Welcoming new students is one of the greatest pleasures of being Head of Department. So, along with my colleagues in Religious Studies, I’m pleased to welcome nearly 300 students now starting on A217 “Introducing religions” and nearly 400 on A332 “Why is religion controversial?”. Although the team the Open University’s Milton Keynes campus doesn’t often meet the undergraduate students for whom we’ve prepared teaching and learning materials, we are honoured to know that so many are interested in studying with us. We don’t know how many OU students studying at level 1 will continue with Religious Studies in later stages of their studies, but we’re enthusiastic about our involvement with the various modules available there too (i.e. AA100 “The Arts past and present” and A105 “Voices, texts and material culture”). We are equally pleased that we have students completing their Masters degrees with us and look forward to reading their dissertations and, we hope, discussing possible PhD projects with them. This year, we also have four new students commencing research towards their PhDs. These are Aled Thomas researching “The Transition of Auditing from Psychiatric Practice to Religious Ritual: Social and Religious Developments in the Church of Scientology”,Claire Wanless researching “Secularisation and Religious Transmission: Communities of Practice, Networks and the Rise of Postmodern Religion“, Theo Wildcroft researching “Yogic-animist ritual: witnessing emergent embodiment” and Kasia Kowalska researching “Universalism and Particularism in Jewish Prayer in the Orthodox, Reform and Liberal Movement in the United Kingdom”. They will join a community of existing PhD students at various stages of their research. We wish all our students every success in their studies with us.

We are also celebrating the nomination of researchers within our team for a Times Higher Education award under the the “Widening Participation or Outreach Initiative of the Year” category. You can read more about the Building on History: Religion in London project at https://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/boh .