Honorary Doctorate Conferees

Outstanding Leadership Award Recipient

Carmel Award of Merit Recipient

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“We have no doubt today that Iran is doing everything within its power to achieve nuclear arms. A nuclear Iran is a catastrophe not just to Israel but to the whole world. Britain is as determined as Israel to prevent such a situation from happening and the level of ‘behind the scenes’ cooperation on the matter is unprecedented”, said yesterday (Sunday) British Ambassador to Israel, Mr. Matthew Gould, during the University of Haifa’s 41^st Board of Governors Meeting.

The British Ambassador, giving the keynote speech at a ceremony marking a decade to the School of Political Sciences, stressed several times that Britain is aware of the Israeli security concerns and finds them legitimate. He said Britain has also suffered from terror in the past- whether it was the IRA or the terrible murder of the British soldier several days ago in London- and so it is determined to cooperate with Israel in its fight against terror.

The British Ambassador also stated that the turmoil in the Arab world, particularly the uprising in Syria, legitimizes the Israeli security concerns even more. But, according to him, it is this exact instability in the region that leads Britain to believe the best way of preserving Israeli security is by a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

The current status quo in the West Bank will not hold forever, said the ambassador, and the instability in the Arab world will resonate among the Palestinians as well, should they feel the peace talks have reached a dead end. According to him, the status quo is hurting Israel in other forms as well, “The longer Israel continues to build settlements in the West Bank, the more the public opinion of Israel in the world suffers. I see how the British Parliament is becoming more and more critical of Israel these days, and that impatience will only grow with time”.

The Ambassador also referred to the academic boycott against Israel, a subject that has been making headlines recently, with Steven Hawking joining the boycott efforts. “Britain is opposed to boycotts- they are not the way to build trust. Boycotts build walls and we want to break those walls down. The best answer to those who call for boycotts is to create collaborations and links between professors and researchers from British and Israeli universities- that is the way to build partnership and trust”.

Professor Alfred Tauber was appointed Chairman of the Board of Governors of the University of Haifa yesterday, June 2^nd, during the opening plenary session of the meeting of the Board. He will be replacing Mr Leon Charney, who served as the Chairman of the Board for the last 6 years.

During his thank you address to the Board of Governors members, Executive Committee members and the University’s President, Mr Amos Shapira, Prof. Tauber said he is proud to be taking on the position of Chairman of the Board of Governors of a university that creates such an academically outstanding, tolerant and multi cultural learning experience. “The unique geographic location and cultural diversity that make up the University of Haifa are its strength. They give it the opportunity to be an important and central contributor to the Israeli society. Excellence is a value we should always strive for- and that value is imprinted in the University of Haifa”.

Prof. Tauber also stated that the University must continue to serve as a beacon of excellence, community involvement and social and academic equality. “When you look up at the Carmel Mountain you see our tower of excellence and community involvement, driven by values of moral and social contribution to the community. I thank you for the trust you have given me and now it is my turn to prove your trust was not in vain”.

“We are happy to have you join our University’s leading team and we are proud to share with you our mutual vision of the University’s future. I am confident that if we combine forces, we could make our vision a reality”, said the University of Haifa’s President, Mr. Amos Shapira, to Prof. Tauber.

To read Prof. Tauber’s full speech, click here.

Members of the council, including council co-chair Prof. Raymond Dwek CBE FRS and Lord Professor Robert Winston, enjoyed presentations from seven major research projects. The projects receive BIRAX grants for their research and form the BIRAX Regenerative Medicine Initiative, a five-year multimillion-pound programme initiated by the UK Israel Life Sciences Council that represents one of the most ambitious and innovative bi-lateral medical science collaborations between two countries anywhere in the world.

The two-day event at the University of Haifa was coordinated by Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Prof. Gal Richter-Levin, who is spearheading affective neuroscience research.
The Life Science Council members listened to presentations from some of the leading scientists from Britain’s top universities, including Oxford, Cambridge and Edinburgh. They are closely collaborating with Israeli scientists from the Weizmann Institute and Hebrew University on cutting edge stem cell research. The projects include developing stem cell treatments for multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease, looking for a regenerative therapy for Type 1 Diabetes, and finding ways to persuade the immune system not to attack stem cells.
Commenting on the conference, British Ambassador Matthew Gould said, “Science is one of the cornerstones of the relationship between Britain and Israel. Listening to the presentations today it’s clear the collaborations between our scientists and universities are making exciting progress in fighting some of the world’s worst diseases. Their work is a powerful symbol of what Britain and Israel and can achieve together.”

Haifa University President Amos Shapira said “Today’s event bears testament to the bond between the Israeli and British academia, and is a blow of defeat to every attempted academic boycott of Israel. Mr. Ambassador, the collaboration that we have celebrated this evening is evidence that academic boycotts will not overcome the bond between us.”

Link to photographs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ukinisrael/
Link to live blog: http://ukinisrael.fco.gov.uk/en/news/?view=PressR&id=851627582

Among the participants during the course of the event, which is coordinated by Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Prof. Gal Richter-Levin, are British Ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould; Lord Professor Robert Winston; Prof. Raymond Dwek CBE FRS, co-chair of the U.K. Israel Life Sciences Council; leading British and Israeli scientists; and members of the University of Haifa leadership and faculty.

Lord Robert Winston, commonly referred to as a ‘father of fertility studies’ is one of the most recognizable faces of British science. The respected academic has been coined the ‘medical miracle man’ and is a well known TV personality seen as the face of medical science on the BBC for his role in such series as Making Babies, The Human Body, The Secret Life of Twins, and Child of Our Time.

