Staff seminar on inter-cultural communicationTo visit a foreign university is exciting and challenging. As university staff we can con-tribute to this experience by increasing our awareness of cultural differences, attitudes, social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication and home-sickness. Click the kalendariet on the EMV site to sign up for the half-day seminar (in Swedish).

Anna-Lisa Rosenberg ScholarshipAccording to the will of late Anna-Lisa Rosenberg, part of her assets finance a yearly revenue in support of research on diseases of the nervous system. Grants of 50 000 - 100 000 sek are to be awarded once a year for one year at a time. Continous sup-port can not be counted on. The money should not be used for travelling or for the applicant’s own salary. Applicants holding a PhD and being in the early stage of their career are prioritized. Projects should preferably be carried out within the neurobiologi-cal field and involve clinical collaboration - having a co-applicant from a clinical section is beneficial. Send application to Anna Appelberg EMV:s kansli Hs 66 BMC F10 no later than Monday December 14th. The application can be in Swedish or English and should contain:

Vacation PlanningIt is soon Christmas and perhaps you plan for vacation? For those who are employed as professors, senior lecturers, “forskarassistent” and PhD students, the vacation will be registered automatically in accordance to the LU collective agreement. All others – in-cluding “forskare” and “biträdande forskare”, will need to apply for vacation in Primula Webb at https://primweb.adm.lu.se/

All employees should take at least 20 days of vacation per year. You are allowed to save up to a maximum of 40 vacation days, but it is not allowed to have saved days left when you retire. Thus it is especially important that those of you approaching retire-ment age have this in mind. If you have any questions concerning vacation planning, please contact Lisette Eklund.

Time to defend2009-12-04 at 13:00 in Segerfalksalen. Tomas Björklund “Gene therapy by enzyme replacement for Parkinson’s Disease - Optimization of contious DOPA delivery and development of a candidate vector for clinical application”.

Info November 2009

© Michiko Mori

“The Form” - an eye-opener in the seminar on intercultural communication.Next seminar: Nov 30th.

Project title• Title, position and working place of applicant • (and co-applicant)Short résumé (“CV”) and publication list of • applicantSpecified project costs• List of other grants awarded • or applied for by the particular project.

Account of any previous grant awarded by • the Anna-Lisa Rosenberg Foundation Project summary of maximum 300 words• Project plan with explicit focus • (not more than 4 pages, including illustrations and references)Go-ahead from animal testing committee•

Siw Medborg is retiring

Photo: Thure Johansson

“My very first job was sugar-beet picking. I’ve harvested and tended to horses, and lived life in the country side. I’ve always tried to keep my feet on the ground. But as a milk-maid I was no good; I let the cow step in the bucket one time too many.”

“As a young girl I was fascinated by medical care. But when I arrived in Lund I found myself drawn into administration. Being organized and orderly was an-other of my talents so I thought, `why not help other people bring structure into their lives?´”

Siw claims she slipped into Lund university on a ba-nana peel: “My first work day at the university was Au-gust first 1966. I had been managing the x-ray archive in the hospital but quit my job and left for England. When I came home a year later I was browsing job ads

in the local newspaper and found a cancer-chromo-some researcher that was looking for a secretary. His name was Professor Albert Levan.”

Albert Levan studied genetics, heredity and cytology. His research led to the discovery that the most com-mon number of human chromosomes is 46.

“At that time people were more formal when address-ing each other”, Siw remembers. “It was “Ms” and “Mrs” and “Professor”. The”du”- reform, when ev-eryone got on first-name basis with each other, came in the seventies.”

“The Medical programme has also changed: I remem-ber when I worked at the Anatomy department the medical students had to know the human body inside out or they immediatly got kicked out; nerves, vessels,

September 3rd, the last regular work day.

the skeleton, muscles, intestines, everything.”

People donated their bodies to the department for educational purposes. “I was responsible for the dona-tion procedure, had contact with the donors them-selves, the relatives and the funeral parlor. It was an absolute necessity for the education, but for historic reasons these courses suffered a bad reputation. In old times murderers, misfortunate homeless or mentally ill people could come in question for dissec-tions. But in my days it has been donors only.”

“I made sure the logistics worked out. We were a reli-able team, from undertaker, to teacher, to janitor. It was very interesting. I learned a lot about listening, respect, humility and humanity. We didn’t advertise and were very discreet and sensitive. Sometimes it could be that the bodies couldn’t be used for one rea-son or another, but we rarely had a shortage.”

“Nowadays powerful software has come to replace a lot of the dissections. My son is an IT-consultant, and together with Tomas Björklund, among others, he was active in implementing this shift.”

“I’ve followed a lot of people through the years, Patrick Brundin that started at Histology department, Tomas Björklund’s father Anders Björklund, Dick Heinegård, Lars-Åke Fransson, Per Belfrage and some of the professors that have passed away, for example Bengt Borgström, and Sven Gardell.”

