FESRA is the abbreviation of Faculty of Education Students' Research Association created end of last year to gather all the research students in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge under one body that enable more dynamic, organised and collaborated students research activities being held in the faculty. The problem of the research students, i.e.: Ph.D., M.Phil & M.Ed. in this faculty is that there is a lack of interaction between them, not just between the different courses and modes (full-time & part-time) but also different years of matriculation. The lack of interaction is not healthy for the development of students research in the faculty. As a result, one of the professors in my faculty decided to call some active students of the faculty who are interested to help him in giving suggestions to improve the research environment. This call was way back in May 2007 when I was working on the Kaleidoscope 2007. I came to the meeting randomly partly because I am the committee of Kaleidoscope and also the Student Lunchtime Seminar of my faculty. After I have heard the problems, I came out with an idea to create a student association in the faculty so that the students here will feel attached to the faculty rather than the societies in the colleges or university.
This idea was later being crystallised by now the chairperson of the association. With 7 executive members, FESRA is a new born association that is hoped to be able to coordinate the research activities among the research students in this faculty, alhamdulillah.
Tomorrow, there will be the first social event organised by FESRA. The chairperson is a very tolerate person and decided to order HALAL food for the event. I was very thrill by her decision. But at the same time, she also wants to buy some mulled wine cos Cambridge cannot get away from alcohol in any social event. So I wrote her an email again to express my concern but not trying to be pushy as she has already trying her best to accommodate the muslim's needs. Alhamdulillah.
She then replied:
Dear Fatin
Of course and I completely understand. In fact I was waiting for it to be
mentioned but thought it better to wait to see if there were any
objections.
I think we should send a FESRA newsletter special but would then ask that
we limit the alcohol to 7.40pm onwards as I know that some people are
coming with children and they will most likely want to have a drink before
going home and will probably have to leave at 8pm. What I will do is
advertise for an earlier start time of 6.45 with alcohol made available
from 7.30 if that's okay.
More than happy to accommodate your needs!
Alhamdulillah. Though it is not the most ideal but at least it's yet another beginning to spread the understanding and tolerance towards multi-faith society. May ALLAH bless this association and help all the students who are doing educational research to prosper and contribute to the development of educational knowledge. Amin.
Wassalam.
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