Black History Month 2019

October 2019 sees an exciting array of events and activities taking place at the University of Kent, celebrating Black History Month under the theme of Black Excellence

Key events to look out for include the Black Excellence Exhibition, the launch of the BAME Staff Network, talks and workshops by Dr Onyeka Nubia, the Black Excellence Fashion Show, various events by the Platforma Festival, film screenings, an evening with Elijah Lawal, author of The Clapback and Lemn Sissey’s life story, as narrated by him in his new book My Name Is Why.

With the majority of events free of charge and open to staff and students, there is sure to be something for everyone. Please note some events have a limited number of tickets available, so please be sure to book in advance.

Click here for the full programme.

Kent’s REF2021 Code of Practice is approved

We are pleased to announce that following assessments conducted by both the REF 2021 Equality and Diversity Panel (EDAP) and Research England, it has been confirmed that Kent’s Code of Practice meets the published requirements as set out in the REF 2021 COP Guidance (REF 2019/03).

The Code of Practice (COP) is a vital document for the University’s REF 2021 submission and is a document all institutions are required to submit. It outlines the process of defining researchers, selecting outputs and demonstrating support for equality and diversity in the REF.

Kent’s COP is aligned with our commitment to the creation and support of a balanced, inclusive and diverse academic community, and reflects the four expected principles: transparency, consistency, accountability and inclusivity.

Now Kent’s COP has been approved, we must adhere to the approaches and processes that have been outlined and use it to inform key decisions for our REF2021 submission.

Please visit the REF2021 Code of Practice webpage for full details.

£19 massage for everyone!

The Kent Sport Physiotherapy Clinic will be running a discount on massages from 23 September to 29 November to help kick-start your academic year!

Massages are being offered at £19 for 30 minutes – and that’s the same great price regardless of whether you’re a Kent Sport member or not. We have two new fully qualified massage therapists who have recently joined us, Millie Knight and Mark Allen! This means we have even more availability!

To book an appointment, please visit the reception desk inside the fitness suite at the sports centre, call the clinic staff on 01227 824375 or email physio@kent.ac.uk.

We look forward to seeing you!

Sustainable Development Goals collaboration launch

Staff from the University of Kent, University of Greenwich and Canterbury Christchurch University have been developing a pilot programme of actions to highlight the UN Sustainable Development Goals at the Medway Campus. The initiative launches on the 23rd September and across the new academic term aiming to help our staff and students learn about the SDG’s and connect them to their studies, teaching and research.

The University of Kent has signed an agreement to incorporate the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals into its operations and the teaching curriculum it delivers. The University is working to deliver on goals including ending poverty, promoting gender equality, creating sustainable cities and communities, minimising its impact on the environment and offering inclusive and equitable education opportunities for all.

To launch this collaborative project, we are asking for Medway staff and students to tell us about something they are doing that supports the SDGs. This could be selecting a goal that means the most to you and telling us why, or showcasing something you do whether personally or professionally i.e. your research area, projects you are working on, volunteering activities etc.

You can find out more on our new webpage and take a look at examples of where students and staff have already taken part from across the three Universities.

Alternatively, please email sustainability@kent.ac.uk for more information.

Global Officers Leadership Development (GOLD) Programme

We are delighted to invite Kent students to apply for this year’s Global Officers Leadership Development (GOLD) Programme. The programme is a co-curricular venture, designed to fit around your academic studies. It provides a framework of activities for globally-minded undergraduate students at Kent to develop their leadership skills, global citizenship and cultural awareness.

There are 5 components which can be completed throughout the academic year. Benefits include:

• Employability Points awarded per activity

• Certificate of recognition and personal reference from the Dean for Internationalisation

• Recognition on your Higher Education Achievement Report

• Practical event & project management experience

• A chance for you to record your international skill development in the Kent Global Passport.

For further details please see our website.

Deadline to apply is 30th September 2019.

Appointment of interim Deputy Vice-Chancellors

The University is delighted to announce the appointment of Professor Christina Hughes as interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education and Student Experience) and Professor Georgina Randsley de Moura as interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic Strategy, Planning and Performance).

Christina brings extensive leadership experience to the post having spent three years as Provost at Sheffield Hallam University and four years Pro-Vice Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) at the University of Warwick. She is a member of the TEF Subject Panel (Social Sciences) and is Visiting Professor at the University of Coventry’s Centre for Global Learning Equity and Attainment. Christina will be joining the University on 14 October 2019 and will build on the good work already underway thanks to Professor April McMahon who starts her new role at Manchester University in a few weeks’ time.

Georgina has made a significant contribution to the strategic direction of the University, especially in the growth and development of Psychology’s profile and positioning and nationally through leadership roles in the British Psychological Society. Georgina also has extensive cross-institutional experience across a range of projects in education, research, EDI, and organisational change. Georgina will start her new role on 1 October 2019 and interim arrangements will be made to cover her current commitments as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Both will be members of the University’s Executive Group.

10 Year Test of Time Award shows strength of research at Kent

Matteo Migliavacca and his co-authors have been awarded the 10 Years Test of Time Award by the 2019 ACM International Conference on Distribute and Event-based Systems for their 2009 paper Distributed complex event processing with query rewriting.

