Monthly Archives: December 2016

Over £90,000 raised by students for students

Over 4 weeks in October and November, a team of dedicated student callers spoke to over 1200 alumni across the UK and the USA to raise money.  The team, led by student supervisors Juvayriyah Ikram (Maths, Third year), Adam Mathia (Actuarial Science, Third year) and Rosdip Rai (Biomedical Science, Third year), raised over £90,000 – a record breaking amount – which will help to build the Kent Opportunity Fund, which has raised over £4.5million since it was launched in 2012.  The Telephone Campaign takes place twice a year and will be recruiting student callers in the spring.

Student caller, Maria Burrell said; “I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk to real professionals, who have been through all the processes and experiences that are involved in the job market. I’ve definitely had some inspiration as to what career I’d like to have!”

We are overwhelmed by the generosity of our alumni community, and look forward to taking their donations forward.

The Kent Opportunity Fund was established to support Kent students; through scholarships, bursaries for financial hardship and grants to both extra-curricular projects, and sports projects.

The Alumni Postgraduate Research Scholarship has helped 23 exceptional graduates to date, do groundbreaking research, with projects in recent years contributing significantly to attempts to tackle UK gang culture and the development of a new cancer treatment. Hardship Bursaries are extremely important as students are facing tougher financial pressures. Many find it difficult to support themselves during their degrees and so Hardship Bursaries are available to students who are struggling financially and need immediate help to finish their studies.

The Student Projects Grant scheme and the Student Sport Grant scheme are open for applications now! Visit www.kent.ac.uk/giving/opportunityfund

 

Kent Hospitality in China

Conferences and Events go to China

Kelly Leonard, from Kent Hospitality’s Conference and Events team recently travelled to Shanghai to attend Destination Britain China. We attended with Visit Kent and Leeds Castle.

Below Kelly summarises her experience of attending this event:

‘On the first day of the event I had the chance to attend the Marketing Briefing for UK suppliers which gave me great insight into the Chinese market, before which I had very little idea about. Two things stood out to me while listening to the presentations: during China’s version of Black Friday £14.1 billion was made in one day, with Generation Y spending 74% of the total amount; by 2025 over half of the Chinese population will be middle class. Both of these ideas point to the fact that the Generation Y in China is leading the way to China becoming the biggest global economy and keeping the title of ‘1st for outbound travel spend.

‘The next two days were focused on meeting the buyers from companies around China and each day consisted of 20 meetings (each 14 minutes long) with each buyer who had chosen to speak with us. Sharing a table with Visit Kent really worked in the University’s favour as Alanna (from Visit Kent) and myself would spend time introducing the county and the benefits of visiting Kent, and then tying this in with staying in the many bedrooms that we have here at the University.

‘The feedback from most buyers was very encouraging and positive, with many saying they want to move away from spending time in London (due to high costs of accommodation/attractions and being too busy) and that they would look to branching out and visiting Kent.’

We are following up enquiries with buyers Kelly spoke to in Shanghai. To find out more about our conference and event services please visit our website.

Eliot College – Interruption to Cold Water Supply

On Monday 19 December 2016 between 08.00 – 16.30 the cold water mains supply will be turned off to the building to carry out emergency pipe work repairs in the underground ducts. Please ensure that all taps and showers are turned off to prevent flooding when the water supply is restored.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and if there are any queries please contact the Estates Helpdesk on Extn 3209.

Returning students save £200 at Liberty Quays

Re-book your student accommodation with Liberty Quays directly and receive a £200 rebooking discount.

Current students
If you are already staying at Liberty Quays, they will happily carry your deposit forward to the next year.

Former students
If you know any former students who are looking for student accommodation, be sure to let them know that the same offer is also open to them.

For further information or to book your student accommodation for September 2017 visit Liberty Living’s website.

Kentmas Quiz winner

Congratulations to Mihaela Micheva, a second year Psychology student, on winning the top prize of an iPad Mini in the ’12 days of Kentmas’ student competition.

 

kentmaswinner

The ’12 days of Kentmas’ is festive quiz which involves students answering daily questions about the University’s student experience.

Congratulations also goes to our eleven #Kentmas quiz runners up, who each won a £10 Amazon voucher.

Thank you to everyone who took part and we hope you will play along next year!

Careers and Employability Service shortlisted for national award

The University’s Careers and Employability Service is delighted to announce that it has been shortlisted in the category of Best University Careers/Employability Service by the National Undergraduate Employability Awards 2017 (NUE Awards).

The award is sponsored by Microsoft and celebrates the outstanding achievements of universities, students and employers in the undergraduate employability market.

