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Dr Sarah Bate on face blindness in national newspapers

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Dr Sarah Bate, from the Centre for Processing Facial Disorders at Bournemouth University, was featured in articles in the Daily Mail, The Sun and The Mirror about two sisters with prosopagnosia.

The condition, more commonly known as face blindness, means that people are unable to recognise faces – in severe cases, even their own or the people closest to them.

The articles focus on sisters Donna Jones and Victoria Wardley, from Yorkshire, who both have prosopagnosia.

The condition means that they are unable to recognise each other or their own reflections in the mirror. The sisters were only diagnosed by their family doctor a few years ago.

Dr Bate, who also lectures in psychology and is currently testing more than 700 people as part of her research into prosopagnosia, said: “Sometimes the condition appears to run in families, and often people report other first-degree relatives who also appear to be poor with faces.

‘Recent estimates suggest as many as 2 per cent of the population (that’s one in 50 people) have a degree of face blindness, yet public awareness of the condition remains low.”

Although the condition can be caused by a neurological trauma, Dr Bate said it is more likely that people are born with it.

She said: “‘Prosopagnosia or face blindness is a cognitive condition characterised by a selective impairment in face recognition.

‘Very rarely some people acquire the condition following neurological trauma, but we’ve recently become aware that many more people have a developmental form of prosopagnosia.

‘These people have never suffered any neurological damage, and appear to have simply failed to develop the visual mechanisms that are required for face processing.”

The sisters featured in the article say that they have always found it difficult to remember and recognise faces.

Mrs Wardley said: ‘When I see someone’s face it’s like tunnel vision. I can make out an eye or a nose, but when I try and look at a whole face it just doesn’t work.

‘It’s like a blank canvas on someone’s head. People who I’ve known for years will come up to me in the street, but until they introduce themselves I have no idea who they are.

“‘I’m not really sure what I look like, and I couldn’t describe my husband to you, either.”

Ms Jones added that it was a “relief” when she was diagnosed with the condition:

“I’d always thought I just wasn’t paying enough attention to people, so in a way it was a relief to know that something was wrong.

‘I’ve had incidents where I’ve gone up to men in supermarkets thinking they were my partner, only to realise I’d grabbed hold of the wrong man!

“I even find it hard to pick out my daughter from a crowd. I feel so guilty sometimes – I should know what my own child looks like – but I just find it impossible.”

You can read the article on the Daily Mail website.

BU lecturer meets HRH Duchess of Cornwall

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A lecturer from Bournemouth University met with HRH Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, as part of her new role as an ambassador for the National Osteoporosis Society.

Jo Hawkes, associate lecturer in Sport and Coaching Science in BU’s School of Tourism, has become a Chance to Shine Ambassador for the charity – helping to reach out to schoolchildren about exercise and healthy lifestyles, as part of a collaboration with the England Cricket Foundation.

Jo is currently working on PhD research looking into osteoporosis in pre–menopausal women. The condition makes bones fragile and prone to breakages.

She was invited to Clarence House last Thursday ahead of World Osteoporosis Day, which took place on October 20.

Jo discussed her research and experiences with the Duchess of Cornwall herself.

“It was an amazing day,” Jo said.

“You could tell instantly that HRH was passionate about the cause, understandably so as her mother had died of the condition.

“She was incredibly well informed on the latest research and took great care in asking about each person’s experiences and was genuinely concerned about increasing awareness of the condition.”

The Duchess of Cornwall is president of the National Osteoporosis Society, and Jo attended Clarence House with other guests who have experienced fragility bone fractures.

The charity is taking part in the Unbreakable Embrace campaign, established by the International Osteoporosis Foundation to demonstrate an unbreakable chain of support for people with osteoporosis.

Jo, and other guests, joined with the Duchess of Cornwall, to have a photo taken as part of the campaign.

Jo added: “With a cracking sense of humour, HRH was an absolute pleasure to meet.

“We discussed my experiences, the silent premenopausal epidemic which is building and, more specifically, my PhD research – which provides a patient voice to the previously biomedical and quantitatively dominant research on the condition.”

BU Journalism student wins top web award from industry body

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A Master’s student in Multimedia Journalism at Bournemouth University has won an industry award for creating the best website for the fifth year running.

Michelle Browne won the award for Website of the Year from the Broadcast Journalism Training Council (BTJC), an industry body which accredits the course.

