Lanyon Issue 03

Lanyon Education, research and philanthropy – changing lives at Queen’s

03 20 24 ISSUE

SUMMER

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST

SHAPING A BETTER WORLD

15 Queen’s subjects in the top 200 in the world QS World Rankings by subject 2023

qub.ac.uk

CONTENTS

Lanyon

Illustration: Fabio Buonocore. Cover illustration: Klawe Rzeczy

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

04 06 08 11 13 14 20

QUAD

News and views from campus and across the Queen’s alumni community.

SENATOR GEORGE MITCHELL From small town to global stage: Senator Mitchell discusses the power of education.

SWAPPING NOTES

Author Wendy Erskine and PhD student Dara McWade swap literary notes.

SOCIETY

Open and sharing: how the Indonesian Society is the catalyst for an entire community.

UNIVERSITY MATTERS

Professor Margaret Topping says performance rankings tell Queen’s story on a global stage.

REWRITING HISTORY

In divided societies, Queen’s researchers are finding new ways to bring two sides together.

THE POWER OF PEACE

Twenty-five years on, the economic power of Northern Ireland is being unleashed.

Publisher: Queen’s University Belfast, University Road, Belfast, BT7 1NN qub.ac.uk Editorial enquiries: editor@qub.ac.uk +44 (0)28 9097 3114 Alumni enquiries: alumni@qub.ac.uk +44 (0)28 9097 3114 Lanyon is produced by Queen’s University Belfast with YBM Ltd ybm.co.uk / info@ybm.co.uk Copyright © 2024 The opinions expressed in Lanyon are those of the contributors and not those of Queen’s University Belfast unless specifically identified as such.

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

28 34 40 42 48

GOING STRAIGHT

Can criminals change? Professor Shadd Maruna’s work on “desistance” suggests they can.

HERE BE DRAGONS

Meet the Dragonslayers, one of Queen’s oldest societies raising thousands for charity.

ADVENTURES IN...

The KN Cheung SK Chin InterSim Centre, giving Queen’s healthcare students a unique edge.

PHILANTHROPY

The Queen’s Foundation and its life-changing use of your generous donations.

NOW YOU’RE TALKING

Final year student Jesselyn Angky gives us an insider’s guide to the Queen’s experience.

On the cover Lanyon contributors (l-r): Professor MN Ravishankar, Georgina Copty, Philip Osoba, Keelin Stewart, Jesselyn Angky and Anne-Frances McCrea.

01

VIEW FROM QUB Professor Sir Ian Greer, Queen’s President and Vice-Chancellor.

Illustration Oriana Fenwick

Welcome to the latest edition of Lanyon, celebrating your place in our global community of Queen’s graduates. We’re proud of what we do at Queen’s and what our wonderful students, staff and graduates are achieving around the world.

You remain part of Queen’s long after you graduate, and we hope you will continue to engage with us as we help shape the future of new generations.

In this issue of Lanyon, you can find out how philanthropic support for education is transforming lives.

However, the role of a university does not end at providing an education; we have a major impact on society and communities, affecting the world around us, developing policies and delivering research that make a difference to our world.

Contributing to the health of the planet and global sustainability is also important to us.

With that in mind, if you’re reading a printed copy of the magazine, why not switch to our digital edition by updating your preferences on our website or email editor@qub.ac.uk

We would love to hear your thoughts on any of the subjects covered in this magazine – please email us at editor@qub.ac.uk

DREAM COME TRUE

I just wanted to say what a dream come true it was to be named Graduate of the Year 2023 and to attend such a prestigious event in my hometown. The effort that went into the Charter Day Dinner was nothing short of amazing, and it was a real pleasure to be able to celebrate Queen’s in a room full of great people in the fantastic surroundings of the Lanyon Building’s Great Hall. The recognition that I received will hopefully go a long way to furthering the reach and reputation of wheelchair basketball in Northern Ireland.

James MacSorley

WRITE TO US

(Common and Civil Law (Major) and Hispanic Studies, 2017), Graduate of the Year 2023.

CONNECT

Editor’s note: Delighted for you, James, and well done for furthering the reputation of wheelchair basketball.

LAUNCH SUPPORT

Keep up with the latest news and views – and share yours.

I’m lucky to have received support from multiple programmes through SU Enterprise, and also from the Annual Fund, to launch my mobile app business idea, so I wanted to take a moment to say thank you very much for all the support and for allowing students like me to pursue our ideas.

Illustration Mari Kanstad Johnsen

Kieron McKenna Student Entrepreneur.

setting and as a corporate solicitor, I thought I could pass on some advice to current students on a similar pathway.

It was a pleasure to be involved: the two students I was placed with were extremely courteous and grateful for my time, and hopefully our discussions will have helped them to some extent on navigating their degree and considering their career options post-university.

Christopher Bullock

(Common and Civil Law, 2011) Editor’s note: Thanks, Kieron. There’s lots going on across Queen’s to support entrepreneurship with our students.

Check out the success of InQUBate on our website at qub.ac.uk/sites/inqubate

Editor’s note: Thanks for sharing your experience of Mentoring at Queen’s, Christopher. For anyone interested in taking part, you can find out more about our Student Mentoring Programme at qub.ac.uk

GOOD ADVICE

I decided to volunteer for the Student Mentoring Programme as I thought it would have been something I would have really benefited from when I was a law and languages undergraduate; at the time I had no real idea of what I wanted to be and wasn’t aware of the range of options available to me with such a degree.

More than 12 years later, and with experience working in both a language

Join our mailing list and be in with a chance to win a £100 voucher!

When you share your contact details, we can also keep you updated with what’s going on within the Queen’s community.

You can update us by visiting the website at alumni.qub. ac.uk/signup or simply by scanning the QR code (right).

Stay in touch! Keep up with the latest news from the University as it happens, and share your thoughts and news on our Queen’s alumni social media platforms. editor@qub.ac.uk @QUBAlumni (twitter.com/QUBAlumni), #Lovequb Queen’s University Belfast Alumni Official Please mark your message ‘For publication’. Messages may be edited for length.

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

03

QUAD News and views from campus and across the Queen’s global community.

ALUMNI

Get involved and have your say Have you got an idea that could take Queen’s to even greater heights?

Perhaps you want to play a part in Queen’s future or want to get more involved, but aren’t sure how? We’d love you to make the most of Convocation, an organisation that gives Queen’s graduates a voice and the chance to influence and enrich University life, no matter where you are in the world.

Every Queen’s graduate is an automatic member of Convocation, which has existed since 1865 with a broad remit to discuss and pronounce an opinion on any matter relating to the University. It makes you part of a network of more than 220,000 alumni who work together to discuss and develop ideas and responses to global issues such as sustainability. You will also get the chance to influence wider societal, economic and governmental changes impacting the life of Queen’s.

The Convocation Committee wants to hear from you, so don’t miss the next Convocation Annual General Meeting, which will be held at 7pm on Wednesday 5 June at Queen's. Or email convocation@qub.ac.uk if you’d like to find out more.

GET INVOLVED qub.ac.uk/alumni/AlumniCommunity/Convocation

85th 15 THE NUMBERS

Queen’s world ranking in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2023.

subjects in the top 200 in the world (QS World University Rankings 2023), and five in the top 100. Also, 10 subjects in the top 200 in the world in the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2022.

4th

World ranking for international outlook (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024). Queen’s has almost 4,000 international students from more than 90 different countries.

Above:

We can’t promise that you’ll meet our recent Honorary Graduate Jamie Dornan, but you’ll catch up with other graduates at Convocation!

Read Professor Margaret Topping’s column on the importance of rankings to Queen’s on p13.

IN BRIEF EQUALITY Queen’s is leading the way in gender equality as the first university on the island of Ireland, and the second in the UK, to achieve an institutional Athena Swan Gold Award, which recognises how Queen’s visionary leadership has resulted in improvements to gender balance and working practices.

