The (W)right stuff at Sussex
The Wrights are passionate about studying - three members of the family are at Sussex at the same time.
Alan Wright completed a BA in History of Art and is now reading for an MA in the same subject. His wife, Shirley, is doing a part-time BA in Cultural Studies in CCE, whilst working as manager for the Office for Initial Teaching Education in USIE. Their son, Richard, is reading for an MSc in COGS in knowledge-based systems.
Alan spent four years on campus as a part-time teacher on the PGCE. Shirley has worked at Sussex since 1976 and plans to retire early next year, after completing her degree, to read for an MA in Shakespeare Studies at the University of Birmingham's Shakespeare Institute. She already has a place on the course which begins in October 1998.
Both Alan and Shirley enjoy being mature students, and appreciate the lack of ageism on campus. "Sussex actively encourages mature students" said Alan. "Everyone knew each other on my undergraduate course, which I loved, especially as we all went to Venice for 12 days over Easter on a field trip."
Alan explained that studying at the same time as his wife was not a problem. "We had to organise ourselves during my finals, when we shared our word processor at home. Shirley has the technical knowledge, so she helped me use the printer!"
Richard moved to Brighton at the beginning of the year after teaching English in Tokyo. "I completed a degree in linguistics before coming to Sussex and hope to work in the field of computational linguistics after my Masters," he said.