It is the fifth year in a row that a student from the BU course has won the award – an unrivalled record.

Michelle, 24, who has just graduated with a distinction from the MA Multimedia Journalism course, created the website – called Ireland’s Missing Generation – as part of her university coursework.

The site is a journalistic investigation into the impact increased unemployment and emigration is having on communities across Ireland, and features videos and audio footage, alongside written articles and interactive graphs.

Michelle, who is originally from County Clare in Ireland, received her award from ITV news anchor Alistair Stewart, at a ceremony in Winchester on October 9.

She said: “I was delighted to win such a prestigious award. A lot of hard work went into creating the website, and it was really nice to have that acknowledged by the judges.

“It was an honour to meet Alastair Stewart and receive the award from him.”

The website took Michelle around three months to create, and judges for the BJTC awards described it as “an innovative idea that lets the subject breathe” and a “tremendous achievement” with “layer upon layer of research.”

Michelle said: “I wanted to fully represent the impact emigration has had on Ireland and its citizens, so I spent a month researching the topic thoroughly and identifying interviewees, and began to make contact with contributors and promote the project on Twitter and Facebook.”

Michelle spoke both to Irish emigrants living abroad and the communities they left behind, and interviewed politicians and economists about their views on the issues.

“I flew to Ireland for two weeks to carry out interviews and film footage,” she said. “Working to such a tight deadline was quite stressful.”

Michelle now lives in London and works as a social media manager for digital marketing agency RocketMill.

She said she learnt a lot while doing the MA Multimedia Journalism course at Bournemouth University.

“The course offered me the opportunity to learn a wide variety of skills – I wanted to be multi-skilled. “The course is also intensely practical and accredited by the BJTC, which really appealed to me.”

She added: “The website was the first pieces of work where I drew on all the skills I had learned, everything multimedia.

“It was a great way to end the course, and to showcase everything I had learned,”

Visit Michelle’s website

BU students find out more about volunteering

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Students at Bournemouth University found out more about the volunteering opportunities available to them at a special fair on Tuesday.

The Volunteer Fair, organised by BU’s students’ union (SUBU), brought together students and charities who need their help.

These ranged from the National Trust to the Alzheimer’s Society and local charities like Nightstop Dorset, which supports young homeless people.

Among the charities which had stands at the Volunteer Fair, which took place in Kimmeridge House, was head and neck cancer support group About Face.

The Poole-based charity supports people from across the south and has been working with student volunteers from BU for the last three years.

Executive director of the charity, Ian Catley, said that students had helped out with events and large public surveys, and had made a big difference.

“Students were very involved in our asking over 2,100 people whether they had been to the dentist in the last 12 months, and analysing the statistics,” he said.

“We do have a volunteer group but it is so much more interesting to have a cross-section of age groups and for young men and women – which students usually are – to be involved in that. It also helps to get the message across to people of different age groups.”

He added that he, and the venues the charity had worked at, had been impressed with the hard work and attitude of the student volunteers.

“The courtesy that was shown by many of the students was remarked upon by a number of the venues,” he said

“When we’ve done mouth cancer awareness events, the venues been writing to us and emailing us and saying the students from Bournemouth University were tremendous on this particular project, and we found the same.”

Among the student volunteers urging others to get involved at the fair was second year law student Lauren Bertie.

She started volunteering at secondary school, and was pleased to be able to continue when she got to university.

“You gain a lot,” she said. “You meet a lot of people and you get to participate in many different events so it’s a very good thing to do.

“It shows that you’ve gone that extra mile to put a little bit more effort in in your spare time, and you’re a little bit more than just the average student.”

Second year accounting and finance student Mark Matthews was one of the students looking at volunteering opportunities available at the fair.

He said he wanted to get more involved with the community.

“I’m hoping to help more, do more things and just get a bit more active and meet new people really.

“I want to give something back while I still can and while I’ve got the free time to do it and also gain experience of different people, different cultures and just see people’s lives from different points of view.”

Lexi Browning, volunteer coordinator for SUBU, said the volunteer fair had been really successful, and that volunteering activities organised by the students’ union were already fully booked.

She added that students made ideal volunteers because they had lots of “spare time, energy, enthusiasm and ideas” and that students themselves could get a lot out of the experience.

“If you’re a first year, it’s a really good way of meeting new people and it’s a fantastic way of getting something on your CV, making you look a little bit different from the other students when you leave university.”

