Campus News
Design a Tea Towel for Harlaxton College
Here is your chance to design a tea towel for Harlaxton College! The winning prize will be a
£25 Harlaxton Boutique voucher. The design of the tea towel must be in a single color and appeal to a wide market. Submit your entry for the Tea Towel Competition to Harlaxton College Reception by the 23rd of May, marked for the attention of Anne Hollick. Please print your name and contact details on the back. Everyone at Harlaxton is excited to see your designs!
Harlaxton College Funded Research
Every semester Harlaxton College supports several honors students' research through a variety of grants. Harlaxton student, Jamie Durbin, is researching how the state of medicine has changed in England from 1100-1600. With part of her grant Jamie traveled to The Science Museum of London and visited an exhibit on the history of medicine.
Academics
British Studies Professor Invited to Act as an Associate Editor
Dr. Amber Pouliot, a Teaching Fellow in British Studies, has been with Harlaxton College since Fall of 2015. Dr. Pouliot moved to the United Kingdom to attend the University of Leeds where she was awarded her MA in Victorian Literature and her PhD. Her doctoral thesis focused on the cultural significance of the Brontës from the middle of the nineteenth century to the end of the interwar period.
Congratulations to Dr. Pouliot who has been invited by Professor Deborah Logan of Western Kentucky University to act as an associate editor for the Victorians Journal. This special issue will discuss Charlotte Brontë and coincide with the bicentenary of her birth. Amber has also been commissioned by Cambridge University Press to contribute five articles to The Cambridge Guide to the Eighteenth-Century Novel, 1660-1820 on the eighteenth-century writer, actor, and theatrical manager, Henry Siddons.
Students Explore the History of Sherwood Forest
Dr. Cris Hochwender, a visiting faculty member from the University of Evansville, received his bachelor's degree from Cornell College and completed his PhD in biology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Dr. Hochwender has taught courses in the Department of Biology at the University of Evansville for the last 15 years. This semester at Harlaxton College, Dr. Hochwender is teaching a variety of biology courses including the Fundamentals of Biology, the Fundamentals of Environmental science, and Evolution.
Students from Dr. Hochwender's Fundamentals of Biology class explored Sherwood Forest. While the forest is known for being a refuge for tree diversity, it is also know for the Major Oak, which is a tree anywhere between 800 to 1,000 years old. Students were tasked with the challenge of discovering different trophic levels, species, and structural components of the forest.
Connecting Courses: Sherwood Forest
Dr. Kristie Hochwender's Golden Age of Children's Literature class also went to Sherwood Forest for their literary pilgrimage assignment. The course read parts of Howard Pyle's The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. Pyle was an American author who had never been to England, but re-framed legends and ballads about Robin Hood as a children's novel. The students in Dr. Hochwender's class were assigned to visit a place that is associated with a book they are reading in class, many of them chose Sherwood Forest.
Travel
Stratford-upon-Avon
Students and faculty ventured to Stratford-upon-Avon for a day trip. They were able to see where William Shakespeare was born, educated, and married. They visited various properties including Shakespeare's birthplace, Hall's Croft, which is the home of William Shakespeare's daughter, and Anne Hathaway's Cottage and Garden. Stratford is also known for the world renowned Royal Shakespeare Company, which is where the faculty and students attended en evening performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Lake District
The Lake District trip is one of the most popular college-organized trips of the semester. The students stay in the beautiful town of Ambleside, which is located at the top of Lake Windermere. They had the option to partake in a variety of college-organized activities including Ghyll Scrambling and Canoeing. Many students also hiked trails along Lake Windermere, went zip-lining and mountain biking, and visited Grasmere for the town's famous gingerbread.
Second Long Weekend Trips
During the second long weekend there were two college-organized trips to Paris and Barcelona. During these trips the students had three free days to visit historical landmarks and learn about the cities' culture.
Local Travel
Harlaxton College offers subsidized local excursions that are integrated with students' course work. Throughout the month of March there were many local excursions where students were able to experience English culture. These included day-trips to Liverpool, Newark-on-Trent, Newstead Abbey, Sherwood Forest, and Woolsthorpe Manor.
The Manor
Honors Presentations
British Studies honors students created posters on topics of their choosing that related to British Studies and presented them to faculty and peers in the Great Hall. Many students chose topics that in some way related to their field of study which allowed the students to incorporate what they have learned from past courses at their home institutions into their British Studies course.
Afternoon High Tea
Faculty and students enjoyed afternoon high tea in the Great Hall. Along with tea they had cucumber sandwiches and a variety of cakes. The afternoon tea was Brontë themed and included several performances from students who are part of Harlaxton College's Harlaxton Players Committee.
The Community
Magna Carta Replica
Harlaxton College recently received a replica copy of Magna Carta and the Great Seal of King John. The exhibit was made possible by Sarah Ormrod, the first Ridgway Scholar who studied at the University of Evansville in 1982-1983, and her partner, Magnus, who donated Magna Carta replica and The Great Seal of King John to Harlaxton College. Magnus created the wax replica of The Great Seal of King John, which is an exact copy of the seal housed in the National Archives London. A special thanks to Barrie Grace, the calligrapher for the King John Seal text, Dr. David Green for the text written, and to professor Kristina Arnold's Gallery & Museum Studies class, who accepted the challenge of developing the best way to display our new artifacts. The students located and assessed potential installation sites around the manor, polled all of campus to establish an overall 'favorite' location, researched and wrote object labels, and worked with the Harlaxton staff to assist with installation.
British Studies Field Trip: The Workhouse, Southwell
Students visited The Workhouse in Southwell for their second British Studies field trip of the semester. The Workhouse is one of the most complete 19th century workhouses in existence and it gave the students an insight into how the Victorian society tackled poverty. The students spent the afternoon learning about Harlaxton Manor and how it compares to The Workhouse and other manors around the area. This allowed them to see how manors have varied over the years.
