Monthly Archives: October 2015

Research and Innovation Strategy presentation

Academic and professional staff involved in University research and innovation are cordially invited to a presentation and discussion of the draft Research and Innovation Strategy.

Prof Philippe De Wilde, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation will be presenting the draft strategy following the adoption of the University’s Institutional Plan 2015-2020 and its research objectives.

The sessions will last one hour and whilst some are intended for specific faculties, you are most welcome to any session.

Please feel free to bring this to the attention of any colleagues who would be interested in attending.

Medway – The Royal Historic Dockyard Church

  • Wednesday 25 November, 11.00
  • Monday 14 December, 11.00

Canterbury – Grimond Building

  • Friday 13 November, 12.00 in GLT3 (Humanities)
  • Monday 16 November, 13.00 in GLT3 (Social Sciences)
  • Friday 27 November, 12.00 in GLT3 (Sciences)
  • Tuesday 1 December, 15.00 in GLT2 (Humanities)
  • Friday 4 December, 11.00 in GLT2 (Social Sciences)
  • Monday 7 December, 13.00 in GLT3 (Sciences)

All enquiries please to Ros Swanston – Temporary PA to Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research & Innovation, R.Swanston-612@kent.ac.uk, ext 3907.

Travel Plan Survey 2015

Tell us how we can improve travel for you to, from and around our campuses! Complete the Travel Plan Survey online by Friday 13 November 2015 using the link below:

https://www.kent.ac.uk/estates/services/transport/survey/

Don’t forget to provide your University of Kent email address at the end of the survey if you want to enter the prize draw. You could win £100 food voucher to use within the University’s catering outlets or one of 200 hot drinks vouchers.

The survey takes around 10 minutes to complete depending on how much information you are willing to share with us.

The data from this survey will be used to update the University Travel Plans, which are a detailed set of actions with the aim to reduce single car occupancy, where possible, and to provide alternative means of transport to create a greener, healthier environment for students, staff and the local community.

Take part in the £10 Challenge

The £10 Challenge is an opportunity for you to demonstrate your practical application of entrepreneurial skills to future employers.

We give you a £10 investment and you try and turn that £10 into a profit. It’s that simple.

How can I get involved?

Come along to the competition launch during Employability Festival on Friday 6 November at 12pm in Keynes Lecture Theatre 3.

What’s in it for me?

First prize is a £100 Amazon voucher

(Second prize is a £50 Amazon Voucher and third prize is a £20 Amazon voucher)

Every entrant gets 15 Employability Points

To find out more visit our webpages or email mailto:hive@kent.ac.uk

Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Leverhulme award for Professor Dirk Van Hulle visit

Professor Shane Weller, from the Department of Comparative Literature, has been awarded a Leverhulme Visiting Professorship grant, which will make it possible for Professor Dirk Van Hulle from the Centre of Manuscript Genetics at the University of Antwerp to visit Kent in the Spring Term 2016.

The study of modern manuscripts – the research field of what is referred to as critique génétique or genetic criticism – has a direct link with the concept of European literature. When Victor Hugo donated his manuscripts to the French national library in Paris, he specified that this library would one day be ‘la bibliothèque des États-Unis d’Europe’ (‘the library of the United States of Europe’). The act of systematically keeping one’s manuscripts is a relatively recent phenomenon in literature, but it is by no means restricted to particular national literatures.

Winner of a European Research Council grant for a project on Samuel Beckett’s manuscripts, Professor Van Hulle has shown in seminal publications on manuscripts by European authors such as Proust, Thomas Mann, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Charles Darwin that the study of modern manuscripts and writers’ libraries is an excellent method for examining the interrelationships between European literatures and cultures.

During his period as a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Kent, Professor Van Hulle will work with both established scholars and doctoral researchers to share the knowledge and expertise developed through his research projects, thus helping to build new collaborative partnerships with UK researchers.