FOUNDATION Garrett Curran, Managing Director at Equilibria Capital, and Tessa Breslin, leadership consultant and Chartered Psychologist, have been appointed as Chair and Vice Chair of the Queen’s University of Belfast Foundation, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

HONOURS

Arise Sir Ian Congratulations to President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Ian Greer, who recently received a knighthood in a ceremony led by the Princess Royal at Buckingham Palace.

Sir Ian was awarded the honour of Knight Bachelor in the King’s Honours List in June 2023 in recognition of his services to education and Northern Ireland’s economy.

“I am extremely proud of our staff and our students at Queen’s and the positive contribution they make to our economy, our people and our society,” he says.

“This is an honour for me but, more than that, it is a recognition of the wider effort of my colleagues who I have been fortunate enough to have been surrounded by.

“Their support, contribution and commitment has helped make Queen’s a hugely successful and well-regarded university and I thank them for that.”

APPOINTMENTS

New faces, new positions Queen’s is delighted to announce two key appointments among its senior staff.

Dr Ryan Feeney has been appointed VicePresident Strategic Engagement and External Affairs, a role in which he has been acting since January 2023. Prior to this position, he was the University’s Director of Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility, and was Head of Public Engagement from 2016 to 2019. “I am privileged to have this opportunity to continue to work alongside our outstanding staff team, who make a strong contribution to the implementation of the University’s Strategy 2030 objectives,” he said.

Eddie Friel joins as Director of Alumni Engagement and Philanthropy. He was previously Director of Development and Alumni Relations at Ulster University. He will be responsible for leading the University’s engagement with its global alumni body, and generating philanthropic income in support of University activity aligned to research, teaching and student support. In this key role, he will lead the recently rebranded Alumni Engagement and Philanthropy directorate, formerly known as the Development and Alumni Relations Office.

CATCH UP with all Queen’s senior appointments at qub.ac.uk/news.

05

THE POWER OF EDUCATION

PIVOTAL TO PEACE

EMPOWERED

BY EDUCATION

When Queen’s marked the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, Senator George Mitchell’s conference speech captured hearts and minds. One year on, he reflects on the life journey that brought him there.

Left:

Mitchell family photo, 1949 (from left to right: John, George, Barbara, Paul and Robert).

Below:

Senator Mitchell speaking at the Queen’s 25th anniversary conference for the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement.

Opposite:

George Mitchell in his graduation year at Bowdoin College.

Private photos courtesy of Bowdoin College and the Mitchell family.

G

raduating from university is an important milestone for anyone. It can change the course of your life.

But, in the case of George Mitchell, it may well have changed the course of history.

His success in chairing the Northern Ireland peace talks in 1998 brought international acclaim, but many would be unaware that he was born into poverty, before access to higher education changed everything.

“The area we grew up in was crowded and heavily industrialised. Today it would be called a slum, but we didn’t think of it that way,” he said of his childhood in Waterville, Maine, during the era of the Great Depression.

“It was a very noisy place. There were railroad tracks just a few feet away. The nearby river was really a stinking open sewer.

On the river there was a textile mill and a paper mill. You could hear the massive saws and smell the chemicals, especially the sulphur, for miles. You could hear the clatter of the textile looms round the clock.

“But there was no TV or social media then and everyone we knew lived as we did, so it didn’t seem so bad. And the people in the town were warm and friendly.

“My parents were poor and worked very hard, but what kept them going was a dream that their children would receive the education and have the chances they never had. I started working when I was six or seven, delivering newspapers, shovelling snow, mowing lawns – we all had a strong work ethic, but my parents instilled in us the importance of education.”

Senator Mitchell’s mother was a migrant from Lebanon, his father the son of Irish immigrants. Born in 1933, he was raised in a close-knit family with three brothers and a sister, amid what he recalls as a “wonderful” community despite the hardships.

Leaving home for Bowdoin College in Maine at the age of 17 was the first time he ever slept through the night “without the sound and feel of a passing train”, but it was also a “daunting experience,” he said. “My parents didn’t own a car while I was growing up, so we never really went anywhere. It was 1950 and at college some of the students in the upper grades had served in the Second World War. I felt quite inadequate, in terms of my age, size and experience, but you grow and adapt and learn.”

He paid his way through college by working part-time jobs and taking part in the US army’s Reserve Officer Training Corps.

After graduating, he was obliged to serve two years, and was assigned to a US Military Intelligence post in Cold War Berlin.

Despite plans to become a history teacher, he later studied law at Georgetown University in Washington, attending evening classes while working full time during the day. The change in direction was the first of a series in his career, sparked by chance encounters and unexpected opportunities.

“Almost everything that happened didn’t develop in the way I planned it. I never did become a history teacher.

I became a lawyer. And, never once thinking about entering politics, I accidentally found myself in politics.

“My advice is, always have a plan, and do the best you possibly can, but be prepared to be flexible when unexpected opportunities come along. That’s what happened in my life.”

Fifteen years in the US Senate followed, including six as majority leader. Other opportunities emerged, including taking up the role of Chairman of Disney. But arriving in Belfast as the US President’s representative, then being asked by the leaders of the UK and Ireland to chair the peace talks, was perhaps the most unexpected twist.

Last year, a quarter of a century after the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement effectively brought an end to the Troubles, the Senator delivered a powerful address at the anniversary conference at Queen’s.

“It was the first speech I’d given in person to a large audience in three years. I had been very sick. I still am.

But while it was very difficult in a physical sense, it was one of the most moving experiences of my life.

“I hope the people of Northern Ireland will see themselves as I see them: good people, working hard, struggling to do what’s right, even as they disagree on what’s right. That was the message of my speech. I think the reason it resonated with people is because it’s true.

“Implementing change like this takes a long time, but the agreement has become a symbol of the possibility of ending strife. I get asked all the time, what it means for other conflicts around the world. My answer is always the same: it is an example of what is possible.”

Education, he said, is an important route to delivering real change to society. This echoes groundbreaking work at Queen’s, where one third of students come from communities that traditionally face barriers to accessing higher education.

Over the years, Senator Mitchell also maintained a focus on education in Maine, where he set out to attend graduations at every high school in the state. “There are about 150 of them. They all graduate on two weekends in June, so it took me about 12 years.”

The experience inspired him to create a scholarship programme so that students in need of support could secure a university qualification. Since its inception, it has helped more than 3,600 Maine students to graduate from college. “You’ve got to reach out and find these youngsters, who have innate talent but don’t realise it.

You’ve got to try to build up their confidence.

“I met thousands of these kids. I saw in their eyes and heard in their voices mirror images of myself at their age: insecure, uncertain, lacking in resources, lacking in confidence, lacking in any belief in themselves. But education can change lives… it’s a truly great thing.

“Higher education may not be for everyone, but it should be readily available to those who want it. As I’ve said often, no one should be guaranteed success but everyone should have a fair chance to succeed, to go as far and as high as their talent and willingness to work will take them.” n

“ We had a strong work ethic, but my parents instilled in us the importance of education

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

07

A

s you would expect from two old friends whose lives are dominated by words, Wendy Erskine and Dara McWade barely pause for breath as they compare notes on their careers. And the conversation ranges far and wide – how to tell when a story is finished, the last book they both read (Spent Light by Lara Pawson and Prophet Song by Paul Lynch), the dearth of short story collection competitions in the UK and Wendy’s dislike of the first-person narrator. “I find it really self-conscious,” she explains.

“In fact, of all my 24 stories, the first I wrote is the only one in that voice.”

That story – Locksmiths – would get her on a course with the literary institution Stinging Fly, and end up in her first published collection, Sweet Home. It came about when her husband recommended she do some DIY. “He was going away for the weekend and said, ‘Why don’t you regrout the bathroom floor?’” Assured by her other half she would be good at it, she started poking out the old grout. “All I could think was: I need 2,000 words to get on the course. So I started writing about somebody restoring a house, grouting and peeling away the layers of the other inhabitants.”

The success of that collection led the critically acclaimed short story writer to Queen’s, as a Seamus Heaney Centre Fellow. It was there, in 2021, that she would often sit down with Dara, then doing his creative writing MA, to hear what he was working on and enlist his help to organise sessions with students.

