newsletter
uring March we successfully launched our new external website. The site has been rebuilt
from the ground up, with a complete design refresh and a new technology platform.
Features of the new website include:
• Dedicated course search function to bring us in line with other universities
• Course compare functionality creating a simple way to view up to three courses at once
• 1,300 content pages rebuilt and optimised with stakeholders from across the University
You can view the new website at www.stmarys.ac.uk. Like all new sites, it will take a few
weeks to bed in. We would welcome your feedback; please send your comments to
[email protected].
The new website provides more opportunities for engagement with the local community.
To find out about more, please go to the ‘About Us’ section at www.stmarys.ac.uk/about/about.
aspx. From the drop-down menu shown above, you will find information on job opportunities,
events, term dates, key dates for your diary, updates on the masterplan, community related
initiatives and much more. n
Free school meals data has potential
to be misleading, according to
St Mary’s research
Free school meals (FSM) data published by the Department for Education is an unreliable indicator of
socio-economic deprivation among school children, a new report shows.
Research by academics at St Mary’s University presents evidence that Catholic schools in England and
Wales recruit disproportionate numbers of both economically deprived and ethnic minority pupils. This is in
contrast to the perception presented by campaigners opposed to faith schools using FSM data, arguing
that faith schools are socially selective.
The report – The Take-up of Free School Meals in Catholic Schools in England and Wales – reveals that
while labelled ‘FSM eligibility’, government figures do not include pupils who are eligible for FSM, but who
do not, in fact, claim them. As such, this data only reflects actual FSM uptake and has the potential to be
very misleading when used to determine deprivation and poverty in a particular school. For example, the
report demonstrates that while FSM figures convey a comparatively low number of pupils from deprived
backgrounds in Catholic schools in England (12.8% of children in receipt of FSM compared with 15%
of all state schools), alternative deprivation measures such as the Income Deprivation Affecting Children
Index (IDACI), show students from the most deprived backgrounds are over-represented in Catholic
schools (18.4% of children in Catholic primary schools live in the most deprived areas compared with
13.8% of pupils across state primary schools as whole).
To read more about this research please go to www.stmarys.ac.uk/news n
Macbeth
Find out more about St Mary’s
activities in the local community at
www.stmarys.ac.uk/community.
Second year Theatre Arts students from St Mary’s will perform Shakespeare’s classic tragedy. Set in
Scotland, the play explores the rise and fall of the ambitious title character.
4th May, 7.30pm and 5th May, 2pm
St Mary’s Theatre
Tickets – £5
Schools should
provide girls with
breast cancer
education
More than 70% of
schoolgirls want to know
more about the disease
More than 70% of school girls want
to know more about breast cancer,
according to new research released
today. Almost half of schoolgirls
aged 11-18 (44%) have concerns
about how to check themselves for
signs of the disease, and more than
three quarters (77%) rate the topic of
breast cancer education as ‘extremely
important’.
The findings are the result of
joint research into breast cancer
education by academics from St
Mary’s University, the University of
Portsmouth, and the University of
Chichester, in which more than 2,000
schoolgirls aged 11-18 were surveyed
for their views and demographic
information including age, ethnicity,
school type and breast size. The
findings demonstrate that 72% of
schoolgirls want to know more about
breast cancer; and even among those
who do not, 40% still rate the topic as
‘extremely important’.
To read more about this research
please go to www.stmarys.ac.uk/
news.
St Mary’s University Newsletter | 3