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Medical Clowning Seminar with Michael Christensen

Inspiring scenes from the Seminar

Twenty-eight medical clowns from Canada, USA, Brazil, Holland, Germany, Russia, and Israel studied together for two intensive weeks in classes and workshops. Visits to Haifa-area hospitals were arranged with the Dream Doctors Project, and seminar participants shadowed the Dream Doctors (Israel’s professional medical clowns) and worked with them in waiting rooms and at patients bedside. Participants also shared their professional experience and knowledge with others, visited Druze villages on Mt. Carmel, the Haifa beaches, the Galilee, and Jerusalem.

The next international seminar is planned for July 2014. For information, contact Dr. Atay Citron, Head of the Medical Clowning Academic Training Program, Theatre Department, University of Haifa: acitron@univ.haifa.ac.il

Although the vast majority of high school students in Israel have cell phones, the extent of their use has never been examined in depth. This new study sought to determine the scope of use, types of use, when they are used (in which classes), and whether there was a correlation between cell phone use in class and the type of discipline the teacher imposes in the classroom. The study, which was conducted at the University of Haifa’s School of Political Sciences by Dr. Itai Beeri and Dana Daniel, a research student in the pre-doctorate research studies track, included 591 pupils in grades 9-12 and 144 teachers of various subjects in three Jewish high schools. The identities of the participants and the schools were not disclosed.

Most common uses
As noted, 94% of the pupils admitted to accessing social media or file-sharing sites (such as Facebook and YouTube) during class, from time to time or even more frequently. Some 95% of the pupils take pictures or make recordings during class for non-study purposes; 94% send e-mails and text messages; 93% listen to music during class and 91% actually talk on their phones during class.

The researchers also sought to determine the frequency of the students’ cell phone use during class (from “never” to “very often”). The data indicates that on average, every pupil uses a cell phone in 60% of his or her classes.
“What stands out is the high use of interactive, multi-user functions, which can be very disruptive during the course of the lesson, and which have potential for long-term, ongoing and cumulative disturbance and damage that far exceeds the physical boundaries of the classroom or the time spent in class,” the researchers noted. They also stated that, “The potential damage stemming from heightened cell phone use during class casts a pall on the entire educational system, on the school atmosphere, on the educational achievements of the class, on the pupil’s own learning experience and on the teacher’s burnout having to cope with discipline problems in class.”

Does the teacher or class subject matter?
Cell phones are use more frequently in humanities classes than in math and science classes, and as the difficulty of the subject matter rises (in subjects such as math or English, which have higher- level classes), cell phone use goes down. Age also influences cell phone use: 10th graders use their phones in class most frequently, while 12th graders use them the least. Use of cell phones in class drops when the teacher is more experienced, but the gender of the teacher has no influence on class phone use.

The researchers also sought to determine whether there was a link between a teacher’s discipline style (as reported by the teacher himself) and the extent of cell phone use in their classes (as reported by the students). Surprisingly enough, in classes where the teacher was more permissive (”I don’t think students have to obey regulations and behavioral rules just because of someone holding authority”), cell phone use was less, while with students with a tougher teacher (”When I tell my pupils what to do, I expect them to do it immediately, without asking questions”), cell phone use increased.

“The research data shows that the use of cell phones during class has become routine,” the researchers said. “Even if on an individual level such use is only occasional, in the standard learning unit - a class of 30 to 40 pupils - in nearly every class a majority of pupils are using their mobile phones in some fashion. At any given moment, at least some of the pupils are using their cell phones, and there is no teacher who hasn’t been forced to cope with the phenomenon of cell phone use on a regular basis.”

The doctoral study, conducted under the supervision of Prof. Anat Scher, observed 28 healthy babies who were developing normally, examining them once every two to three weeks. Their motor development and sleeping habits were monitored from age 4-5 months and continued until age 11 months. Their sleep patterns were measured by a device called an ActiGraph that provides objective evaluations of sleep patterns, taken together with parental reports from diaries and questionnaires. The infants’ crawling development and progress was observed and videoed by the researcher.

The study showed that the average age for the babies to begin crawling was 7 months, and that this was accompanied by an increase in the number of times they woke up at night, from an average of 1.55 times per night to 1.98 times (based on the ActiGraph measurements). The incidents of wakefulness also lasted longer, about 10 minutes on average, as per parental reports.

The study also found that the scope and complexity of the changes – which included waking more frequently and moving around a lot during sleep – were more pronounced among those who started crawling earlier. By contrast, those who started to crawl later demonstrated only one change: waking up more frequently.

The good news for parents: Within three months from the day crawling begins, the baby will generally return to the sleep patterns from before acquiring the new motor skill.

According to Dr. Cohen, there are a number of reasons why starting to crawl and wakefulness could be linked. “It is possible that crawling, which involves a vast range of changes and psychological reorganization in the babies’ development, increases their level of arousal, influences their ability to regulate themselves and causes a period of temporary instability that expresses itself in waking up more frequently,” she suggests.

Increased restlessness in babies who crawl early, she says, could be attributed to the baby’s expressing fears of being physically distanced from the mother before fully developing the psychological mechanisms to cope with separation effectively. “This fear is likely to be expressed in sleep interruptions during the night,” she explained.

“With ongoing monitoring of babies’ development, we can demonstrate that the increased awakenings are a temporary short-term phenomenon, which occurs as part of a wider process of the baby’s gradually improving ability to regulate states of sleep and wakefulness,” adds Dr. Cohen.