Friday 6th May, 10:00-17:00, Humanities Studio

This interdisciplinary, gymnasium event invites you to participate in spaces and activities designed for intellectual and physical engagement. Experts from the university and local community will be brought together to lead participants in theoretical and practical explorations of ideas surrounding spaces, practices, philosophies, and pedagogies of sport training and exercise.

Provisional Programme

09:30-10:00 – Tea, coffee, and breakfast snack for early arrivals

10:00-10:45 – Introduction to the gymnasium: an exploration of the space and themes

10:45-11:50 – ‘Gymnasia and spaces of training through the ages’ – Zahra Newby (Classics and Anicent History) and Kathryn Woods (History of Medicine)

11:50-12:00 – Break and nutrition

12:00-13:30 – ‘Boys Dancing: A Practical Workshop and Discussion’ – David McKenna (Being Frank)

13:30-14:15 – Lunch (provided)

14:15-16:00 – ‘PE and Pedagogy’ – Phil Gaydon (Philosophy) and Kate Hamer (Centre for Professional Education)

16:00-17:00 – Roundtable and smoothies - facilitated by Jonathan Heron (IATL)

Find out more and register here: https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/activities/events/spp

This event will form the basis for next year's Sport, Philosophy, and Practice module open to all undergraduates: https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/iatl/activities/modules/ugmodules/sportphilosophyandpractice/

If you have any questions please contact Phil Gaydon: P.K.Gaydon@warwick.ac.uk 

The Department of Philosophy is delighted to announce that Dr Alisa Mandrigin, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department has been awarded a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Research Award for 2016 (one of only 29 awards made from a high-calibre field of applications). This scheme provides funding of up to £15,000 to distinguished Early Career Researchers to assist their career development through organising interdisciplinary events for other Early Career Researchers and Alisa’s project will run from April 2016 to March 2017.

Students,

We’re launching a Philosophy photo competition and we’d love you to be involved. We are looking for creative, innovative and intelligent images reflecting the theme ‘What Philosophy means to me’.

We encourage you to be creative as possible – perhaps snapping a selfie with a philosophical statue, or capturing the essence of philosophical debate, the brief is fairly flexible. However, the images must clearly represent Philosophy in some form; all images which meet the brief may be displayed to external audiences without description.

The competition is open to all students – undergrads and postgrads, and each individual can enter as many photos as they wish.

Entry requirements

Resolution: You don’t need to be a professional photographer to enter. The photos could be taken by camera phone or professional camera, it’s totally up to you. But, we do require that these photos are a good enough picture quality for publishing purposes (i.e. that they are not blurry or too light/dark). The photos should also be a good resolution (as high resolution as possible, please!)

Permissions: all entries must be accompanied by the short line below, in the email, acknowledging that you give the Department of Philosophy full permission to use your image:

‘I understand that by submitting this image, I give the Department of Philosophy full permission to use the image as outlined in the entry requirements.’

It is up to you to ensure any necessary permission has been obtained with regard to the subject matter of the photo, e.g., that if a single person is being photographed they are aware of the possible uses of the image, and have given their permission.

Usage: all images submitted which successfully meet the brief and entry requirements, may be used on the Department of Philosophy’s website, and/or in any other appropriate marketing material or channels for the department – e.g. this may include in brochures, posters, social media etc. We’d love to utilise as many of your images as possible. While we can’t promise that we will be able to use them all, we’ll do our best!

Deadline: to be considered, all entries must be received by Thursday 28^th April 2016

Judging: All entries which meet the brief and entry requirements will be judged by an independent panel of judges the following week, based on the most creative, innovative and intelligent interpretations of the theme: ‘What Philosophy means to me’

How to enter: Please send your submissions via email to: PhilosophyMarketing@warwick.ac.uk We suggest that you only send one file at a time. If your file is too large to send via email, please use a Dropbox link or We Transfer to send the file across to us: https://www.wetransfer.com/ You can submit as many images as you like - but they all must meet the above brief and entry requirements.

If you are having trouble submitting your image or you have any questions, please get in touch with us.

Happy snapping!

Best wishes

The Philosophy Marketing Team

A unique opportunity to develop your skills, enhance your CV, share your love of philosophy at Warwick and earn some money!

Job description

We are currently recruiting for a small group of ambassadors to represent the department from those in their 2nd/3rd/4th year and on any of our degree programmes at the upcoming Open Day on the 24th October 2015 and at future events. The rate of pay will be £10 per hour (approx. 4 hours for the Open day on 24th, 12pm-4pm).

Our Student Ambassadors are an important part of our Open Days, helping prospective students get a sense of what it's like to study Philosophy at Warwick and what to expect if they choose to come here. As a student ambassador, you will be expected to talk with prospective students and their parents about the department and your experience of studying philosophy at Warwick, promoting our degree programmes and answering any questions they have to the best of your ability. You will also be asked on occasion to give a short 3-4 minute presentation on your experience of studying philosophy at Warwick. It is essential that our ambassadors project a positive image of the department and the University at all times.

In addition to the 24th October Open Day, we may call on our pool of ambassadors for future open days (including our Spring term post-offer open days) and for some of our widening participation events. If you are not available for the upcoming open day but would like to be considered for future events, you are welcome to still apply. No prior experience is necessary and full training will be provided.

Person Specification

Ideally, you will have the following skills/attributes:

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Professional and approachable
• Evidence of working successfully with others
• Good knowledge of the department and the University
• Good presentation skills

How to apply

Please send a covering letter detailing your experience and why you think you are suited to this role along with an up-to-date CV before 6pm on Thursday 15th October 2015 to k.d.simecek@warwick.ac.uk.

*Please state clearly whether you are available on the 24th October for the next Open Day*

Student Careers and Skills have some useful information on putting together a CV: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/scs/applications/cv/

They also offer helpful advice on how to produce a good covering letter: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/scs/applications/coveringletter/

Thanks to all of our students, recent graduates and staff for our good results in the 2015 National Student Survey (NSS). The NSS is completed by finalists, throughout the UK, and is a key component of league tables published in the media.

We are delighted to announce that we have achieved an overall satisfaction rating of 82 per cent for studying philosophy at Warwick. This was achieved through a 76 per cent response rate.

Other key NSS headlines for philosophy include:

• 94% of respondents said that our staff are good at explaining things (up 3% on previous year)

• 92% said that staff are enthusiastic about what they teach (up 9% on the previous year)

• We have also had significant increases in students saying they received detailed comments on their work (up 14% on the previous year), that they received sufficient advice and support with their studies (up 10%) and that students found that good advice was available to them when they needed to make choices about their studies (up 14%), compared with the 2014 NSS results for the department.

• Philosophy at Warwick ranks in the top ten of the Russell Group in the 2015 NSS in the following areas: 4th for learning resources, 9th for making the subject interesting, and 9th for delivering detailed comments on students' work.

We look forward to working with our excellent community of students and staff to build on these results and continue to make studying philosophy at Warwick thoroughly rewarding for our students. We will work closely with our SSLC to identify further improvements we can make to enhance our students' experience of studying philosophy at Warwick.

Starting in 2015/16, we have a new Director of Student Experience and Progression who will work in partnership with students and staff to improve the experience of our students and to ensure continued improvements to teaching quality, assessment and feedback, and personal development.