“I’ve worked in the Genetics department, the Anato-my department, Physics, and Medical Chemistry which was later renamed Cell- and Molecular Biology. Since 1999 I’ve moved 11 times. I think that the university is pretty much back to where it started in the sixties, with centralized department-office functions. The differ-ence is that roles are even more specialized today. ”

Have you ever considered leaving the university? “I applied for a position at Försäkringskassan ( the Swedish Social Ensurance Agency) at one point. Thoughts about leaving came when I felt stuck for some reason or there wasn’t enough going on. I joined the European Management Assistants Network , EUMA, in -86 and since then I’ve felt I’ve satisfied my curiosity about the world outside the university. I got support in personal development through international enterprises and societies. I visited EU. And for a while I was mentor to a Tetra Pak co-worker.”

Siw’s plans for retirement involve getting a dog.

When she started working, it was not uncommon for employees to bring pets to work. “I’m getting at brown labrador. I’ve decided to call him `Balder´.”

“I’m also involved in the Red Cross. The project is national and together with local mu-nicipalities serves to create a network to support care-giving family members. Nursing pa-tients with serious conditions at home, these people take great responsibility for their beloved” Siw says.

Siw’s bicycle stand arrives at BMC.

Preparations all week

When the small milk tetras ran out in the middle of a morning management-group meeting we realized how unprepared we were for Siw retiring.

Luckily, thanks to the Experimental Science Days, Siw has been working to and throw thoughout the autumn. The farewell party was originally scheduled for Sep-tember but was postponed to the end of November.Lisette sent out invitations, Ingegerd came up with the idea of a game show, Gudrun found a template, Anna executed the idea, Eva bought the present, Ludmila provided some music and Angelica agreed to be toast-master. Akademiska hus and Lasse got a very special assignment; to see if they had a spare bike rack.

And, unlikely as it may seem, everyone managed to keep the program a secret from Siw. The only thing we haven’t quite figured out is a new routine for the milk supply...

Siw Medborg the farewell party

The party started at four o clock. Eva Särbring welcomed everyone and invited people to the snacks and a glass of wine. Eva held the first speech. She was followed by Gunilla Westergren-Thorsson. The department office had prepared a special “Who wants to be a penionär” -game show, capitalizing on Siw trivia picked up in the coffee breaks over the years. Siw had to sort out questions like “What’s the most important ingredient in the dish Coq au vin?”, and

“what does the Finnish sentence Mennä ulkoilutta-maan Koiraa mean?” with a little help from “life lines” and the audience. Correct answers didn’t come easy, but that probably had more to do with the gameshow host Lisette and her technician, than with Siw’s an-swers. Finally Siw was allowed to retire and become “pensionär”.

This involved more speaches, flowers and farewell presents. Siw also held a speach herself thanking EMV and former colleagues for the good times.

Anders Malmström thanking Siw for good leadership shooling. Patrik Brundin also said a few words.

Just like Per Belfrage Siw now has her own

bicycle stand.

Bästa Siw, jag har känt Dig i ca 22 år men inte haft förmånen att få arbeta med Dig förrän de sista åren. Du har stött mig i prefek-tjobbet i vårt och torrt. Till en början var det inte så lätt; jag var inte direkt van att få hjälp, utan van vid att göra det mesta själv. Jag vet att du påpekade att jag inte utnyttjade din kompetens fullt ut. Det fick mig att tänka till och lägga om mitt arbetssätt. Det tog sedan inte lång tid förrän vi blev samkörda.

Med korta instruktioner och ibland bara blickar så körde Du igång i ett rasande tempo. Ibland verkar det som du känner alla. Stora delar av ditt nätverk är här idag

Siw har också ett stort kulturellt intresse och det är alltid roligt att prata böcker, film och konst med Dig.

Under sista året har Du organiserat EMV dagarna. Detta är tre tillfällen för att öka samverkan inom in-stitutionen. I detta arbete har Du haft ett stort en-gagemang. Det har varit en stor utmaning att försöka leda alla åt samma håll och att samla ihop trådarna. Det har varit en process av kreativitet, frustration, och skapande som i slutändan blivit mötestill-fällen som varit mycket uppskattade. I arbetet med EMVdagarna har du verkligen varit en

stor tillgång, där har alla dina egenskaper och din livserfarenhet fått blomma ut fullt.

Jag vill slutligen tacka Dig för all denna hjälp och också hjälpen i prefektarbetet. Det har alltid funnits utrymme för att få stöd, att få lite uppmuntran och många glada skratt

Jag och kollegerna på Institutionen vill önska Dig allt gott framöver och lycka till med alla dina framtida projekt, som vi tidigare har hört är ganska många. (Talet är något beskuret.)