For more information on Leverhulme Visiting Professors, please see the following page: www.leverhulme.ac.uk/funding/grant-schemes/visiting-professorships

School of Music & Fine Art, University of Kent Visiting Artist Talk Season launched by Benedict Drew

The School of Music and Fine Art is proud to announce a programme of visiting artists, writers, filmmakers, curators and performers, each speaker renowned in their own field, who will pose distinct and searching questions to address the urgent concerns of our age. Guests will provide a detailed presentation of their work, sharing their experiences of navigating the complex multifaceted art world. Previous speakers have included: Jananne Al-Ani, Sonia Boyce, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, David Burrows, Ami Clark, Matthew Darbyshire, Jeremy Deller, Ruth Ewan, Kirsten Glass, Ope Lori, Goshka Macuga, Jeremy Millar, Hayley Newman, Sally O’Reilly, Hannah Rickards, Trish Scott, Lindsay Seers, Sally Tallant, Anne Tallentire and Carey Young.

Launching the programme on Tues 10 November in the Dockyard Church from 18.15 is international Kent-based artist Benedict Drew, who works across video, sculpture, music and their associated technologies. Born in 1977, he graduated from Slade School of Fine Art in 2011 and was a LUX Associate Artist (2011/12).

Benedict Drew’s often chaotic environments and installations feature screens, cables and small-scale anthropomorphised sculptures made from lo-fi materials such as tin foil and, occasionally, mud. Intended as a response to our ‘over-saturated digital realm’, Drew’s installations are attempts to ‘articulate the horror of the modern world.’
The artist says: I make videos and music and exhibitions and picture and sculptures. I am interested in the potential of these combinations to create an ecstatic and sometimes abject alternative universe.

For artist info: http://www.benedictdrew.com/

The talks are FREE to attend but booking is required. Please email mfareception@kent.ac.uk to reserve your place.

Travel Plan Survey 2015

The Travel Plan Survey has now launched. Please follow the link below to complete the survey by Friday 13 November 2015: https://www.kent.ac.uk/estates/services/transport/survey/

The Travel Plan Survey aims to find out information relating to how you travel and how you think transport could be improved. It is very important that this survey is completed as the data forms the basis of the University Travel Plans for Canterbury and Medway.

The University Travel Plans are a detailed set of actions with the aim to reduce single car occupancy, where possible, and to provide alternative means of transport to create a greener, healthier environment for staff, students and the local community.

The survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete depending on how much information you are willing to share with us. As a thank you for taking the time to complete the survey, you can enter your University of Kent email address to be in with the chance of winning £100 food voucher to be used at catering outlets across the campuses or one of 200 hot drinks vouchers.

Please complete the survey online using the link above. If you or your colleagues are unable to complete the form online, please do not give up as your opinions are important to us. Contact the Transport Team, Estates Department and we will assist you.

Derek Crabtree – funeral arrangements and tributes

Funeral arrangements for Derek Crabtree have been confirmed.

The funeral will take place on Friday 6 November at 11.30am in St Stephen’s Church, and will be followed by by a reception – with finger buffet – from 12.30/45 in Keynes SSCR and Quiet SCR. The family have requested no flowers, please, and donations, if wished, to St Stephen’s Church.

The Keynes flag has been flying at half-mast as a mark of respect for Derek, who was Master of Keynes College for 20 years.

The Reverend Dr Stephen Laird and Professor Maurice Vile have been in touch with their written tributes to Derek:

Derek Crabtree was appointed as a Lecturer in Politics and Government at Kent in 1967 and later promoted to Senior Lecturer. Born in Rochdale, Lancashire, in 1932, he studied at the University of Leicester and Nuffield College, Oxford. In 1955-6 he was a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University. He taught at the University of Exeter from 1956 to 1967, during which time he was seconded for a year as the Acting Head of the Department of Public Administration of University College, Ibadan, now the University of Ibadan. Shortly after taking up his Lectureship at Kent, Derek became a founding member of Keynes College and was elected as the second Master of the College in 1973. Repeatedly re-elected by the Senior Members of the College he served as Master for twenty years, a feat that will certainly never be equalled. In 1995 he became an ordained priest in Church of England, and served in the University Chaplaincy, and for many years after his retirement from the University in 2002 as a part-time priest in St. Stephen’s Church. 

