After three years of exceptional service, Dr Alastair Niven LVO OBE steps down as first Chairman of the IBBC’s Education, Training and Heritage Sector Table on Tuesday 15 November 2016 at the next table meeting, which will be held at The Athenaeum Club. His successor, Professor Christina Slade, Vice-Chancellor of Bath Spa University, has graciously accepted to take up the post at the end of the meeting.

Professor Slade commenced her role as Vice-Chancellor of Bath Spa University, a member of IBBC, in January 2012. Bringing with her a wealth of experience from her former roles as Dean of the Schools of Arts and of Social Sciences at City University London, Dean of Humanities at Macquarie University (2003-8) and Professor of Media Theory at the University of Utrecht, Professor Slade is leading the university through a world-class campus development project, of internationalisation and of public private partnerships.

Trained as a philosopher of logic and language, her research has focussed on issues of the media since 1990. Her monograph, ‘The Real Thing: doing philosophy with media’ (2002) examines the role of reason in the media, while ‘From Migrant to Citizen: testing language, testing culture’, (2010) jointly edited with Martina Möllering, looks at linguistic, legal and philosophical aspects of citizenship testing. Her most recent monograph, ‘Watching Arabic Television in Europe: from diaspora to hybrid citizens’ was published in 2014 by Pivot, an imprint of Palgrave MacMillan.

An appreciation of Dr Niven’s service will be in the next newsletter.