Hilary Churchley
Head of External Relations at Oxford Brookes University 

This November we are inviting the people of Oxford on to campus to Brookes Live – an event which promises to be spectacularly entertaining and fun-filled for all.

Brookes Live follows on from our award-winning Live Friday event ‘Wisdom, Wonders and Widgets’ held at the Ashmolean Museum in March 2014.

The evening marked the beginning of Oxford Brookes’ 150th anniversary celebrations – right next door to where the Brookes story began in the Taylor Institution in 1865.

It was a great opportunity to bring Brookes to the public in a creative and interactive way, and we received a Silver Award at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Circle of Excellence Awards 2015 earlier this year for that event.

Now, as our anniversary year draws to a close, we are taking inspiration from our Live Friday event and hosting Brookes Live on our turf in the John Henry Brookes Building on the Headington Campus.

Our new challenge is to make the most of this great space with a variety of activities which will interest all age groups, and allow you to get an insight into some of the pioneering research, learning and initiatives that happen here.

Beginning in the Piazza and extending right through to the Terrace restaurant at the back of the building, you will find a silent disco and pop-up street food catering; watch courtroom dramas unfold in real-life advocacy demonstrations, turn your smartphone into a microscope and create poetry on work/life balance.

Whether you want to return to education or extend your learning, a series of eight 15-minute postgraduate taster sessions in the lecture theatre is sure to pique your interest.

In the Health Zone, our lecturers from the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences will give a session about sensitive and effective communication when supporting someone who is living with dementia.

Audiences will be encouraged to participate, interact and communicate with an actor who will portray a person who has some word-finding difficulties and is living with dementia.

They can learn lifesaving skills from the use of defibrillators to supporting a patient with a life-threatening illness.

In Developing Empathy, participants will wear a suit that is designed to simulate various visual and mobility difficulties related to ageing.

Art lovers can join the Fine Art students who will be launching the university’s Festival of Learning project with a collaborative drawing piece linked with the Live Draw whereby our students will be experimenting with media and line to document the evening’s celebrations.

In the Live Library, you will be able to ‘book-out’ our subject experts and quiz them on their area of expertise, and we will be celebrating our prowess in the creative writing arena with an exciting journey through our history of story-telling and book production in an Alice in Wonderland-themed display area.

We’ll also have some of the Brookes favourites on campus for the evening – Artie the full-sized humanoid robot. Make him act out a scene from a movie or sing a song.

And there’s the Formula student racing car which has been built by Oxford Brookes students and competed in international competitions.

This event will be the first time we have pulled so many different aspects of Oxford Brookes together at the university and I hope many people in Oxford will be able to join us on what will be a fantastic evening.

Brookes Live will be held on Friday, November 13, from 4pm to 8pm. Admission is free and open for all to attend.