SWAPPING NOTES

DOING IT BY THE BOOK

Author Wendy Erskine and PhD student Dara McWade swap literary notes – from grout to festivals.

Words Greer McNally Photography Angela Moore

Both enjoyed the opportunity that the Fellowship programme gave them.

“It’s so great to be able to talk to somebody experienced about whatever you’re working on,” says Dara. “I think when you and I met, we mostly ended up talking about process. But then when I’ve done sessions with other Fellows, it can also get really deep into the work itself.”

These days, Dara, now a PhD student, is leading his own workshops – while editing Apiary, the literary magazine publishing the best new writing at Queen’s – and Wendy has just finished her first novel. The passage of time has served Wendy and Dara both well, and each has an exciting film project in the pipeline.

“I recently co-wrote a screenplay with an animator for a film called To Break a Circle,” says Dara. He is hoping the short will be in festivals before the year is out.

As they talk, the respect and affection between the two writers is clear – a familiarity encouraged by their time together at Queen’s and nurtured by the Northern Ireland writing community they are both part of. It is a community where their paths are bound to cross over and over again. But for now, they’ll concentrate on swapping life notes. n

GET INVOLVED Wendy Erskine’s writing can next be seen in

You Spin Me Round: Essays on Music, published by PVA Books.

“ He suggested she regrout the bathroom floor. Two thousand words later and the course was set. The grout, of course, is another story

Wendy Erskine and Dara McWade

enjoying tea, cake and conversation at the Harrison Chambers of Distinction hotel in Belfast.

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

09

SHAPING A BETTER WORLD

Ranked 85 in the world in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2023 qub.ac.uk

AN ISLAND COMMUNITY SOCIETY

The Queen’s Indonesian Society keeps its culture front and centre.

Words Jo Caird

Sebastian Putra Prasetyo (Computer Science, Second Year) was pretty nervous at the prospect of performing a traditional Indonesian dance in front of a packed Mandela Hall at Artindo, the Indonesian Society’s annual celebration of Indonesian culture. As Society president, though, there was no getting around it.

“I was ‘encouraged’ to do it by the seniors,” he laughs.

“But in the end I forgot I hadn’t wanted to do it because I had such a great time. I’m sure I butchered the dance, but my fellow dancers were so lovely and I got to experience something new with them while wearing a traditional Indonesian costume, which I also loved.”

Artindo is just one of many events in the Indonesian Society’s busy calendar – events that play a key role in shaping the Indonesian community in Belfast. “We try to be a catalyst for people to meet each other,” Sebastian explains.

This is particularly important for Indonesian freshers at Queen’s, most of whom arrive in Belfast on their own. Sebastian says that attending a walking tour organised by the Society made a big difference during his first lonely weeks in the city. “It was nice meeting existing students; they were so kind, sharing tips and tricks to help you get acclimatised to uni life.”

This spirit of openness and sharing is something Sebastian and the Society’s Head of Events, Suta Wijaya (Mechanical Engineering, Second Year), strive for with all the events they put on. “It’s about socialising and coming back to our roots,” says Suta.

That might be the regular potluck suppers where committee members come together to bond – “Suta makes a delicious Indonesian chicken dish!” says Sebastian – or the Belfast International Games, a multi-sport competition, newly set up by the Society with the help of the University. “As international students, we don’t have the privilege of travelling back home to see our families at the weekends,” says Sebastian. “So we take the chance to play sports, because there are no language barriers in sport. You can just play with anyone.”

Halloween celebrations, where the Society hosts a fancy dress party and organises a scavenger hunt for sweets all over the Students’ Union, are another highlight of the calendar.

As Sebastian explains: “We’re trying to follow the culture of the local students. We have the most fun because we get to dress up and act all goofy.” Suta, who attended as Luigi from the Mario Bros franchise, agrees: “I’d never dressed up for Halloween before and it was such fun.”

Beyond the hijinks of Halloween and the adrenaline rush of competitive sport, the Society plays an even more fundamental role in the lives of Indonesian students at Queen’s. As Suta recalls: “Before going to Society events I was shy and didn’t really want to socialise – but it helped me be more confident. The Indonesian Society has made me feel at home.” n QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

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SHAPING A BETTER WORLD

Ranked 4th in the world for international outlook Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024

qub.ac.uk

Performance rankings are a great way to tell our story on a global stage – and Queen’s is flying high across all the key measures.

UNIVERSITY MATTERS Professor Margaret Topping is Pro-ViceChancellor (Global Engagement)

Illustration Oriana Fenwick

Queen’s jumped an incredible 31 places last year in the prestigious QS World University Rankings to reach a position of 202 in the world. This result places us in the top 14 per cent of universities globally, the highest percentile Queen’s has ever achieved. We’re incredibly proud of this success, but you might well ask: why do university rankings matter so much?

As a global university, we want to tell our story on the world stage. Performance rankings are a key part of this. They set out comparisons across areas including the quality of our research, our international networks, the learning experience of our students, and the employability of our graduates. In other words, these comparisons allow us to highlight the benefits of an education from Queen’s. They also demonstrate the outstanding contribution made by Queen’s locally and globally which, in turn, encourages academics at the forefront of their fields to come here and work with us as part of the rich innovation ecosystem that Northern Ireland offers.

That ecosystem and network of industry and business professionals who work in partnership with us are critical to securing our reputation. One of the reasons why the QS rankings rate us among the top 170 universities in the world for graduate prospects is our commitment to providing our students with the skills to help solve real-world challenges faced by employers at a local, regional, national and international level.

Seeing Queen’s well-placed in these university rankings is an important endorsement of the quality of our education and research, and the quality of our graduates.

Rankings are also a great way to track the University’s sustainability journey. For example, the QS Sustainability rankings place Queen’s in the top seven per cent of universities worldwide for sustainability, while the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings 2023 includes us in the top six per cent. The THE rankings specifically score against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals – and our performance shows that we are on the right path to achieving the ambitions of Strategy 2030 which has sustainability as one of its key pillars.

And it’s not just university rankings that are recognising our achievements in this area.

The People and Planet University League, compiled annually by the UK’s largest student campaigning network, awarded us a 2.1. We also received the Platinum award in the Business in the Community NI Environmental Benchmarking Survey, which rates the top businesses in Northern Ireland for their environmental management, performance and assurance. Crucially, too, our position in the global rankings is linked to our long-term viability as an institution. The better our reputation, the more we can attract research funding, industry collaborations, and global talent to enrich our staff and student body.

Rankings reflect, above all, the excellence of our education, the reach of our research, and the quality of our graduates, as voted for by academics and employers across the globe. And, of course, for you, our alumni, it’s good to feel that wherever you are in the world, your University ranks alongside the top institutions globally, so do consider completing the survey if an invitation pops up in your inbox! n

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

13

rewriting history In deeply divided societies, history can be seen as part of the problem. But at Queen’s, researchers are finding new ways to bring people together.

Words Victoria James / Illustrations Marion Ducheurs

Competing versions of world events clash daily in newspaper headlines, TV bulletins and across social media feeds. We’re increasingly offered interpretations of recent and historical events that don’t just differ, but appear wholly irreconcilable.

Which is why historians at the Centre for Public History are working to help educators, communicators – and all of us – untangle how we can think about the histories that divide us.

The need for bold approaches to contested histories has never seemed more urgent.

“In Northern Ireland, the UK and across many parts of the world, we’re seeing historical narratives being used to shore up political agendas, to justify existing perspectives and to lend legitimacy in the eyes of the public,” says Professor Olwen Purdue, founder

and Director of the Centre, and of the MA programme in Public History. “That’s really dangerous, because when history is used in this way, we lose sight of the complexities of the past.”

Professor Purdue and her colleagues are figuring out how to prevent divided histories fracturing contemporary communities: “The role of public history is to disrupt partial or one-sided narratives.

Our job is to encourage as many people as possible to think as deeply and as widely as possible about the past, and by getting a better understanding of the complexities of history, to counter some of the dangers when it is misused.”