This latest shortlisting acknowledges the Careers and Employability Service’s many successes in recent years. These have included developing the dynamic Work-Study Scheme, providing generous bursaries for students undertaking work experience, extending the annual Careers Fair onto a grand scale, innovating with the popular online Careers Award and staging a highly effective Employability Festival attracting over 10,700 students.

The impact of these developments on students’ employability is demonstrated by the glowing feedback they receive and by the recent outstanding outcomes in graduate destinations surveys.

Tim Reed, Head of the Careers and Employability Service, said: ‘The University of Kent is delighted to have been shortlisted in the Best University Careers and Employability Service category at the 2017 NUE Awards. This award category acknowledges Kent students’ outstanding success over the past few years as well as recognising the exceptional contribution made by Careers and Employability Service staff to the student experience at Kent.’

The HEIs that Kent will be competing with are the Universities of Liverpool, Reading, Glasgow and Westminster. The Careers and Employability Service will have to wait until Friday 24 February 2017 when the winner will be announced at an Awards Ceremony in London.

For more information about the Careers and Employability Service, take a look at its webpages, telephone 01227 823299 or email careerhelp@kent.ac.uk.

Staff Connect – update on launch next term

Update on progress

It was hoped that the new HR and Payroll system Staff Connect would launch in January 2017 and with it online payslips.

In November a major step on the road to launch took place. Data was migrated from the old system to the new by the software supplier. Whilst this automated process was largely successful, it was not completely successful and therefore required the supplier to undertake some additional work, before HR, Payroll and Pensions could start the next period of testing – running the current and new systems in parallel. Unfortunately, this additional work has put the project back by at least one month.

Work on “tidying up” the data has now completed, and “parallel running” of the two systems has started this week. This final pre-launch work does not impact on staff.  It is to enable HR, Payroll and Pensions and the Staff Connect Project team to conduct final testing of the new system ahead of launch.  Every effort has been put in place to try and catch up as much time as possible, including having staff from the supplier on site up to the Christmas break.

We will update you again in January with the progress of the project and the new target date once the impact of the additional resources will better known.

Meanwhile, demonstrations of Staff Connect have already been given to most University Schools and Departments, the remainder are scheduled for January. If you were not able to attend your demonstration, have a look at the project support site where you can find tutorials, guidance, frequently asked questions and answers and an online video walk through of Staff Connect.

Su Westerman – Staff Connect Employee Communications & Engagement Manager

Memorial plaque for Kent Law Clinic founding Director Adrian Taylor

A plaque honouring the memory of Kent Law Clinic founding Director Adrian Taylor has been unveiled in the Wigoder Law Building.

Adrian Taylor, a lecturer in law at Kent from 1967 to 1977, was the foremost pioneer of clinical legal education in the UK and became the founding Director of Kent Law Clinic (the first university-based law clinic in the UK) in November 1973. He later became a patron of the Kent Law Campaign (together with his wife Yvette Gibson), helping to champion the £5m campaign to raise funds for the Wigoder Law Building, the new home for Kent Law Clinic that was officially opened by the Rt Honourable the Baroness Hale of Richmond and principal benefactor The Honourable Charles Wigoder in October 2016.

After his retirement and two years before his death at the age of 79, Adrian returned to Kent Law School in 2012 to deliver a lecture on the history of clinical legal education to a rapt audience of Kent staff and students. The full text of this lecture was reproduced in a special memorial booklet for those who attended the unveiling of his memorial plaque within the new Law Clinic office on Saturday 19 November.

The memorial event was organised by Adrian’s former student Professor Richard de Friend, a former law lecturer at Kent Law School and former Pro-Vice-Chancellor in the University. More than 30 guests attended the unveiling ceremony including Adrian’s widow, Yvette, members of Adrian’s family, and many former students and colleagues who had worked with him in the Clinic.

Amongst the guests were also Lucy Scott-Moncrieff (the current Standards Commissioner for the House of Lords) and His Honour Judge Peter Thornton QC (former Chief Coroner of England and Wales).

Eliot Extension – Old Kent Law Clinic Building – Isolation to heating supply

On Monday 19 December 2016, Parkway Heating Services will be isolating the heating supply to the Old Kent Law Clinic. In order to do this the pipe work needs to be isolated from the Eliot extension Building. Works will not commence until 16.00 on Monday and the disruption during normal working hours will only be noise from the freeze machine.  Work is due to be completed by 20.00. 

If this is not convenient during the times and dates details, please do not hesitate to contact Charlotte Ifill. 

Apologies for any disruption this may cause.