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THE BRITISH SCHOOL
AT ATHENS
LONDON SECRETARY (PART TIME) OF THE BRITISH SCHOOL AT
ATHENS
Part-time post: two days per week
Salary: £26,000 per annum (pro rata)
Pension scheme: Universities Superannuation Scheme
Location: central London
The British School at Athens (BSA), an institute for advanced research in the
Humanities and Social Sciences, seeks a part-time Secretary to support its
administration in London. Employment will be for 2 days per week, with willingness
and ability to work flexibly and to undertake paid overtime essential. You will form
part of the administrative team managed by the School Administrator (who is based in
Athens), and will take specific responsibility for the running of the London Office, for
supporting the work of the Council (the trustee body) and the committees of Council,
and for assisting the officers of the School as required. You will have proven
organisational skills, the ability to take initiatives and work flexibly, and a strong
interest in the continuing development of the School’s administrative structure. You
will be able to communicate effectively with academic and professional colleagues in
the UK and internationally, and have a broad interest in the work of the BSA as
covered by its mission statement. The post will be available from1st September 2011.
A probationary period will apply.
Further details are available at: http://www.bsa.ac.uk
Informal enquiries about the post may be addressed to the School Director, Professor
Catherine Morgan (director@bsa.ac.uk) or the Treasurer, Dr Carol Bell
(carol.bell.pullen@btinternet.com).
The closing date for applications is 20th July 2011. Interviews will be held in London
on 10th August 2011.
Further Details of the post of London Secretary of the British School at Athens
The British School at Athens (an institute of advanced research in the Humanities and
Social Sciences, located in Athens, Greece) seeks a permanent, part-time (two day per
week) secretary to head the work of its office in London. You will be responsible for
running the London office; for supporting the work of the School’s Council and
committees (notably by making practical arrangements for all meetings and clerking
for Council and from time to time for other committees, supporting appointment
panels held in the UK, and undertaking secretarial duties for the officers of the School
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as required); for arranging the Annual General Meeting and the distribution of the
Annual Report; for arranging lectures and research days in the UK; for handling
contacts with School subscribers in the UK; for answering such enquiries as may be
made by School members and friends; for undertaking such other administrative tasks
as may be required.
You will have proven organisational ability, and the flexibility and initiative to deal
effectively with varied and unpredictable circumstances. You should demonstrate a
strong interest in working to develop the School’s administrative structure. You will
be able to communicate effectively with academic and professional colleagues
internationally. You will be educated to at least first degree level, and will
demonstrate a broad interest in the work of the British School at Athens as covered by
its mission statement (posted on www.bsa.ac.uk). A degree in a relevant subject may
be an advantage.
The post, which is available from 1st September 2011, is based in central London, in
the British Academy. Starting salary will be £26,000 p.a. (pro rata). Permanent
appointment is conditional upon successful completion of a probationary period. The
secretary will be required to abide by current appraisal procedures. S/he is directly
accountable to the School Administrator, Mrs Tania Gerousi, who will serve as line
manager, and through her to the Director and Council. The Chair of Council directs
specific areas of the secretary’s work as indicated in the job description. The
appointment is open to candidates of any nationality but s/he must have permission to
work in the UK. Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed in London on 10th August
2011.
Further particulars about the British School at Athens, and about the job itself, are
given below. General information about the British School at Athens is available on
the website (www.bsa.ac.uk). If you are interested in this post, and wish to discuss
your application in confidence, please contact either the Director of the British School
at Athens, Professor Catherine Morgan, by email (director@bsa.ac.uk) or by
telephone (+33 210 721 0974), or the School Treasurer, Dr Carol Bell
(carol.bell.pullen@btinternet.com; 07881 958 244).
Application:
Applications should be sent as an email attachment to the BSA at
school.administrator@bsa.ac.uk by 20th July 2011. A hard copy, signed by the
applicant, should be sent, by the same deadline, to:
The Treasurer, The British School at Athens, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London,
SW1Y 5AH.
Applicants are asked to supply the following: A covering letter (of no more than one page), giving the applicant’s contact
details, outlining the reasons for applying, giving details of supporting
enclosures, and summarising the applicant’s principal qualifications for the
job;
 A curriculum vitae, giving details of past employment, academic and other
qualifications, other relevant experience;
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 The names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses of two referees,
whom the candidate has contacted in advance and who have agreed to supply
letters of reference which they will send to the BSA Treasurer by the closing
date;
BRITISH SCHOOL AT ATHENS: FURTHER DETAILS
The British School at Athens is an educational charity founded in 1886. It now forms
part of the British Academy's network of Sponsored Institutes and Societies (BASIS)
which sustains and supports British research overseas. The School exists to promote
research of international excellence in all disciplines pertaining to Greek lands, from
fine art to archaeometry and in all periods to modern times. We do so through:

