Teaching-PEur

John Venables: Physics with European Studies

Introduction and Summary

In October 1977, Valerie Scholes arrived in Sussex to study a new degree: Physics with European Studies (PEur).

This was to be a 4-year degree, with the third year spent abroad, studying her subject (Physics) in her chosen language (German). Thus the Science and European Studies program had it's first student.

As of 1987-1988, we had more than 130 students in similar 4-year courses in Chemistry (CEur, from 1978 with David Walton), Mathematics, and Mathematics with Statistics (MEur and MSEur, from 1979, with James Hirschfeld) and Biology (BEur, from 1979 with several faculty). Engineering was added later.

This important development came about in an interesting way, and I plan to write about this topic based on articles and internal Sussex Reports [1, 2] that I wrote with David Walton, David Smith (Chemistry) and James Hirschfeld (Mathematics) in the late Eighties. In my Professorial Lecture [3], I was able to highlight both my Electron Microscopy group research and the Science and European Studies program. These two topics are much more connected than might at first appear, and were a perfect example of the interaction between research and teaching, involving Exchange schemes with European Universities where Sussex faculty were well-known through research collaboration.  

It will be excellent if early PEur students in particular can describe their experiences and recollections of an exciting period in their lives, and I look forward to reading them.

References

1. Scientists and Good Europeans, in University of Sussex Annual Report 1988, pages 14-15 (John Venables)

2. The First ten years of BScEur. Internal University of Sussex Report (1988) 1-25 (J.A. Venables, J.D. Smith and J.W.P. Hirschfeld).

3. Internationalism in Science. Professorial Lecture, University of Sussex (22nd June 1992) 1-22 (J.A. Venables)