Jag har haft förmånen att få arbeta tillsammans med dig de sista fem åren av ditt yrkesverksamma liv. Jag hade träffat dig tidigare i en del olika sammanhang men först när omorganisationen Med-

fak 2005 sjösattes så började vårt samarbete.

Jag minns vårt första möte: Anna Hult-gårdh och jag skulle ha samtal med

alla administratörer och diskutera vad ni ville arbeta med i den nya

organisationen.

Du hade ganska klart för dig vad du ville och att arbeta övergripande för institutionen var en stark önskan från dig.Du hade haft hand om utredningskon-tot på CMB så detta ville du gärna fortsätta med på EMV. Det är en position där man har stor kontroll på pengaflödet in till institutionen!

Sen framkom det ganska snart att Patrik

(som då var prefekt) behövde en administra-

tiv resurs för sitt prefek-tskap. Och denna position

passade dig utmärkt.

Jag tycker det har varit väldigt roligt och stimulerande att få arbeta

tillsammans med dig under dessa år och vad jag mest förundras över är ditt

otroligt starka engagemang för institutionen och för din yrkesroll. Man skulle kanske kunna tro

du skulle varva ner lite när pensionen närmade sig men det gör verkligen inte du.

Jag tror du har arbetat 43 år inom universitetet och under denna tid har du skaffat dig ett väldigt stort kontaktnät och det ser vi här idag hur många som kommit för att hylla dig. Du gick ju egentli-gen i pension i slutet av juli men du har ju inte slutat helt ännu.Eftersom du hade börjat med att administrera EMV:s seminari-eserie ville vi gärna att du fortsatte med detta arbete. Så nu har du en seminariedagen kvar att ro iland. Så du lämnar oss inte riktigt ännu.

Du har förberett dig väl och planerat för din pension. En av de nya ingredienserna i ditt liv är din hundvalp som kommer under våren. Och så har du redan engagerat dig i Röda Korset. Så jag tror inte du kommer att ha några sysselsättningsproblem. Vi vill tacka dig Siw för allt ditt fina arbete du bidragit till inom institu-tionen

Tack Siw för att du bidragit till många intressanta diskussioner vid vårt fikabord och att du delgivit oss dina reseupplevelser, familj, barnbarn och vänner!

Gunilla’s speech Eva’s speech

The

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al w

as a

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ded

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iw a

fter 2

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ars a

t the u

niversity. She started in -66.

Advisory Committees What’s the point? Can I come?

Eva explains the Yule tax rules

Hej! Before all the christmas lunches I’d like to take the opportunity and inform about the en-dorsed sums. Questions have also popped up about monitor eye glasses, fruit baskets and reoc-curring business breakfasts.

Christmas lunch - “Julbord” As a thank you for a year of hard work, you may treat your co-workers to christmas lunch or a simi-lar meal for 450 sek per person (moms excluded).

Fruit baskets & BreakfastsIt’s not clear how often tax rules permit us to enjoy fruit and business breakfasts. A guideline is that a modest snack can be provided once a week. As for fruit, count one fruit per person and day. (Coffee is okay to have every day.) Please use your judgement and act responsibly with tax payer’s money.

Eye glassesContact Företagshälsovården to obtain eye glasses for working at your computer screen.They visit you, evaluate your situation and refer you to an optician contracted by Lund University. The university won’t pay for your glasses unless the optician is contracted by Lund Unsiversity.

That’s all folks - wish you a happy advent! /Eva

Staff at EMV are regularly invited to advisory committee meetings. The background and pur-pose of these meetings are explained here:

As you might have understood from the resent elec-tion, EMV is run by the department board.

Previously, the Head of Department made all official decisions (Swe: “Prefektstyre”). Back then, the Depart-ment Head anchored decisions with the staff in the advisory committee forums.

Nowadays, the advisory committees remain as a chan-nel into the department board for the EMV staff. Agendas for up-coming board meetings are discussed a

week prior to the actual meeting. The board represen-tatives have a chance to listen in on the opinions of the people they are representing.

If you spot a subject on the agenda that interests you, or if you want to be in the loop about what’s happen-ing at the department, don’t hesitate to show up and speak your mind.

You are all most welcome. Advisory committee meeting for TA-staff will take place Dec 2nd 13-14 on D1513. Advisory committee meeting for teachers/researchers will take place an hour later; at 14. Advisory committee meeting for the PhD Students will take place Dec 4th at 12 in the A-building ground floor lunch room.

Experimental Science Day Dec 3rd

December 3rd

PhD St

udent C

ompetitio

n

Glögg

Peter Gärdenfors

Lect

ures

an

d m

ore.

..

Unpacking Christmas at BMC Service. Around 2000 lights ready to shine just for you.

View from a tree

Mounting Christmas turned out to be more complicated than unpacking it. The BMC crew were forced to bring in a skylift. Roger Lindskog is pleased anyway: “In two years time we will have saved us the cost of a regular tree,” he says.

View from the ground