a programme of research undertaken both alone and in collaboration with UKbased and other overseas institutions;

an academic programme of seminars, lectures, and conferences;

our internationally renowned library;

the provision of services for our members, including applications for study and
fieldwork permits; advice on the development of research programmes; access
to accommodation and facilities in Athens and Knossos; provision of online
services;

promoting the use of our archival, laboratory, and museum collections by the
scholarly community worldwide;

the provision of funding (including studentships and visiting fellowships) for
research in Greece, and to enable Greek researchers to visit the UK;

the provision of internships and training courses for undergraduates,
postgraduates, and schoolteachers.
Details of current School projects may be found on the website, www.bsa.ac.uk.
Size and Scope
The School, which was founded in 1886, is an institute for advanced research and is a
registered UK charity (Registered charity no. 208673). It maintains a hostel, world
class library, archive, laboratory for archaeological science and offices in Athens; a
smaller hostel, library and museum for study purposes in Knossos; and an office in
London. It has four full-time academic staff, three research fellows, three full-time
and two part-time administrative/secretarial staff (including the Administrator), three
full-time library/archival staff; and five full-time and two part-time domestic staff.
The academic staff, the research fellows, the IT Officer, and the Archivist are all
actively engaged in research, and all staff are actively encouraged to undertake
professional development. In addition, the School is supported by research active nonexecutive staff in the UK – in particular the Chairman of Council (Professor Malcolm
Schofield) and the honorary treasurer (Dr Carol Bell). Its turnover for the financial
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year 2009-10 was approximately 1.3m pounds. It offers two full studentships and
several smaller bursaries for scholars every year. The School has 374 Basic
subscribers, 33 Life Subscribers and over 200 members, i.e. scholars or scientists who
use its facilities for study purposes every year. In addition more than 650 researchers,
who are not members, are given rights to use the library each year.
Staffing
The School has the following research staff, details of whose research interests and
publications are available on the School’s website (www.bsa.ac.uk):Full-time academic staff: Professor Catherine Morgan, Director; Dr Evangelia
Kiriatzi, Director of the Fitch Laboratory; Mr Robert Pitt, Assistant Director; and Dr
Don Evely, Knossos Curator.
Full-time research fellows: the Leventis Fellow, Dr Evi Margariti; the Williams
Fellow in ceramic petrology, Dr Areti Pentedeka; and the Scientific Research Officer
Dr Myrto Georgakopoulou.
Research-active staff with other primary responsibilities: Mr George Bruseker, IT
officer; and Ms Amalia Kakissis, Archivist.
Infrastructure and Facilities
The School’s principal research infrastructure consists of its Library, its Museum, its
Fitch Laboratory and its facilities at Knossos.
The Library in Athens contains over 65,000 monographs, 1,000 periodical
titles and 2,000 maps, and has space for 50 readers. It is staffed by two full-time
librarians (Mrs Penny Wilson-Zarganis and Ms Sandra Pepelasis) with the help of a
student library assistant/intern. Members have 24 hour access. It specialises in the
fields of Aegean prehistory, ancient art and epigraphy, and Byzantine and modern
Greek studies; it also houses historical collections (such as George Finlay’s library)
and a particularly good collection of Greek and Balkan journals. Its collections are
complemented by those of the other foreign schools and institutes in Athens with
whom we have reciprocal arrangements giving access to a unique collection of more
than 450,000 titles on Hellenic Studies. We have particularly strong links with the
neighbouring Blegen and Gennadius libraries of the American School, with whom we
now share a common electronic library catalogue (AMBROSIA, American British
Online Search in Athens) available through the internet.