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), is the leading international professional body for computer science and the Test of Time Award recognizes papers published 10 to 12 years in the past that are deemed to be an outstanding paper whose contents are still a vibrant and useful contribution today.

Matteo said ‘I am very honoured to have received this award. In the work we tackled the problem of optimising complex an event processing system by transforming user-submitted queries in more efficient forms and executing them in distributed fashion. The importance of the work has been recognised by the research community, and is still being cited after ten years from when it was originally published. This shows that optimisation and parallelisation are still key in large-scale data processing frameworks used to process big-data.’

Professor Richard Jones, Head of the School of Computing, commented ‘New research results in computer science are reported at international conferences, which often make awards for the best paper. Conferences reserve their most prestigious awards for research that has stood the test of time and had long-term influence. I am delighted that Matteo Migliavacca and his co-authors, Nicholas Poul Schultz-Møller and Peter R. Pietzuch, have been awarded the 10 Years Test of Time Award. The strength of computer science researchers at Kent is demonstrated by such awards.’

In 2017, Scott Owens and his co-authors also received the Award for the Most Influential Paper from the ACM International Conference on Functional Programming held 10 years before for their paper Ott: Effective Tool Support for the Working Semanticist

Congratulations to them both.

Nostalgia interview with Sarah Blackman

In the latest episode of the Nostalgia podcast series, Chris Deacy, Head of the Department of Religious Studies interviews Sarah Blackman (nee Harden) who graduated in Religious Studies at Kent in 2016.

Sarah tells us about her ambition to become a primary school teacher and what initially stopped her from realizing her dreams. She also recounts childhood memories, listening to Mark Goodier counting down the charts on a Sunday evening, what happened when S Club 7 beat Madonna to be number 1, why her RE supply teacher was such an inspiration, why writing essays at university entailed ‘blood, sweat and tears’, and her obsession with ‘Friends’ and ‘Toy Story’. Sarah then goes on to talk about how children today are more aware than ever of changes in the environment, and the way we tend to filter out more negative experiences.

Emeritus Professor John Fitzpatrick OBE to give annual Tucker Millward Guest Lecture at Kent

Emeritus Professor John Fitzpatrick OBE, former Director of Kent Law Clinic, will speak about ‘Democracy and the Law’ for this year’s annual Tucker Millward Guest Lecture at Kent.

The lecture on Thursday 14 November at 6.30pm in Grimond Lecture Theatre 1 is open to all. It is co-hosted by Kent Law Society and Kent Law School and will be preceded by refreshments, served in Grimond Foyer, from 6pm. Attendance is free, but attendees are asked to reserve their place online in advance (for catering purposes).

Professor Fitzpatrick has had a long and distinguished legal career. After obtaining a degree in English Language and Literature from Oxford University, he worked for 15 years in Community Law Centres in Brixton and Hammersmith (first as a caseworker and later as a solicitor), specialising in employment and immigration and asylum law. He served as a voluntary member on the Management Committee of the Hammersmith and Fulham Community Law Centre from 1992 until 2014, and from 2007 to 2009 was the Chair of the national Law Centres Federation.

He joined Kent Law School in 1991 as a Lecturer and has lectured mainly in the areas of human rights law and public law. An active trade unionist, he served as President of the Kent Branch of the University and Colleges Union for nearly a decade up to 2013.

Professor Fitzpatrick also served as a member of the University’s Council for two years until his retirement in 2018. He was Director of Kent Law Clinic from 1992 until 2018 during which time the Clinic won many prestigious prizes for its work, including the Queen’s Anniversary Prize in 2008. Professor Fitzpatrick was awarded an OBE in 2006 for ‘services to the administration of justice’.

Record numbers at Medway Festival of Learning and Teaching

The three Universities at Medway came together once again on 12 September to celebrate learning and teaching innovation and pedagogic research at the annual Medway Festival of Learning and Teaching. 127 staff and students from the Universities of Kent, Greenwich, Canterbury Christ Church University and colleagues from partner colleges met to reflect on this year’s theme: “Developing a culture of student engagement”.

The keynote speech was delivered by Professor Colin Bryson and Asia Scholefield, from Newcastle University, which focused on “Where are we and where are we going with student engagement?” A variety of workshops and presentations followed, which demonstrated the diversity of innovative practices undertaken by staff in partnership with their students, at the universities and colleges present.

Feedback about the Festival was on the whole very positive, with comments such as ‘a very well spent day’, ‘the keynote was very informative, also the breakout sessions’, ‘great way to make contact with colleagues from other institutions, with shared interests’. Despite the hot and packed breakout rooms, delegates enjoyed ‘hearing about colleagues’ projects and research’, ‘the good variety of topics’ and ‘student involvement.’

Some slides used during the conference will be published on the Festival website.

The call for papers for Medway Festival of Learning and Teaching 2020 will be out in early 2020 and we welcome any suggestions for a theme for next year.

The Medway Festival Organising Team (CCCU, University of Greenwich and University of Kent)