Famously divided ideologically, religiously and physically, Belfast is in many ways a case study for how public history can approach traumatic and opposed histories. And it is here that

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QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

Professor Purdue’s fascination with public history began some 10 years ago, through her involvement with a theatre project that brought together two groups of young people from opposite sides of the city’s sectarian and political divide. It set them exploring a moment in time when their forebears would have united in a common cause – the Outdoor Relief Riots of 1932, which saw widespread protests across Belfast’s labouring classes. “The young people who took part were really amazed at how the stories they’d uncovered reflected their own,” says Professor Purdue. “They then worked with a dramatist to create a play that ran at the MAC theatre, bringing their insights to a wider public audience.”

The transferability of this kind of communityled exploration was shown by a recent project in Jordan – a nation with one of the world’s highest proportions of refugees per head of population.

Most come from conflict-affected areas, and the presence of ethnic groups with their own interpretations of the past means that recent history is viewed as potentially destabilising.

“In Jordan, ‘history’ means ancient, top-down history,” explains Professor Purdue. “Community history is seen as dangerous.”

She unlocked community-level narratives by working through ancient history, collaborating with the excavators of a 5,000-year-old earthen mound outside one of Jordan’s modern towns.

Through site visits and roaming workshops in which participants shared personal objects and family stories, those who took part discovered commonalities in their experiences that transcended ethnic or national differences.

Fractured histories arise not only from opposing perspectives, but also when one narrative has been privileged and alternatives suppressed or erased entirely. For Professor Sean O’Connell,

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

uncovering and giving voice to such suppressed stories is important for reasons of social justice.

Professor O’Connell has played a major role in unearthing the hidden histories of Northern Ireland’s mother and baby institutions and Magdalene laundries and is Co-Chair of the government-level Truth Recovery Independent Panel. More than 10,000 women spent time in the mother and baby institutions, very many unwillingly. “Thereafter, in a very large number of cases, their babies were adopted, fostered or taken into care – a further 10,000 lives altered radically by conservative sexual morality and the patriarchal system,” explains Professor O’Connell.

The voices of these women were systematically suppressed and excluded. “In many cases they have been pressured by family and authority figures to keep their silence.” But by deploying the methodologies of the public historian, in particular a focus on the collection of oral histories, Professor O’Connell and others have finally recovered these silenced testimonies and ensured they are inscribed in official narratives.

A TIME FOR RECKONING

This is only one example of institutional omission, suppression or erosion of stories that conflict with the sanctioned and official narrative. But many public bodies, with legacies of transatlantic slavery in their foundation and endowments, or the material items of their collections, are now readily embarking upon a reckoning with their past and how it has shaped stories they have previously foregrounded.

“This is something many museums are doing well,” says Professor Purdue. “Not saying: ‘Here’s the answer’ or ‘Here’s a truth,’ but: ‘There are many sides to this’ and ‘Let’s discuss it.’” Indeed, many graduates of the MA in Public History

17

go on to pursue a career in the museums and heritage sector at the forefront of this work.

Professor Purdue herself has been engaging in discussion with scholars at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville on the legacy of slavery and ongoing issues of race, particularly around memorial statues. “The public space in Charlottesville was dominated by incredibly overpowering bronze statues of Confederate generals, that seemed to be saying: ‘This is our space, this is what we stand for.’ Many of those statues are now gone, following conversations and collaboration between the university and the local community.”

And it’s not just a reckoning with racial issues.

Professor Purdue believes that engaging communities in exploring and sharing their history is a vitally important means of addressing isolation and marginalisation, particularly among socially disadvantaged or minority urban communities, those who are too often left out of historical narratives. Her work with local communities to develop an oral history archive and digital map of everyday life in inner-city Belfast is finding resonance internationally, including with scholars working on similar projects in cities such as Washington DC or Nashville, Tennessee.

Back at Queen’s, Professor O’Connell says the work they’re carrying out using oral history to explore contested and hidden histories has, and will, inform work globally. Part of that is a trailblazing interdisciplinary collective named QUOTE (Queen’s Oral history, Technology and Ethics) that draws on University expertise spanning history, law, drama and creative arts, English, geography and the Faculty of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “It’s a go-to site for those

Professor Olwen Purdue is Professor of Social History and Director of the Centre for Public History, and of the MA in Public History.

exploring how oral history can open up issues such as historical institutional abuse and deindustrialisation,” he says.

A DANGEROUS PAST

Though hugely rewarding and often transformative, the pursuit of public history is not without its perils, not least the distressing nature of the fractured histories it explores. “I’ve been working with the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington on how we as public historians deal with traumatic pasts,” Professor Purdue explains. “At a global conference held here at Queen’s we looked at three areas: Northern Ireland, the Holocaust, and the legacy of slavery. We explored how we can deal ethically with these pasts in ways that respect multiple perspectives and don’t retraumatise the people we’re working with. We also have to be careful of how we ourselves – whether historians, curators or archivists – can be traumatised by the material we work with.”

Despite the often painful process of uncovering lost stories and balancing contested ones, the job of the public historian is more in demand – and more global – than ever.

“We previously had a cohort of students with none from Northern Ireland, and not one with a degree in history,” marvels Professor Purdue.

“They came with all sorts of backgrounds and passions, such as for community engagement and activism, heritage or museums, and advocacy. And they all understood that what’s important after our projects finish is articulating the value of the history that’s been uncovered.

As a society, we tend to focus on what divides.

But if we can focus on what’s shared, suddenly we’re in a different space.” n

Professor Sean O’Connell is a professor of History and was appointed Co-Chair of the Truth Recovery Independent Panel in April 2023.

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QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

ECONOMIC UNLEASHING Words Lucy Jolin / Photography Angela Moore

POTENTIAL The success of Northern Ireland’s peace process has created huge opportunities – and Queen’s is at the heart of it all.

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QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

We’re bringing the world to Northern Ireland,

showcasing the amazing things that have

Dermot Tierney likes a challenge. That’s why he’s

aiming to solve one of the world’s biggest health challenges – resistance to drugs. And when Dermot, as Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of biotech startup AMPLY Discovery, was deciding where to base his company, the answer was obvious: it had to be Belfast.

“Back when I graduated in 2001, you didn’t have many options as a skilled graduate, so I moved to London,” Dermot explains. “To find a meaningful job, you had to leave Northern Ireland and go elsewhere. That’s the big difference these days.

Now, graduates leaving university in Northern Ireland have options right here. You have the opportunity to acquire capital and build a business.

That certainly wasn’t the case 25 years ago.”

Having been back in Northern Ireland for the past eight years, Dermot is just one example of how entrepreneurs and graduates are seizing the opportunities created by more than 25 years of progress heralded by the peace process. And Queen’s is at the heart of this rebirth, demonstrated by the convening power of events such as the Agreement 25 Conference held in April 2023. No wonder, then, that when Special Envoy Joe Kennedy III led a trade mission last year, he based himself at Queen’s.

Professor MN Ravishankar is Dean and Head of Queen’s Business School: “Universities exist for

happened post-1998

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

the greater good,” he says. “We can contribute meaningfully to issues of global importance, facilitate conversations between people in different parts of the world, and we don’t have any ulterior motives.

“It’s such an exciting time, because not only are we out there in the world, we’re also bringing the world to Northern Ireland – showcasing the amazing things that have happened post-1998.”

In fact, Queen’s Business School has always prided itself on creating closer links between academia and industry, and is a cornerstone of Northern Ireland’s vibrant business environment. Current initiatives include the Business Clinic, which connects businesses with student consultancy teams to carry out research, and the AMBA-accredited Queen’s MBA, with generous high-value scholarships available for NI candidates.

But over the past 15 years, it’s also become an international hub for Northern Ireland. “People continue to discover what a great place Belfast is to study,” says Professor Ravishankar. “That’s linked to the fact that there is peace and, of course, that it’s a fantastic location with great, affordable facilities.” Along with allowing all students to develop vital intercultural skills, the University’s more prominent place on the world stage is a tremendous boost to the local economy.

23

The facilitator: Professor MN Ravishankar is Dean and Head of Queen’s Business School.