Derek will be mourned by his colleagues and by many alumni of the University of Kent, for he was both an inspiring teacher and an understanding College Master who would offer help to any student, or member of staff, who needed it. Supported by his wife, Christiane, he presided over the College, creating an atmosphere in which academic staff, college staff and students alike felt part of a genuine community. At a time when College Masters were an integral part of the central government of the University, Derek played an important part in the running of the College system and ably chaired the committee which liaised with the campus trades unions. His contribution to the University during its formative years was immense.
Professor Maurice Vile
Emeritus Professor of Politics

One of Derek’s last visits to the campus was to a lively party in January of this year which had been put on to celebrate the refurbishment of Eliot College Chapel, where he met a new generation of staff and students. During the speeches, Derek was introduced as the most honoured guest and his active membership of the Chaplaincy Team, which lasted for several years from the late 1990s, was recalled. The current full-time Chaplains, who count themselves fortunate to have arrived on the scene during this period of Derek’s involvement with Christian ministry on the campus, benefitted greatly from his encouragement, wisdom, wit and occasional caution. Derek had a thorough knowledge of the University community: not just present and former holders of positions of influence but also – significantly – long-standing members of the domestic and support staff.

Revd Dr Stephen Laird
Dean of Chaplains and Associate Lecturer

 

Helpers wanted for Congregations November 2015

The Congregations Office is preparing for the forthcoming November ceremonies in Rochester and Canterbury Cathedrals.

We would welcome and appreciate offers of help for any, or all of the ceremonies.  Your support on these occasions is very much appreciated and contributes significantly to the success of the event. We would encourage departments and Schools to volunteer as much as possible for their respective ceremonies as students genuinely appreciate seeing familiar faces on the day.

There are a number of roles to be filled throughout the Congregation period including:

  • Graduate registration
  • Ushering
  • Ticket collection.

Training will be provided in advance of the ceremonies for all duties, where required. In addition, refreshments will be made available throughout the day and any car parking expenses will be refunded later on production of a ticket. Exact timings for the day will be confirmed once duties are allocated. You can use the following link to check the ceremony schedule on the Congregation webpages: http://www.kent.ac.uk/congregations/ceremony-dates/index.html

We are looking for helpers for the following ceremonies:

  • Rochester Cathedral on Wednesday 18 November 2015 at 14.30
  • Canterbury Cathedral on Friday 20 November 2015 at 10.30
  • Canterbury Cathedral on Friday 20 November 2015 at 14.30
  • Canterbury Cathedral on Friday 20 November 2015 at 19.30.

If you are able to help, then please fill out the following poll: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/F6H56G9

If you have any questions relating to the ceremonies or Congregations as a whole, please do not hesitate to contact us. We look forward to hopefully seeing you at some of the ceremonies and thank you again for your support- we could not do it without you.

 

Rose Kallenberg-Pierce
Corporate Events Co-Ordinator, Development Office

Service of Remembering – Medway

TUESDAY 3rd November 2015

Any time between 12 — 2pm 

At St. George’s Centre (at Campus Entrance) 

Chaplaincy would like to offer all staff and students the opportunity to take some time to pause and remember loved ones they have lost.

St. Georges will be open from 11.45

You are welcome to come any time to light a candle, enjoy the quiet space, offer prayers and give thanks.

At 12.30 and 13.30 there will be special prayers said and names of your loved ones will be read out and remembered. 

If you wish to have someone remembered please send their name to: Campus chaplain Sally Apokis sally-medwaychaplain@gre.ac.uk

Special film offer for Kent Staff

On Monday 2 November Gulbenkian is screening a film as part of the Homeless Film Festival, followed by a Q&A with the Director Clay Hassler.

It is a great opportunity to support the cause (The Homeless Film Festival raises awareness and proceeds to support Homeless projects) and understand how the director approached making the film.

As a special offer, Kent staff can claim £5.30 tickets (£8.30 full price) on the day or booking in advance through our Ticket and Information team on 01227 769075.
Homeless – Monday 2 November

Filmed in a real shelter with real homeless people, HOMELESS tells the story of Gosh (Josh), a teenage boy lost in the bleak routine of life in a shelter.

Everyday, from sunup until sundown, Gosh is put out on the streets, unable to return to the shelter until 7pm. During the day, he seeks refuge from the cold in the downtown public library and a local coffee shop. He feels alone and anonymous in a seemingly connected world.

Weeks go by and the long days and sleepless nights begin to wear on him, and he becomes increasingly discouraged when he finds it almost impossible to find a job with the shelter as his address. But suddenly his circumstances change for the better and he finds himself adapting to a new home, new friends and looking forward to a future that he hopes will last.

http://www.thegulbenkian.co.uk/events/cinema/2015/November/2015-11-homeless.html