The Faculty of Archaeology will be closed from 24 December 2011 until 1 Januari 2012.
The Lipsius and surrounding buildings will also be closed from 24 December 2011 until 1 Januari 2012.

The Lipsius restaurant closes from 22 December 2011 until 1 Januari 2012. The Literair Café will be closed from 24 December 2011 until 1 Januari 2012 

In January the restaurant will be open from Monday-Friday from 11.30 am-2 pm. There will be no evening meals. Opening hours for the Literair Café in January: 9 am-5 pm.

Registration closes 1 week before the exam takes place, so register quickly for your exams after block 2!!! Please note that papers etc. also count as exams, so register for these as well. The required study activity numbers can be found in the exam schedule.

Registration for exams starts 6 weeks before the exam/paper deadline takes place. So if a particular exam is planned for the end of January or in February, you will not yet find that exam in uSis.

Also, registration for the courses in block 3 has been opened. Please enroll for your courses as soon as possible. Registration opens 8 weeks in advance and closes 1 week before the course starts.

If you want to graduate in the next ceremony, to be held on 10 February, you need to hand in the final version of your thesis today (15 December 2011).

The procedure for the final submission of the thesis has changed slightly, and is as follows:

1) Send an e-mail to the Administration Office and your thesis supervisor stating your intention to hand in your thesis, along with the submission date you have in mind.

2) Hand in two hard copies of your thesis: 1 for the Administration Office (room 0.21), and 1 for your thesis supervisor. Important: send an e-mail to the Administration Office and to your first reader with the link to the SafeAssign report you have made (enroll in the Blackboard module "MA thesis" and follow the instructions). The Administration Bureau will appoint a second reader, you will be informed.

3) After the thesis has been approved by the Examination Committee you will receive instructions on how to upload your thesis in the Thesis Repository. After your thesis has been uploaded, your thesis grade will be entered in uSis and you can graduate.

If you have tried to use SafeAssign in Blackboard yesterday or today, you have probably experienced problems; it takes much longer than usual to produce the final report. Computer engineers are working hard to solve the problem.

Since the deadline for handing in theses is today, Thursday 15 December, you are advised to upload your thesis anyway; this function still works and the Administration Bureau will be able to see that your thesis has been uploaded in SafeAssign. The reports will be produced as soon as they are available.

If you have tried to make a SafeAssign report and you have had trouble using the programme, please do not try to upload your thesis once more. This will only lengthen the process. Your thesis has been uploaded, it will only take longer to produce the report.
Please follow all the steps of the thesis procedure mentioned above.

The next MA graduation ceremony will be on Friday 10 February 2012.
The ceremony will be held in the Academiegebouw, Klein Auditorium, 4 pm- 5 pm.

Today, 15 December 2011, is the last day you can sign up for the ceremony. If you want to participate in the ceremony, please notify the Administration Office: send your name, studentnumber, and any missing academic requirements in uSis (if relevant).

If you want to graduate but it isn't possible for you to attend the ceremony, please also notify the Administration Office!

All results (exams, essays etc.) need to have been handed in at the Administration Office by 15 January.
MA students who have started their programme in February, and who want to graduate in the next ceremony, should notify the Administration Office if they can't make the 15 January deadline; for example, if there are paper deadlines or retakes after this date.

Obligatory for RMA-students and resident PhD-researchers, open for interested MA-students:

IN SEARCH OF NATURE
To study lifestyles of past societies, archaeologists need to know the natural environment, and the inhabitant's use and perception of it. How can nature be studied? How does one define 'natural environment'? How do we go from "point observations" (excavations, pollen cores) to inferences on former landscapes at a larger scale? And what is the "right scale", if any, if we want to address how nature influenced humans and vice versa?

Date: 19 December 2011
Location: Spectrumzaal, Studentcenter Plexus, Kaiserstraat 25, 2311 GN Leiden

For more details (topics, time schedule), see the programme.

The deadline for application for the "Egypte in Rome" masterclass has been extended from 15 December to 1 January 2012.

This seven-day course will be taught at the Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut in Rome (KNIR), and consists of lectures at the institute, assignments in the city of Rome, and a concluding paper.

Read all about this unique opportunity (course description, costs, application etc.) to gain 5 credits in Italy on the KNIR website.

The Department of Archaeology at Exeter University (UK) is offering excellent funding opportunities for exceptional researchers.
If you would like to apply for a scholarship there, read alle the information on the University of Exeter website.