John Snow Michaelmas Alumni Newsletter

Michaelmas Term 2016 Issue 9

John Snow College Newsletter

From the Editor Dear Alumni,

My name is Rosa Sparks and I am the John Snow Alumni Relations and College Community assistant for this academic year. My role is to keep the alumni engaged in everything that is happening here at John Snow and make sure the spirit of John Snow stays with you long after graduation. This newsletter aims to bring you a summary of the Michaelmas term; including what has been happening in college as well as updates on previous alumni events and dates to put in your diaries for the future!

I hope you enjoy reading!

Rosa Alumni Relations and College Community Assistant 2016/17

The Transition As many of you will have heard, some big changes are happening in John Snow College and Durham University with the relocation of John Snow College and Stephenson College to Durham city.

Next academic year John Snow College will remain at Queens Campus with a reduced intake of fresher’s; those studying Applied Psychology, Primary Education and Business and Finance. The big move from Queens Campus to Durham City will take place the following academic year, 2018/19, where we will be based at Howlands, in a part of what is currently Ustinov College. We will share the site with Josephine Butler and Stephenson, but the buildings will be given a make-over to ensure we remain identifiable as John Snow College. Our Fresher intake will include students from any and all academic courses based at Durham City.

In the following academic year, John Snow College will be settled in its brand new home at Mt Oswald. The current plans for the new site include two Colleges, shared dining, sport, faith, and other facilities, such as a student social hub (which will include shops, coffee shops, and places to eat).

The School of Medicine, Pharmacy and Health Transition Pharmacy staff and students will move to Newcastle University in Summer 2017. With some students remaining as part of Durham University students and attaining a DU degree, but they will also have some access to Newcastle University. The details of how this will work are still being developed.

For Medicine students they will move to Newcastle after their 2nd year, and become Newcastle University students in their 3rd year.

The Principal’s Piece This first term of the academic year, as always, has been busy and wonderful. Welcoming a new cohort of John Snow College Freshers is always a privilege. We have had some truly wonderful events this term, and our sports teams are performing better than ever.

We are surpassing all previous records for wins, and our place in the various leagues. In early December we won the men’s Novice Cup (again!), and the women’s crew were in the final and narrowly beaten by St John’s.

Although this academic year is ‘business as usual’, we are in full swing in terms of planning for the transition of the College to Durham City, and also the transition of Medicine and Pharmacy to Newcastle. We have included a separate section in this Newsletter about the transition - in a nutshell...

In summer 2017, Pharmacy move to Newcastle, and we will not have an intake for Phase I Medicine in October 2017. Also in summer 2017, we won’t have a Fresher intake in Business Management/ Marketing – these students will start in Durham City, and be members of one the 13 UG Colleges current in Durham City. The whole Business Management/Marketing course moves to Durham City in summer 2017. Current John Snow College students on these courses will remain members of John Snow College, and we will have a ‘place to call home’ in Durham City. This will be relatively small scale with some office and social space, and some staff and a JCR sabbatical officer, but we hope it will provide a really useful option for students who find it easier to meet up or see a member of staff in Durham City rather than Stockton.

What will this mean for our Fresher intake in October 2017? We will have an intake of around 200 (Applied Psychology, Business Finance/Accounting, and Primary Education), rather than 400, Freshers. That in itself will be a challenge, particularly as we will have fewer students overall in and around Queen’s campus. But, we will have our first intake of students into the International Foundation College. These students won’t be members of Durham University, nor any of its Colleges, but we hope they will want to progress onto a course at Durham University and choose to join our College. We shall certainly enjoy having them around.

In summer 2018, the College moves to Durham City. Initially we will be on the Howlands site (where Ustinov currently reside), alongside Stephenson, Butler, and a few students from Aidan’s. It will cosy, but hopefully the mix will also be exciting. In 2018 we will have another ‘small’ intake year of about 200 Freshers, but they will be on a site with hundreds of other Freshers, and I’m sure we can make this work well.

In summer 2019, we move to our final home – a new College building on Mount Oswald (further up the bank from Van Mildert and the Business School). Anna and I are at the heart of meetings around the design of the new build (with, of course, it’s own bar), which will be self-catered, and a shared central hub for dining, sport, prayer room, catering/shop outlets, etc. You will be glad to hear that I am not dreaming about what our College on Mount Oswald will look like through rose tinted glasses (although the curtains will definitely be blue). It will be state of the art and have a turning circle for food and takeaway deliveries. I’m sure deliveroo will come to Durham City at some stage...

It will take more than just additional money and staff to move the College and its distinctive spirit through its journey from Stockton to Mount Oswald. We will be relying on our brilliant Alumni to visit the College and work with our new JCR exec teams and FREPs and WREPs, and provide help and support and guidance as to what it is to be a John Snow College student. Please, expect some invites to events in due course and, if you can help in planning such events, let me know.

