UNIVERSITY Campus Suffolk (UCS) is beginning to take shape with the appointment of new staff.A personnel manager has now been taken on, who has been seconded from the University of Essex to help make the dream a reality,Christine Bartram will work two days a week for one year from the UCS project office in Felaw Maltings, in Ipswich.

UNIVERSITY Campus Suffolk (UCS) is beginning to take shape with the appointment of new staff.

A personnel manager has now been taken on, who has been seconded from the University of Essex to help make the dream a reality,

Christine Bartram will work two days a week for one year from the UCS project office in Felaw Maltings, in Ipswich.

Mrs Bartram, 54 said: “UCS is a very exciting project and a brand new organisation. We need to set up all those terms and conditions, contracts, policies and procedures we need to employ staff.”

Due to take about 300 staff from Suffolk College in August 2007, UCS is set to open to the first students in September 2007.

Mrs Bartram said: “We will have a highly qualified staff in place when UCS opens. It will be a challenge but it is also going to be an interesting project to be involved with.”

Originally from Derbyshire the grandmother of three lives in Great Oakley near Harwich. She has worked at the University of Essex for 23 years.

She said: “I studied in Ipswich at Suffolk College when I took my Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development qualifications. I then took a degree with the Open University.”

With a particular interest in regional growth of the university, Mrs Bartram's secondment goes hand in hand with her work at the University of Essex's Southend Campus.

She said: “Personnel is a fast changing and stimulating environment. I am looking forward to the year ahead.”

One of the largest schemes of its kind in the UK, University Campus Suffolk (UCS) is expected to cost

£150million over the next ten years.

UCS was handed a £15 million kick-start in February by the Higher Education Funding Council For England (HEFCE).

Land has already been set aside for the project and UCS, plus a new Suffolk College, will create an 'education quarter' stretching from Rope Walk to the Ipswich Waterfront.

A partnership lead by the universities of East Anglia and Essex, the UCS project is supported by Suffolk County Council, Ipswich Borough Council and the East of England Development Agency (EEDA). There will also be substantial private sector investment in the scheme.

Weblinks www.ucs.ac.uk

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