To find out more about the volunteering opportunities available at Bournemouth University visit ‘thehub’ website or visit SUBU’s offices (above Dylan’s Bar) between 9am and 5pm.

BU student wins volunteer award for work at London Youth Games

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A Bournemouth University student has been named Volunteer of the Year, for work she did at the London Youth Games.

Third year BA (Hons) Communications and Media student Roseanne Blaze was presented with the award by British judo star Gemma Gibbons, who won a silver medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Roseanne, 21, who is from Greenwich but lives in Lansdowne while studying, was chosen from more than 400 volunteers to win the accolade of London Youth Games GamesForce Volunteer of the Year (ages 14-25).

She said: “I was shocked. My mum had to tell me to get up and go get my award because it didn’t actually register that they had just called my name.

“I keep thinking about all the other volunteers that I had worked with at the Games and kept trying to work out why it was me that got the award. Everyone worked so hard at all of the events.”

The London Youth Games are Europe’s largest annual youth sports event, and qualifiers run from November to June, with finals taking place in July at the National Sports Centre in Crystal Palace.

The games are open to young people from across the 32 boroughs of London, and more than 104,000 people took part in this year’s games.

Roseanne was a volunteer team leader, juggling numerous responsibilities – including making sure volunteers and sports officials were all happy, playing a major part in the opening and closing ceremonies, and collating results and working out which teams would be going to the finals.

She said: “I am quite a sporty person but due to injury I cannot compete anymore so I jumped at the chance to help run Europe’s largest annual youth sports event.

“For my second event I was running the disabled athletics which was a truly inspirational day. I was doing similar jobs to before but was also running medal ceremonies and had the privilege of making sure Paralympian David Weir was OK throughout the day.”

Roseanne, who also volunteers while at university, added: “I loved volunteering and really enjoyed myself at the games. I have already signed up to be a team leader at the Games next year.”

She was one of three London Youth Games volunteers shortlisted for the award, and was announced as winner at an awards ceremony at Lord’s Cricket Ground on October 9.

Among Olympic stars at the ceremony were cyclist Joanne Rowsell, who was part of the women’s team pursuit trio who broke the world record and won the gold medal, and rower Naomi Riches who was part of the victorious mixed coxed fours team at the Paralympics.

Roseanne said: “It was amazing and such an honour to meet all these Olympic stars.

“All of the athletes that were there made time to speak with everyone and didn’t mind posing for photos and having a chat.

“It was quite funny because some of the athletes I had met before when running events and what was really nice was that they remembered me.”

Bournemouth University shortlisted for prestigious games award

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Bournemouth University has been shortlisted for a prestigious games industry award.

BU is up for the university award in the TIGA Games Industry Awards 2012, which take place in Bath on 1st November.

TIGA is the trade body for the UK games industry, and the awards celebrate and honour the best of the industry.

Dr Christos Gatzidis, Creative Technology Framework Leader at BU, said: “It is great to see the hard work we are putting in the BSc in Games Technology at the School of Design, Engineering and Computing and the corresponding MSc rewarded.

“We have been TIGA members for the last 2 years now and are very much looking forward to the awards night on the 1st of November.”

TIGA Chairman Jason Kingsley said: “At TIGA we aim to champion and strengthen the UK games industry as a whole.

“The TIGA Awards celebrate excellence in our ever changing industry and encourage future talent.”

Poem inspired by battlefield trip wins Thomas Hardy Society prize

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A poem written by a BU student inspired by visiting the First World War battlefields has won a creative writing prize.

BA (Hons) English student Sarah Wall won the Thomas Hardy Society prize for the best piece of creative writing from a first year student on the course.

She received a certificate and £125 from the society for her poem, Here We Stand – We Are the Dead.

Sarah, 19, who is from Farnborough and lives in Lansdowne while at BU, said: “I was delighted to hear I’d won the award, because I was really proud of my poem. “I’m really glad that the judges liked it, because as a piece of war poetry inspired by my trip to the World War I battlefields 4 years ago, it’s something very close to my heart.”

She added: “It was a way of expressing all my feelings about the thousands of graves I saw that day, and the cruelty and futility of war. I believe that writing straight from the heart will always produce the best work, so I’m extremely happy that the judges seemed to feel the same way.”