Access to Queen’s experts, talents and type of

innovation is core

Research focused on the productivity of Northern Ireland demonstrates the potential benefits for international students to be absorbed into the country’s business, and for local employers to have access to a talented pool of qualified employees, explains Professor Ravishankar. Those employees allow businesses to flourish, hire and train more people, to innovate, and to attract more businesses like them. “When students who have a diverse range of skills and sociocultural experiences come from all over the world, they bring valuable insights. When they then work for organisations based in Northern Ireland, that strengthens our knowledge base and makes us more competitive.”

Allstate, a subsidiary of the US-based Allstate Corporation, is a perfect example of how the symbiotic relationship between Queen’s and businesses benefits both Belfast and the wider Northern Ireland economy. It provides innovative business support services to its parent company, in technology, data, AI, cybersecurity and finance.

Allstate is one of the largest property insurance companies in the US, and a Forbes 100 company.

“Allstate was recently recognised as one of the most innovative companies in North America, and the work that we are doing is a key part of enabling that,” explains the organisation’s Vice President of International Operations and Managing Director

to adding value

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

The innovator: Dr Stephen McKeown, Vice President of International Operations and Managing Director, Allstate.

Dr Stephen McKeown. And, as he points out, it was the first foreign direct investment company to come into Northern Ireland after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

Close connections with Queen’s ensure the company has access to the skilled graduates it needs – and that the University knows how to equip them with those skills. “Our work spans everything from highly agile software development to artificial intelligence, data science and cybersecurity, and Queen’s has active research in all these areas,” says Stephen.

“Allstate was one of the first founding constituents of cybersecurity moving into Belfast – the city is now recognised as a global centre of excellence for that work – and Queen’s has the Centre for Secure Information Technologies. The access to the experts, talent and type of innovation that they’re doing is core to adding value to Allstate.

Our business is based on talent – and talented people coming in. That’s what we invest in, and that’s what gives our model longevity.”

Allstate here is a centre of excellence for digital innovation and a vital part of the ecosystem in Northern Ireland. AMPLY Discovery – Dermot Tierney’s company – is also breaking important new ground. Dermot explains that as genetically driven cancers are becoming more stubborn, bacterial infections and other complex diseases

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SHAPING A BETTER WORLD

Queen’s contributes £3 billion to the local economy The Economic and Social Impact of Queen’s University Belfast, London Economics 2022

qub.ac.uk

are becoming drug resistant: “These ailments affect tens of millions globally, but drug discovery is very expensive and very slow. We want to redefine that process. Our tech is the equivalent of a billion Petri dishes on a billion windowsills.”

Rather than designing its own molecules, AMPLY Discovery harnesses the power of AI and evolution. The startup’s tech analyses the genome of plants and animals, looking for molecules that have evolved over millions of years to perform a particular function – which may be the perfect molecule to fight a disease, just as Sir Alexander Fleming discovered with penicillin in his Petri dish.

“We’re using nature to do the heavy lifting,” says Dermot. “For example, if an animal is less susceptible to a certain kind of bacteria, we can analyse their genome to understand what is going on in their biology to make them less susceptible. That can present us with new therapeutic opportunities.”

Queen’s has played a crucial role in the company’s development. CEO and Co-Founder Ben Thomas carried out the research that underpins AMPLY Discovery’s tech at the University, which was also where the two met – Dermot was then the University’s Head of IP and Commercialisation.

“The company wouldn’t exist without Queen’s,” says Dermot. “It can be hard, with a research idea, to pin down exactly where the value is. Queen’s

We need the gravitational pull that an

The catalyst: Dermot Tierney, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of AMPLY Discovery.

has a process where a researcher will work with someone like me, who will take the business through those first stages and give a small amount of funding. That then allows you to go to the next stage. And, of course, Queen’s is an investor in the company, which is quite rare for universities.”

Since it spun out from Queen’s in 2021, AMPLY Discovery has received $2.15m of funding, and now comprises a team of five. “There is a lot of opportunity right now,” explains Dermot. “Building a startup ecosystem is slow work, and we’re at the early stages of that. We need the gravitational pull that an institution like Queen’s has.”

From universities to research institutes, startups to world-leading multinational firms, few can deny that Belfast is becoming the place to be for a highly skilled and talented workforce. Indeed, Belfast has recently been named one of the world’s top 10 ‘digital economies of the future’ – the only UK city apart from London to appear – and was recently ranked by Forbes as the 10th best city in the world for work-life balance.

“It’s completely transformed in the past 25 years,” explains Stephen. “And my belief is that the potential was always there. Creating opportunities, coming together and a lot of hard work by many people in many positions have made it possible.” n

institution like Queen’s has QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

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G ING

STRAIGHT

Can people change?

Professor Shadd Maruna thinks so, but his work on ‘desistance’ from crime suggests we need a new approach.

Words Megan Welford Illustrations Antonio Sortini

29 ethin Jones had been in trouble since he was 14. Abandoned as a child by a mother who herself had been abandoned, Gethin grew up surviving on his wits before spiralling into a toxic life of crime and drugs, punctuated by regular spells in prison. His life was that of a classic repeat offender. But it was there, in prison, that he found himself inspired by the positive experiences shared by a drugs counsellor – himself a recovering addict – and began to ‘go straight’.

What was behind the transformation? Hope and a good story.

“To people in prison, there is nothing fluffy about hope,” explains Jones’ friend Professor Shadd Maruna of the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work, in the foreword of Good Stories: Telling Against Trouble. “Hope is not just a big thing in prison, it may be the only thing. What is the difference between the person who gives up on life and overdoses on the cell floor, and the person who survives prison and proves to all the doubters that they can succeed without drugs, without stealing? Anyone inside will tell you that the first person lost hope and the second one found it. We may dismiss that, but if you keep talking to those inside, you might meet someone who will tell you exactly where to find that hope: the power of good stories. That is real enough for me.”

The world of crime and punishment is tough but the language we use for it doesn’t have to be, explains Professor Maruna. “If we want to talk about what makes people stop committing crimes and stay out of prison, we need a different language.” This is why he has dedicated his 25-year career to understanding ‘desistance’ from crime, which is essentially the study of how people change. And the language we need is that of hope: believing that someone can change. This, Professor Maruna says, is core to desistance.

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

Having caused harm, some wanted to make amends – to the person or their relatives – to break the cycle of harm

Yet, despite powerful redemption narratives running through our culture, such as our love for films like The Shawshank Redemption, we are actually suspicious about whether people really can change. As Professor Maruna explains: “Since the 1990s, we have believed in the myth of the ‘persistent offender’, the person who can’t help themselves and must be put away – justifying legal concepts such as life without parole, even for under-18s, until recently. These are the people whose brains are just wired that way. The psychopaths, at their extreme.”

However, this narrative goes against all the evidence we have about offending, adds Professor Maruna, who is also President of the American Society of Criminology. Take the age-crime curve, which shows that most crime happens in youth (although recent evidence shows even young people are offending less than before) and tails off with age, after a period of 10 to 20 years. “Even in the face of evidence like this, as a society we still tend to ask: ‘Have they really changed?’ And this is where stories come in. With stories we can reach people who work in the justice system, academics and members of the public, and instead of just telling them about the evidence, we can show them that people can, and do, change.”

Stories of change, like that of Gethin Jones, who now works as a motivational speaker, are impactful for the listener, he says, but they’re also essential for the desister who is trying to re-enter society. “The ex-prisoner trying to get housing or a job or into university needs a good story that explains convincingly why they did what they did and why they won’t do it again,” explains Professor Maruna.

In his book, Making Good, Professor Maruna explores hundreds of cases of people who desisted from or persisted with crime, and found that one of the key differences between the two was, perhaps surprisingly, the stories they told about themselves. “The ones who desisted had a good personal narrative.

Often, they said that they had met someone – a teacher, a girlfriend or a coach, for example – who saw something in them; a hidden gift or talent, something they could be good at. This helped them turn their life around. Or they wanted to give something back. Having harmed people, they wanted to make amends, perhaps to the person or their relatives, but also more widely, to help break the cycle of harm for others by working with young people, for example. And this had motivated them to change.”