Professor Carolyn Summerbell Principal of John Snow College

John Snow Junior Common Room Anna Mackey, JCR President 2016/17 Hello John Snow! I’m Anna Mackey, this year’s JCR President. I’ve been in the role now for over five months and we’ve had some pretty great fun in that time. Here’s a little on what’s been going on in the JCR this year.

We had another great Fresher's week this year, with some old favourites and also some new events. This year, we ventured out into Yarm for a night out in the Keys, rather than our usual ARC Night, which was a big change but nevertheless a great night! As always, our student representative team were fantastic and made sure that our incoming first years had a brilliant time. It was very important to us this year, after bringing into action our international agent and Chinese students relations agent, that we had far higher levels of engagement from our international students, which is something I believe we achieved and is a very positive step for us here at Snow.

Post fresher's week we have had plenty of great events on this term, including our first city trip to Newcastle visiting Bijoux, Tup Tup and Floritas!

We also have our bike scheme up and running, with 20 bikes lent out to students across John Snow we are working towards a more environmentally friendly College. This year, we are working towards ensuring that our JCR is equipped to cope with the move from Queens Campus to Durham City. This will start to be put in place from next year, ensuring that we have a strong JCR with a strong strategic plan to make sure that we can cater for all students and provide our students with the best quality of student experience possible throughout the transition years.

Societies Nikhil Sharma, JCR Societies Officer So far during this academic year, there have been quite a few new student societies formed here at John Snow College. One of the most popular, has to be the Queens Campus Trading Society which targets students with an interest in pursuing a career in finance and trading. The society’s aim is to focus on everything to do with trading and investing, which includes a virtual stock exchange competition between members to boost the knowledge of trading among students in both John Snow and Stephenson College. Other societies created this year include the yoga society that was founded by two keen first year students who want to share their knowledge of yoga with other interested individuals. These yoga sessions are held once a week at Queens Campus gym. In addition to this, other new societies which have been proposed include vegetarian society, wakeboarding and a golfing society. Ultimately, it is safe to say that this year will be a huge year for John Snow societies.

Sporting news Charles Ingell, JCR Sports Officer With the newly appointed, highly talented sports officer 2016/17, John Snow was full of excited anticipation to see what the forthcoming season would hold.

As always there was a talented fresher year group to help ease the summer rust of the teams. As it happens, the netball A team had managed to accumulate no rust over the summer and hit the court running, ruthlessly and professionally crushing any opponent senseless enough to challenge them, and they are now sitting on top of the league. The Men’s Football, being the most popular John Snow sports team had a solid start to a tough fixture list and are also at the top of the premier league table. Rounder's entered their first competitive season with the college and an influx of players has meant successful weekly practises. Badminton, both Men’s and Women’s, continues to be a popular club, competing at the highest level with all the other Colleges in Durham. Mixed Lacrosse have expanded, and now with two teams in competing leagues, are thriving and consistently producing encouraging results. Men’s Futsal has also been added to the college sport programme, and Snow have also looked more than promising in their first handful of fixtures. Another unstoppable club has been the Snow Basketball teams, Men’s and Women’s have been winning left, right and centre under their new captaincies. Hockey have been pulling their weight, with high levels of fitness and some talented fresher's and have secured themselves as strong title contenders in the league.

The women’s rugby has had a breath of life, and with a consistent training programme have been contending with stronger and more physical Durham colleges.

Charities Charlotte Birch, JCR Charities Officer

John Snow Netball A Team

John Snow Mixed Lacrosse

John Snow Men’s Basketball

This term has been a very busy start to charity work in John Snow College. We have taken on the challenge of MOVEMBER, to raise money and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate, testicular cancer and mental health. To kick-start the charity work we chose nine boys from across the college and asked them to volunteer to clean shave and re-grow their moustaches over the course of November. When the 1st of November arrived we had nine very hairy and very fearful boys sat in the Igloo waiting for other members of the College to bid to do the honours and of shaving off the beards. The night was a huge success and the atmosphere in the igloo was great, there was a real sense of everyone coming together to raise some money for a very worthwhile cause. Since then, we have set up a donations page online, hosted a charity bake sale (where many members of the College showed off their inner domestic goddess skills), and a charity photo booth.

In total we have raised £1003 pounds!

We have got the college thinking and talking about men’s health, and the work that MOVEMBER does, which, to me, has been one of the best things about this charity project!

Vice Chancellors Scholarship for Academic Excellence Three students in John Snow have been awarded the Vice Chancellors Scholarship for Academic Excellence. This is a very prestigious award to win with only 60 recipients from across the whole University. We held a congratulatory lunch in the Broad Street Room to celebrate their achievement below.

‘It was such a surprise to win a scholarship for academic excellence! I feel very grateful and humbled.

My advice to other students would be to pursue what you enjoy, because then you will naturally work harder and be more motivated.’

Jade Chaplin, 3rd Year Primary Education

‘As an 'extra mature' student it was very humbling to

be among the 60 recipients of this award from a population of nearly 13,000 undergraduates. Knowing the very high quality and calibre of my fellow students on the psychology course, and within Snow more widely, just makes me appreciate this all the more. Sometimes, it can be really hard to begin one more assignment re-draft or another bout of revision. This award makes every time that I did that, when I really didn't want to, so completely worthwhile.’