Poet and writer Thomas Hardy was born in Dorchester, and the creative writing award was established with the Thomas Hardy Society when the BA (Hons) English degree was launched in 2010.

Dr Jim Pope, BA English Programme Coordinator at Bournemouth University, said: “”The Thomas Hardy Society Prize is a lovely symbol of the relationship between Dorset’s literary tradition and the first English degree in the county.

“We are thrilled to be supported by the Hardy Society and we are looking forward to extending that relationship in the coming years for the benefit of our students.”

Here We Stand – We Are the Dead, by Sarah Wall

Here we stand, sunrise, sunfall,
Answ’ring still that timeless call,
Years we watch the shadows lengthen;
Time our hold will only strengthen.

White army of death, cold and still,
Testament to ev’ry kill.
We watch your feet above us tread.
Fear us not; we are the dead.

You cannot know, you did not see
The truth of this Great War, that we
Fought in, died in, loosed such hate.
United now at Heaven’s Gate.

White army of death, see each cross?
Ev’ry one’s another loss.
“Join up now, go quick!” they said,
Pity now, for us, the dead.

They didn’t seem to know or care –
Those who sent the orders there.
Win or lose – it’s all the same
When only broken dolls remain.

White army of death, row on row,
Too late to say ‘we told you so’.
We pledged our hopes, lost faith instead.
No dreams for us – we are the dead.

What was it for? May you decide,
Do not our sacrifice deride,
From our deaths, your path unfolds,
Choose well what your future holds.

White army of death, we could not choose:
We gave all that we had to lose.
Your future’s yet unwrit, unread,
Choose not our fate:

We are the dead.

Mental Health Awareness Week draws to a close

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BU has been working on the ‘Time to Change’ campaign with Dorset Healthcare, Poole Community Mental Health Team, Dorset Mental Health Forum and East Dorset Mental Health Carers’ Forum to deliver a range of events to mark Mental Health Awareness Day.

A number of local charities who support issues surrounding mental health have also been involved in the week.

The final talk in this series, titled ‘What’s in a name; labelling and stigma in mental health’ was expertly delivered on Tuesday 16 October by Dr Ciarán Newell, Consultant Nurse at Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust.

Dr Newell said on the subject, “Stigma isn’t the problem, because it places the blame at the door of those who are stigmatised. Discrimination is the problem. It is the problem of society that discriminates against those with mental health issues. We need to challenge this discrimination and educate in this area. We need to help society to overcome these discrimination issues.”

The talk took place as a part of the ‘Time to Change’ campaign and Dr Newell continued, “Getting behind programmes like Time to Change would be a concrete way to show support for a change away from discrimination of mental health.”

Other events during the awareness week included a beach walk, with the Mayor of Bournemouth Councillor Phil Stanley-Watts, discussion groups and a football tournament. A number of seminars and talks also took place, on subjects such as ‘Dispelling the myths about self-harm’.

Dr James Palfreman-Kay, equality and diversity advisor at Bournemouth University, said, “It is good to get people talking openly about mental health issues at the university and within the wider community. The impact of this week has been illustrated by the number of people attending the events, the pledges that have been made and the positive feedback given.”

There are more events planned this month as Bournemouth University also looks to celebrate Black History Month throughout October.

Cherries star joins students to relaunch project at Meyrick Park

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AFC Bournemouth player Stephen Purches has praised a volunteer project run by BU students which aims to make Meyrick Park safer.

The Cherries defender joined local police officers and student volunteers at the re-launch of the Meyrick Park Conservation Project last Wednesday.

The project is coordinated by Bournemouth University Students’ Union (SUBU), and student volunteers will meet once a week to clear woodland and undergrowth at the park, in a bid to reduce criminal activity, reopen pathways and encourage greater bio-diversity.

It initially ran for six months from October last year, and the project has received funding from Green Goals – a partnership involving AFC Bournemouth, the borough council and other organisations – to enable it to continue.

Stephen was shown around the woodland by police officers for the area, and was told about some of the problems the park had and the work that students had done. He said: “It is brilliant that they are giving up their own time to come down here and clear some of the woodland and it benefits everyone.

“It’s good for the students, it gives Bournemouth University a great name and they are giving up their own time to come down and do a good job for everyone.”

He added: “I have kids and it is going to make the area a lot safer and open it up to everyone. Kids want to go and mess about in the woods and it is just nice to know that you can see them while they are in an open area, rather than going into such dense areas where you don’t quite know what’s going on.”