Professor Maruna also points out that just as crime is social, so is desistance: “We talk about people being led into crime, and crime being committed in groups. So, it shouldn’t be surprising that people are also led into desistance – by a brother who joins Narcotics Anonymous, for instance, or a cell mate who starts studying. This is why the notion of mentoring is important for desistance.

Reformed people going into prisons with their stories, or ‘credible messengers’, make excellent mentors.” ecause while wanting to change, and believing you can, is necessary for desistance, it is not sufficient. Social factors are at play in the kind of life that follows: “American researchers Laub and Sampson tracked down sample members of a famous 1940s study of juvenile delinquency and found none were still involved in crime,” explains Professor Maruna. “But they didn’t necessarily find them living comfortably. People with strong social bonds have more to fall back on when they want to go straight. If you just talk about welfare, you take away a person’s agency – their dignity, their strength. But focusing only on agency ignores society’s constraints.”

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

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SHAPING A BETTER WORLD

15 Queen’s subjects in the Ranked 4th in the world for top 200 in the world international outlook QSTimes WorldHigher Rankings by subject 2023 Education World University Rankings 2024

qub.ac.uk

Professor Shadd Maruna studies routes out of criminality and ways that the justice system impedes this process of desistance.

The next step for the desistance movement, Professor Maruna says, is to change the societal obstacles faced by ex-prisoners, and this movement is best led by those who have been through the system: “The work of rehabilitation is made 100 per cent easier if the people coaching and giving advice have lived experience.

“We start with stories, to pull people in, but we also need institutional change. Take the probation service in the United States: it has lost touch with its social work roots, and is dominated by surveillance – the stick. It could be the carrot – therapy. But in between could be a strength-based system that would recognise both risk and need, but focus on what the person has to offer and how that can be encouraged. Through community service, for example. If done right, this can reveal strengths, as well as help build the networks the ex-prisoner needs to move on.” Employers also have a role, Professor Maruna says, citing British retailer Timpson Group, where the head of the company champions the ex-prisoners in his workforce. hen there are laws that allow people to move on, or not. “Criminologists have identified countless laws and policies that prevent ex-prisoners pursuing non-criminal career options, from driving a taxi to cutting hair.

But where are the laws to support rehabilitation? For a custodial sentence of three or four years, an ex-prisoner must declare their convictions for at least seven years, by which point, if they’ve made it, expunging their record may not make much difference. Could we speed that time up, by rewarding volunteer work, for example? We could, but we don’t know what that looks like. We have a million ways of recognising and describing criminality; we need as many ways of recognising, classifying and rewarding change.”

Failure to do so, Professor Maruna warns, would be a failure of hope. n

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

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HERE BE DRAGONS This year, one of Queen’s oldest societies, the Dragonslayers, celebrates its 40th anniversary. That’s 40 years of gaming, dressing up – and an annual convention that today attracts more than 10,000 visitors and raises thousands of pounds for charity.

Words Lucy Jolin / Photography Angela Moore

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Once upon a time, in 1993 to be precise, two valiant

young gaming fans journeyed to the role-playing and wargaming Warpcon convention in faraway Cork. Three days later, Alan Neill and Matt Johnson returned to Belfast with a quest: to start their own games convention, the first of its kind in Northern Ireland.

Thus Q-Con was born, and its incredible growth in the 30 years since is an epic tale of dedication and determination – one that also involves kittens, watermelons and a very big drill.

From those first 150 intrepid gamers who assembled in the Queen’s Students’ Union to play everything from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) to Risk, comes the 10,000 people who visited the 29th Q-Con last year. They came to cosplay and to play board games, role-playing games, tabletop games, war games and video games. They came to watch anime, buy fan merchandise, try their luck in quizzes, meet experts – and to soak up the joy of being with thousands of others who share their passions.

A decade before going boldly into the world of large-scale conventions, gamers were already assembling at Queen’s. From its inception, the convention has been run entirely by the Dragonslayers Society – itself one of the University’s oldest societies, with the inaugural meeting taking place in October 1984. As the Dragonslayers celebrates its 40th anniversary, it continues to have a finger firmly on the pulse of the gaming world, and that’s what has driven Q-Con’s remarkable growth, says former Dragonslayers President Ben Harrison (Electrical and Electronic Engineering, 2004; PhD, 2010). “All we did was give the community what it wanted,” he says.

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

Every now and then, the police showed up to see why hundreds of kids were running around dressed as cartoon characters When Ben was elected President of Dragonslayers in 2003, he wanted to expand that community, applying the skills he and his team had learned organising networked PC game tournaments to role-playing games, video games and war games. Then, two years later in 2005, Harrison and the Q-Con team began noticing that a growing number of Dragonslayers were also very into anime. “Anime and games have a strong crossover, more through video games than role-playing. So we started to run anime screenings, and we knew that if you get the anime community interested, you start to interest the cosplay community as well. It’s that sort of crosspollination that’s helped us grow to our current size.”

TAKING FLIGHT

Andrew Gordon (Chemistry, 2008) joined Dragonslayers in his first week at Queen’s; Ben persuaded him to volunteer for Q-Con the following spring.

It was perfect timing, says Andrew: “Around that time, everything that had been really uncool – fantasy, roleplaying, computer games – suddenly became cool again.” Attendance doubled, then doubled again. For Ben, Andrew and their fellow committee members, no idea was too ambitious.

“I loved Knightmare as a kid,” says Andrew. “It was a fantasy show on the BBC in the 90s where one person guides their friend through a CGI dungeon. My housemate at the time said: ‘Oh, it would be easy to do that.

All we need is a room, a camera, a green screen and some software.’ Well, his bit – writing the software – was easy.”

To run the game properly, the room needed to be enormous, so they persuaded Queen’s Film Theatre to give them the venue – for free. Next, a green screen had to be procured, not straightforward in 2006. “In the end, we got a bunch of six-by-four plywood boards and painted them green in the Students’ Union,” explains Andrew. “Then we had to carry these 12 green boards across University Road the day before to set them up. But it worked, and it was so much fun.”

They learned valuable lessons in using their initiative, such as the year they arrived at Mandela Hall to set up with 20 minutes to spare, only to find that someone had thrown a watermelon off the balcony at an event the night before. (Watermelons, for the record, tend to explode on impact). Frenzied cleaning ensued. Then there was the time that the safe containing all the keys refused to open for the building security staff. “We had to get a man with a big drill to help them break it open,” remembers Andrew. Every now and then, the police showed up to see why hundreds of kids were running around dressed as cartoon characters; they usually ended up joining in and happily posing with enthusiastic cosplayers.

Q-Con has even spawned its own jargon. If you ever hear a Dragonslayer refer to a ‘kitten-box problem’, be afraid. “A kitten-box problem is the worst kind of problem that is not a risk to life,” explains Ben. “One year, we were preparing for Q-Con, and a kind and well-meaning former executive of the society found a box of kittens abandoned in the goods yard of the Students’ Union. They brought them inside and gave them some milk and a blanket. However, the kittens did not remain in the box.

We spent half a day chasing them away from areas that they most certainly should not have been in.” But that story thankfully has a happy ending: the kittens found a good home in a local animal sanctuary.

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Previous page from left: Emily Monroe, Lilith Cunningham and Lyndsey Clarke.

Above from left: Thomas McNeill, Thomas Green, Jay Radcliff (President 2019-2021) and Emily Monroe (Secretary 2022-2024).

Left: Joe McKinney (current President).

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

Slaying them Dragonslayers members Lilith Cunningham (left) and Lyndsey Clarke (below).

Joe McKinney (Medicinal Chemistry, First Year) is the current Dragonslayers President and has fond memories of another vaguely chaotic society event: Slayer’s 24. “That’s when we book the whole building for 24 hours and spend those 24 hours playing board games and video games. By the end everyone is pretty exhausted, but it is great fun to watch people completely break down and make decisions they would never normally make because they’re up for so long and are so out of it.