Scott, Mark, Jade, Sophie, Lina and Professor Carolyn Summerbell, Principal of John Snow

The signing of the Matriculation Book Every year a first year undergraduate and postgraduate are asked to sign the Matriculation Book at the ceremony in fresher’s week, which takes place in Durham Cathedral.

‘I am receiving all the support I need to be successful in my studies; everybody has been extremely helpful and friendly, enabling me to settle in quickly and get used to the University. After only a few weeks I already feel very connected to the University and my College and I am proud to be a student here.’

Lina Seidlitz, Postgraduate, Public Policy and Global Health

Scott Malloy and Lina Seidlitz

Giving back to John Snow The Student Development Fund The Student Development Fund receives support primarily from John Snow Alumni, JCR and SCR. All students who wish to partake in activities which will enhance their student experience can apply to the fund for support once a term.

Examples of this include attending conferences, volunteering abroad or attending university level sporting events.

If you would like to know more about the fund, or donate to the fund please contact snow.alumni@durham.ac.uk.

Your connection with John Snow does not end when you graduate, from the moment you start at Durham you enter our life long community of Alumni.

Merchandise College Stash is always popular with all our students and alumni, so if you are feeling a little bit nostalgic and need that extra bit of John Snow in your life, then visit our shop at: http://community.dur.ac.uk/snowjcr/about-the-jcr/merchandise/

Contact us Alumni Relations and College Community Assistant Office John Snow College Durham University

Email: snow.alumni@durham.ac.uk

Stockton-On-Tees

Website: www.dur.ac.uk/johnsnow.college/alumi/

TS17 6BH

Facebook: www.facebook.com/johnsnow.alumni?fref=ts

0191 334 0406

Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlumniJohnSnow

Where are they now?

We spoke to some of our past JCR Presidents to see what they have been up to since leaving John Snow.

Kenya Peters– President 2015/16 After graduating in Marketing, and with some experience in industry over the summers leading up to my year in Presidency I was certain that it was the career for me. I'm now working in a marketing agency in Manchester's Media City and I'm loving every minute of it. If I could give one piece of advice to it would be to stay true to your interests. Dedicate time to figuring out the career you'll be passionate about. Look for the job that's going to make you excited when you're working from 9-6 on a sunny Friday.

Diana Blankson- President 2013/14 Since leaving John Snow I have relocated to Poole, Dorset, working for a software development company as an Account Manager. I’ve been at Dorset Software Services for just over 2 years and have really settled into the role using a number of skills I gained during my course and as President. Life after John Snow has been unexpected to say the least – I never thought I’d end up in Dorset, but it has certainly been an adventure. Moving to a completely new place where I don’t know anyone has been exciting but there always seems to be a little bit of Durham everywhere I go. You would be surprised how often you bump into a Durham grad!

Chris Howard -President 2011/12 Since leaving John Snow I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have developed a career that I’m proud of in an industry I love - Consulting. I’m working in a dream job alongside a number of other Durham graduates, as well as some equally talented colleagues, and I’m learning a lot whilst having fun at the same time. I graduated in Business before taking on the role of JCR President, and although I wasn’t sure what industry to move into, I had decided to no longer take up my planned career in the Army, and found myself in a Graduate role with Capgemini. When I’m not working, I look after the Durham Alumni network in London in which we recently held our annual graduates social for those starting their careers in the city and I’ve also got a little French Bulldog who takes up a lot of my time. Most of my weekends are spent wandering around food markets or visiting family in the country…and when I can I always try and squeeze in a visit to Durham and the college.

Benjamin Ineson– President 2010/11 After my sabbatical year as John Snow Junior Common Room President in 2010, I took the plunge and moved down to London to start my career in Procurement. I joined the British Airways Procurement Graduate scheme as part of their Leaders for Business programme. Three years down the line I am working at Virgin Atlantic as the Procurement Manager for Marketing and now manage the purchasing activities for both Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Holidays. There is no doubt that without the incredible experience of being the JCR President for John Snow, I would not have had the knowledge and skills to be successful in such a competitive graduate programme such as the BA one.

Upcoming Alumni Events The Sterling at the Gherkin, 2nd February, 7pm We would like to invite you to join us for an ‘After Hours Soiree’ at the Sterling bar. In one of the most iconic buildings in London, reconnect with old friends and college staff over drinks and nibbles.

Free event, to book please visit Dunelm website or email snow.alumni@durham.ac.uk for more information .

Upcoming Calendar events Epiphany 2017 2nd February: London After Hours Reunion 10th February: 3rd year Formal 24th February: Scholars’ Supper 2nd and 7th March: First year Formal 15th March: Dr John Snow Anniversary Lecture Easter Term 2017 28th April: Sports and Societies Dinner 5th May: Annual College Dinner 19th May: Scholars’ Supper

John Snow College Through knowledge and wisdom we strive for the highest