Alexia Browning, volunteer coordinator for SUBU, said that more than 150 volunteers helped to clear around three acres of undergrowth in the initial six month period.

She said they now hoped to continue the good work.

“It seemed a shame to have made such an impact and not to come back, and the students love doing it,” she said.

“We are clearing out and opening out the park so it is a bit safer for families to use and hopefully enriching the area, encouraging the birds and more plants to come in.”

Sergeant Steve Houston, beat sergeant for the Meyrick and Talbot area, said that the work the students had done clearing undergrowth at Meyrick Park had already made a big difference.

“The BU students have been absolutely fantastic,” he said.

“The work they did last year made the areas they cleared completely safe. It meant that we didn’t have the problems that we have had in the previous two or three years when the bushes have grown. It has made people feel much safer.

“They have made a huge impact and I’m hoping they are going to build on it this year.”

Hospitality awards given in memory of former students

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Hospitality students at BU who have overcome adversity and made the most progress have received awards in memory of previous students who have passed away.

The parents of three former Hospitality students at Bournemouth University, who have since sadly passed away, gave the annual awards to current students in their memories on Friday.

The Mark Phillips Award has been running for the past 16 years, and is given to a student who has overcome adversity.

Mark had Type 1 diabetes, and died in February 1996, aged 22 – just three months after he graduated with a Hospitality Management degree from BU.

His parents, John and Heather Phillips, said that they enjoyed coming to the university and meeting the students who won the award.

“It is nice,” said Heather. “We use it now as a celebration.”

John added: “Mark thoroughly enjoyed himself at university. He loved every hour that he spent in Bournemouth, and we wanted to support the university.

“We decided that it would be nice to have an award each year to a student in the School of Tourism, who has overcome personal adversity. It can be anything.”

The winner of this year’s award was unable to make the awards ceremony and lunch, and so was represented by fourth year Hospitality Management student Cara McElroy, who is a hospitality ambassador for the course.

Also at the ceremony were Win and Derek Bristow.

Their son Paul graduated from the Hospitality Management degree in 1996, and was working in the SoHo area of New York.

He had organised a conference event at the World Trade Centre, and was in the North Tower when it was hit on 9/11. He was 27 when he died in the attacks.

The Paul Bristow Award is given to the student who has made the most progress specifically in the Finance subject, and this year was given to Karolina Tarnauskaite, a second year Hospitality Management student, who is from Lithuania.

The 20-year-old said: “I felt really special when I found out I was going to get the award. I like the fact that it isn’t just who has done the best, but has made the best progress over the year.”

Derek said that the award was a fitting tribute to his son.

“When Paul came here, he did what I guess a lot of students do and partied, and struggled in his first year and only just made it. But he pulled his socks in the end and he loved it down here.”

Peter and Mary Tozer have been giving an award in memory of their daughter Karen, for the past 12 years. Karen had cystic fibrosis, and passed away in 2000, aged 20, while doing her second year of a Hospitality degree.

While studying at BU, Karen was awarded the Mark Phillips Award, and her father Peter said he thought it would be nice to do something similar in her memory.

“She really enjoyed it here, even though she had to spend a third of her time in hospital and a third of her time at home. Her lecturer used to call her Little Miss Dynamite and she won the Mark Phillips Award in her first year.

“We just wanted to give something back really.”

Mary added: “It is nice to get together with the other parents and it does make a lot of difference.”

The Karen Tozer Award, which includes book tokens, is given to the group of Hospitality students who put on the best theme and experience in BU staff restaurant The Retreat, as part of their course.

Viktorija Kotova, 21, who is in her fourth year of the Hospitality Management degree, accepted the award on behalf of her group.

One of the 13 members of the group died before the task, and they decided to theme it in his memory.

“We did a menu with his name on and we put donation boxes out for people to give donations in his memory,” said Viktorija.

“We changed the menu as well, so it wasn’t just the normal menu. It is nice to win the award and it has been very nice to sit here and meet the parents.”

Crispin Farbrother, programme leader for hospitality at BU, said the awards made a difference to both the students and the parents.

“For the present students, it is a reward, a motivation and a recognition of excellence, but then it is also a way of recognising past students’ success and for the families, it allows them to continue that relationship.

“Hospitality is a community and that is key to keeping these awards going.”