At our most recent one, there were quite a few people slumped over the games trying to grab a few minutes’ sleep.”

For some, Dragonslayers and Q-Con have been a career springboard, thanks to development opportunities such as the 20-hour leadership training course committee members now have access to. “At my last birthday party, a former committee member came over and said: ‘Thanks for the leadership training, I just got promoted at work because of it,’” says Ben. Tina Lauro Pollock (Archaeology and Palaeontology), a former President of Dragonslayers and member of the Q-Con organising committee, went on to found Brain and Nerd, a Belfast-based game developer. “In one of the early Q-Cons, there was a competition to design a computer game just using pen and paper,” she says. “I entered and won, and it made me think that I might have potential.”

A TRUE COMMUNITY

Geek culture – D&D, video games, fantasy and anime – is now a vast, global industry, Tina points out: “By joining societies like Dragonslayers and attending or volunteering at events like Q-Con, students can dip their toes in the water and just have a go. When we buy a game and we pay our £60, that money goes somewhere. Video games, after all, are now bigger than movies.”

For others, the society offers a safe space to grow and challenge themselves. Tasha Montgomery (Master’s in Mathematics, 2016; PhD in Mathematics, 2023) is another former Dragonslayers President and Q-Con organising committee member. She remembers how the Tuesday night meet-ups helped her build confidence: “I have autism, so going to those events was daunting. But there was no pressure. I could sit there and play on a handheld console on my own, but still be in a group of people all doing their own thing. That helped build my confidence. Some people might say we are weird nerds. But we’re happy being weird nerds!”

And perhaps that’s why the story of Dragonslayers and Q-Con will run and run: in this community, you can be yourself. “In Dragonslayers, there are a lot of like-minded individuals with similar hobbies to yourself,” explains Joe. “So, it’s good for making friends at uni, which is a new frontier after secondary school. People might have difficulty trying to fit in again. You’ve never met someone before – but when you play Dungeons & Dragons games with them for a while, you become inseparable.”

Tasha recalls the feeling of moving through the crowds in her first-ever Q-Con in 2011: “There are these brief, bonding interactions. Seeing an independent artist who has created art from an anime you love. Seeing cosplayers from an obscure anime that you didn’t think anyone else was watching. It’s a split second of recognition and happiness – a burst of serotonin. It feels like everyone is there for the same thing: you aren’t the odd one out.” n

Some people might say we are weird nerds, but we are happy being weird nerds!

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

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Hands on: Professor Gerry Gormley, James Crosfield, Elia Tutty and Caoimhe McMullan at one of InterSim's simulation wards.

It’s a brilliant sandbox where you learn the things you can’t get from a textbook

ADVENTURES IN...

SIMULATION

The inter-professional simulation centre – InterSim – is giving Queen’s students a vital and unique edge.

Words Greer McNally / Photography Angela Moore

When Professor Gerry Gormley sat in JFK airport in 2017 and sketched out his vision for a crossdisciplinary simulation centre at Queen’s, he had no idea just how accurate his drawing would turn out to be. Or, indeed, the impact it would have on the students who would benefit.

“I just thought: ‘Wow,’” says Pharmacy student Elia Tutty, remembering how awestruck she was on her first visit to the KN Cheung SK Chin InterSim Centre – known, simply, as InterSim. “It’s like going into a hospital ward – both the sounds you can hear and what you see – all your senses are heightened. It all feels so real.”

If it sounds impressive, it’s because it is.

A safe, immersive environment, InterSim enables medical, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and midwifery students to participate in simulations that prepare them for a real-world workplace.

It means that when they begin their healthcare careers, they are ready to hit the ground running.

Before a single brick was laid, the team spent nearly three years getting the needs right – and they didn’t just visit other simulation facilities, they also considered theatrical theatres too. “We had to remember that this is a performance space to enable the best of learning,” explains Professor Gormley, Chair in Simulation and Clinical Skills, and Interim Director of InterSim. “For us, it’s not just about the tech – though ours is cutting edge – it’s also about how we teach our students. InterSim takes their development to the next level.”

Traditionally, simulation has been used in specialities such as emergency medicine and anaesthetics, but InterSim is also a space for a range of healthcare areas, including mental health, palliative and primary care. Fifth Year medical student James Crosfield believes being able to work with students from other disciplines is what makes InterSim so special.

“It’s a brilliant sandbox where you learn the things you can’t get from a textbook,” says James.

“It’s not like being in hospital with five seasoned veterans working away and you’re just watching.

At InterSim you’re at the centre of it – giving the instructions and communicating with people who may go on to be your future colleagues.

That’s a very hard thing to learn without doing it – and it’s even harder to do in a real environment when the stakes are so high.”

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

For Jade Flaherty, a Third Year Nursing student, InterSim has also boosted her self-confidence.

On a recent A&E placement, Jade was part of a standby call for a trauma response. “I got so nervous because I didn’t know how unwell or injured the patient would be. But I was able to contribute to the best of my abilities because InterSim simulation had helped build my confidence. I could see for the first time why Professor Gormley had described how we interact together as a dance – and see how the different disciplines worked together in practice.”

For Elia, that inter-professional interaction is also a key driver. When she graduates in 2026, she will be one of the first wave of pharmacists with new prescribing powers. “To get that experience of working alongside nursing and medical students, and having the opportunity to raise awareness of our new prescribing ability, is a way of transforming the healthcare system in years to come. If we have that best practice of working together at undergrad level, it will translate into the working world when we graduate.”

All three students’ real-world practice will be informed by their InterSim experiences. In fact, James can’t imagine graduating now without it. “It would be like doing a sky dive without practising first,” he says.

Though Professor Gormley’s original drawing of the centre turned out to be incredibly accurate – the learning conversation suites, the simulated participant rooms, and the “cave” (a highly immersive virtual environment) – if he were to pick up another piece of paper to sketch the future, what would he draw this time? Not the building.

“The next big step will be to develop our educators and nurture the next generation of simulation academics – InterSim Fellows, healthcare professionals who can take time out of their training or practice to work with the team for a year,” he explains. They will be trained in the discipline of simulation and grow their skills to help sustain the facility into the future.

Because what InterSim understands better than anything is that its power is its people.

“After all, education doesn’t change the world,” says Professor Gormley, “it changes the people that change the world. So, here we create the conditions for people to do just that.” n

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THE POWER OF PHILANTHROPY ALUMNI LIFE

Truly life-changing: the Queen’s Foundation ensures your generous donations are put to the very best use.

Words Lucy Jolin / Illustration Klawe Rzechy

W

hen Anne-Frances McCrea (Zoology, Third Year) was still in primary school, her grandad brought her some old secondary school science textbooks and she devoured them. With legendary conservationist and TV presenter Steve Irwin as her idol, she dreamed of becoming a vet. So why was she considering leaving school after her GCSEs? “I am from a single parent household and was the main carer for my mother and my brother from a very young age,” Anne-Frances explains. “I thought leaving school made sense for me to bring more money into our home but my family said no. They said I’d worked too hard to stop now so we decided I would keep going and see what happened.”

Anne-Frances did keep going. And while she was working towards her A-levels, Queen’s Outreach Officer Ted Jensen visited her school to talk about Queen’s Pathway Opportunity Programme, which is designed to remove barriers to higher education. She applied – and was accepted: “I’d often walked past Queen’s and thought it was beautiful. But it never crossed my mind that I could go there.

“I received a £1,000 Pathway bursary which means I don’t have to take out so many loans, or work a part-time job. It means I can, instead, focus on my studies.” Right now, Anne-Frances is working on conservation genetics, which tracks how animals are evolving and adapting in the natural world: “The skills I’m learning will equip me to work with DNA in a wide variety of roles.”

Left to right: Georgina Copty, Philip Osoba, Keelin Stewart and Anne-Frances McCrea.

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QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

SHAPING A BETTER WORLD

TOP 150 in the World for Research Quality Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024

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The life-changing Pathway Bursary is just one of many projects supported by the Queen’s Foundation. “The Foundation is one of the key ingredients at Queen’s,” says Board member Georgina Copty. “We want everyone to know that the Foundation is here to make Queen’s, Belfast and Northern Ireland an even better place.”

