An exciting year ahead! By Dr Debbie Bevitt
It’s nearly the start of the new academic year and the School is buzzing as we prepare to welcome our new Stage 1 students – and of course to welcome back our existing students!
We have an exciting year ahead, including a new name for the school and two major building developments which will provide much needed additional study space and specialist facilities for our students.
We have a new name!
From September 2019 the school name is changing to the School of Biomedical, Nutritional and Sport Sciences, to reflect the full range of programmes that we now offer. The original School of Biomedical Sciences was formed more than 10 years ago, bringing together a suite of bioscience programmes previously run by several smaller schools. The school has gone from strength to strength and in 2017 we began a brand new programme in Sport and Exercise Science – one of the first degrees of its type to be run from a medical school in the UK.
In the same year the well-established Food and Human Nutrition programmes joined us from their previous home in the Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering. Sport and Exercise science and Nutrition students now make up about a fifth of the students in the school, with Sport and Exercise science now our second largest programme after Biomedical Sciences. It therefore seemed time to recognise them in the School name!
Sports Centre development
The £16.2m Sports Centre development, a stone’s throw from the Medical School, is nearing completion and we’re looking forward to using these fantastic new facilities in Semester 1.
As well as providing additional sport facilities for all students and performance athletes, the new building has state-of-the art Sports labs. These include an exercise physiology lab, biomechanics lab, gait track and an environmental chamber that lets us simulate altitude, temperature and humidity. We’re looking forward to getting the keys to the new facilities in the next couple of weeks and getting started on some really great sport, exercise and physiology practical classes and student projects.
Dame Margaret Barbour Building
If you pay a visit to the Sports Centre you’ll also see, right next door, the new £34m Dame Margaret Barbour Building, which has shot up over the summer.
This building will house a host of student facilities, including social and quiet study spaces, a lecture theatre, seminar rooms and computer clusters. Importantly for us, it will also include a high-spec teaching kitchen and sensory testing suite to enhance our Nutrition teaching. Construction work is continuing apace and we’re on target to start using these wonderful new spaces by semester 2.
Introducing ….. Susan Lennie (Senior Lecturer in Dietetics)
Also in the pipeline are plans for a new 4 year integrated Masters programme in Dietetics. Ms Susan Lennie joined the school as Senior Lecturer in July and is leading development of this exciting new programme.
Susan is a registered dietitian with extensive experience working in the NHS and leading dietetics teaching and training in higher education. We aim to welcome students onto the programme in September 2020 (subject to approvals).
Watch out for further news on our Facebook & Twitter feeds and future blog posts!