The School’s Archive collections contain records of the School’s field projects
going back to 1886; material from the Byzantine Research Fund, ca 1895-1936 (ca. 6,
500 unique plans, drawings and photographs of Byzantine architecture - some of
buildings now destroyed); the George Finlay papers, including journals from the
Greek War of Independence (Hastings, Jarvis); travel notebooks (Gell, Stuart);
ethnographic records and a large collection of glass negatives. Our archivist is
responsible for access and conservation of the collection and has secured outside
funding in support of projects to conserve, electronically catalogue and digitise
images from selected collections.
The Marc and Ismene Fitch Laboratory of Archaeological Science, founded in
1974, was the first of its kind in Greece. It specialises principally in the analysis of
inorganic materials (mainly pottery, as well as metals, wall paintings, glass) and in
geophysical prospection, specialisms which are complementary to the neighbouring
Wiener Laboratory of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. It
maintains facilities for petrological analysis of pottery (facilities for thin section
preparation and 2 research polarising microscopes coupled with digital photography
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system) and a WD-XRF instrument for chemical analysis. It houses comparative
collections of over 10,000 archaeological samples and over 3,000 geological samples.
For the needs of geophysical prospection it has a magnetometer and a resistivity
meter. It also maintains a reference collection of animal bones and seeds with ample
space for strewing archaeological material, and is able to offer annually a bursary on
bioarchaeology and a senior visiting fellowship. It is staffed by its Director, a parttime administrative/research assistant, two research fellows, and project-related
research assistants. The Fitch plays a full part in the School’s postgraduate teaching
activities, currently staging an annual short course on ceramic petrology.
At Knossos, the BSA maintains a hostel, a small library (specialising in
matters Cretan and prehistoric) and the Stratigraphical Museum, with a curator and a
small part-time staff. This is not so much a museum as a storeroom and study centre,
housing a vast collection of pottery and other finds. These finds, gathered from
excavation in Knossos and elsewhere in Crete from the time of Arthur Evans (1905)
to the present, represent a vast scholarly resource of international significance.
Proximity to the School’s hostel allows scholars to study the material intensively year
round.
In addition the School’s administrative and academic staff (principally the
Administrator) makes use of the School’s wide-ranging connections to help individual
scholars with permit applications.
The research infrastructure is underpinned by the IT network, maintained by
our IT Officer, George Bruseker. His role includes both the integration of IT into
research strategies and outcomes, and the development of web-based digital resources
for researchers and the wider community.
Dissemination and Publication of Research
The BSA maintains a policy of publishing the results of its own research, particularly
in the fields of archaeology, epigraphy and history. The School’s Annual (running
since 1895 and now published by CUP) is devoted to publishing the ‘Work of the
School’, which comprises articles written by its officers and other members, the work
of the Fitch, and preliminary reports on fieldwork. The School also compiles an
annual account of archaeological fieldwork in Greece, Archaeology in Greece, which
is published online (in collaboration with the École française d’Athènes) and in a print
digest in collaboration with the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies as part
of Archaeological Reports. Final reports on major excavation or survey projects
usually appear in the School’s Supplementary Volumes or Studies series, also used for
publishing the School’s conferences. The School recognises its role in conserving and
facilitating access to the archives (in all media) produced by major excavations,
surveys or other studies. To this end we are active in cataloguing and digitizing our
archive, and in making it available via the School website.