Established in 1999, and celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, it’s the Foundation’s job to raise money for the vital work Queen’s does. That’s everything from big capital projects, such as creating the new Seamus Heaney Centre, to funding pioneering medical research and scholarships. Smaller initiatives matter too – the Foundation also runs the Queen’s Annual Fund, which supports projects enhancing the student experience including sports, societies and community enterprises.

Philanthropy helps support elite athletes at Queen’s but also supports services that allow all students to enjoy a healthy balance of work and play.

Queen’s medical student and fitness enthusiast, Philip Osoba, says support for sport at university is crucial: “It’s so good to know that sport can get the support it needs to buy equipment and take part in competitions, meaning students can take a break from their studies to get some well-earned exercise and head space.

“Sport has definitely been useful in relieving stress from my course and, if more funding is delivered to similar programmes, I’m sure it will help other students.”

Keelin Stewart (English Literature, 2015) has been a supporter of the Annual Fund from her undergraduate days. She was inspired by her time as a student caller, ringing Queen’s graduates to chat to them about what the Fund is and what it does: “It was great fun talking to people from the Queen’s community and raising money for some fantastic projects, including Mind Your Mood, a campaign to improve student mental health, and a drive to put life-saving defibrillators in the University’s sports halls.”

At first, Keelin donated a small amount once a quarter: these days, she donates £25 a month. “That’s the equivalent of buying one coffee a week,” Keelin explains. Why has she chosen Queen’s?

“There are so many things that the Fund helps with, I don’t feel like I’m giving to just one charity. I know the money will go to all kinds of good causes. And when you donate, you pay it forward.

Perhaps you’ll donate and 10 years later, that donation will benefit your child or grandchild.”

Of course, philanthropy has been part of Queen’s DNA right from the start: “Queen’s has always fostered fundamental values – the importance of scholarships and the importance of philanthropy,” Georgina explains. “Both Riddel Hall and Whitla Hall are named after major donors. Both those names are synonymous with the University: philanthropy is at Queen’s core.”

Philanthropy is hugely important to Georgina and her family, too: as well as being a Foundation board member, she is also a donor. In 2020, she and her husband, Chris McDowell (Engineering, 1992), set up the Queen’s Copty Scholarship, which is awarded annually. It supports a postgraduate student from Palestine who would otherwise not be able to study at Queen’s due to financial limitations.

“We believe in the power of education to change lives,” says Georgina. “So we support initiatives that are aligned with that value. Queen’s worked closely with us. They listened, heard and implemented our vision. There are some amazing universities out there, but not all of them have the values that Queen’s embodies.”

Anne-Frances, through her own hard work and the help and support of the Foundation, has changed the course of her life.

“One of the most brilliant things you can do for Belfast and Northern Ireland is to make sure kids here, who don’t have many opportunities, are enriched and uplifted and shown they can go on and further enrich their own communities and workplaces,” she says. “Doing this is truly, honestly, life-changing.” n

 To make a donation, visit alumni.qub.ac.uk/make-a-gift-to-queens QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

“ One of the most brilliant things you can do for Belfast and Northern Ireland is to make sure kids here are enriched and uplifted Anne-Frances McCrea

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WORK IT OUT RECREATION

It’s just a hop, skip and a jump from the earliest days of Queen’s sport to today’s active student experience.

Photography Angela Moore

Whether on land or on water, on the track, the pitch and everything in between, sport and exercise have been an integral part of the Queen’s student experience since its very foundation. Today there are opportunities for everyone at every level – from Queen’s Sport and Active Campus to the very best of our elite athlete programme and Performance Pathway academies. And we’re proud of our state of the art facilities at the Physical Education Centre, and the outdoor facilities at Upper Malone, where champions have been made, trophies won and accolades heaped onto thousands of students.

The Trampoline Club – here recreating an archive shot from the Gymnastics club taken in 1917 – is just one of more than 200 sports clubs and societies that today offer Queen’s students the chance to stay fit and active, and make new friends along the way.

 Have an image you’d like to be recreated?

Send your suggestions to alumni@qub.ac.uk

Far left: Queen’s Gymnastics Club in 1917, posing behind the old medical block which has now been replaced by the Administration Building.

Left (from left to right): Members of Queen’s Trampoline Club: Hazel McMorrow, Anton Corr, Chloe Patterson, Patrick D’arcy, Leah McCarter, Deivydas Sakys, Emily O’Neill, Séan Fitzgerald and Ailbhe Mullen.

QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

47

NOW YOU’RE TALKING...

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Jesselyn Angky chats about her happy place, her study aid secrets and being recognised on the streets of Belfast.

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PREPARING FOR MY DAY

My faith is a big part of my life in Belfast. I normally start each day with my devotion, which means I pray for a couple of minutes and then read the Bible in my app. It really helps me, as it encourages me to self-reflect. After that I normally listen to worship songs. They are really joyful and prepare me for the day ahead. Then it’s a simple breakfast of cereal and off to lectures before I sit down to study. You’ll often find me in my student accommodation with my nose in a book and a delicious matcha latte from the Trait coffee shop at College Square East.

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MINDFULNESS IN THE CITY

Belfast is an amazing city that always surprises me. I’m on the go a lot and, if I’m not studying, I’ll be playing badminton with friends, practising traditional Indonesian dance or trying my hand at table tennis, so I try to prioritise time to decompress.

To do that I find a quiet spot to do a bit of self-healing. My favourite places are Titanic Quarter in front of the ships and the seats in Victoria Square after dark. I go there at night, put my headphones on and take it all in.

There’s a real peacefulness in doing nothing in those moments.

The world keeps moving around you and the lights shine above.

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PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

I was here in 2020 on the INTO Queen’s pathway before I started my Actuarial Science degree. But halfway through, Covid hit, and I had to go home.

I had such FOMO when my first year started. All the people I’d met were here making friends and I was in front of a computer.

It was hard. But then I joined the Queen’s Student Managed Fund.

I was given the opportunity to manage university investments, create equity reports and make recommendations to either buy, sell or hold assets. I made friends and put the knowledge I was gaining in my degree to work. It was so empowering.

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GETTING THE LOWDOWN

I work with the University to help people discover what it’s like to attend Queen’s – I have my own YouTube channel and make day-in-the-life videos, looking at what to do, where you can eat (Orto Pizza is my favourite!), even exploring the best supermarkets to shop on a budget. It’s not easy being the new person, far from family.

I want them to know that Belfast is home for them as well. Giving people an idea of what it’s like here brings me a lot of happiness. I hope I make students feel like they know someone from here before they arrive.

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THE NEXT CHAPTER

I’ve always loved numbers.

At school I thought I’d become an accountant, and then when I was 16, I discovered actuarial science – it’s a relatively new field in Indonesia. When I started researching where to study, I knew it had to be Queen’s.

The management degrees are so well thought of and the opportunities are fantastic.

I’ve completed a placement at Deloitte and now have a part-time role at ISIO, the pensions advisory business.

It’s a challenging time right now and I can’t wait to qualify and start working full time to start helping people.

OUR ALUMNI Check out Jesselyn (Actuarial Science and Risk Management, Final Year) on YouTube at youtube.com/@JesselynAnastasya QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / SUMMER 2024

Words: Greer McNally. Titanic Quarter Photo: CFC Media

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SHAPING A BETTER WORLD

Top 10 in the UK for career prospects after 15 months Guardian University Guide 2024

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QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY BELFAST / LANYON MAGAZINE

WRITE HISTORY, NOT JUST YOUR WILL.

By leaving a gift in your will to Queen’s University, your legacy will continue long after you’re gone.

You will help fund research and innovation so we can meet the biggest challenges facing our society, build a stronger economy, and enable the next generation to thrive.

Your gift, no matter how large or small, will help us make a real difference.

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ISSUE 03

Scan the QR code, visit go.qub.ac.uk/legacy-gifts or contact l.carey@qub.ac.uk for more information.