Our final SSPSSR Careers Insights day is all about our alumni. Join us to hear how their degrees with SSPSSR has helped them to get their dream jobs and get their top tips for getting those jobs!
Join us afterwards for drinks and nibbles.
Date: Wednesday 25 February
Presentations: 1 to 4pm in Darwin Conference Suite
Drinks reception: 4 to 7pm in Darwin Conference Suite
All welcome!
For more information or to book your space go to the alumni website.
Councillor Terry Westgate joined forces with Kent Union student volunteers and local residents to litter pick around the city. A group of eight Kent Union volunteer, six members of the community, including Councillor Terry Westgate battled the elements in a bid to tidy up the residential area at the bottom of Eliot footpath.
The volunteering project, organised by the Students’ Union at the University, was a great success with a grand total of 16 bags of rubbish collected! Tom Abbott Kent Union Volunteer Projects Coordinator: “The group has made a real and visible difference to the appearance of the area. Our volunteers are a real asset to the community and we really appreciate all the hard work they put in to keep the community clean, for all residents.”
Kent Union Volunteer Ryan Bates said: ‘It’s good to do something positive for the community, and it makes a nice break from working on a dissertation all day.” Kent Union Volunteer Leon Williams added: “It makes a nice break from working on a dissertation all day!’
More photographs of the volunteers at work can be seen on the Kent Union website.
Chris Shilling, Professor of Sociology, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, has been appointed Visiting Professor at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, until the end of the 2017-2018 academic year. During this period, Chris will be working on an inter-disciplinary, multi-national project funded by the Swedish Research Council on Embodied Knowledge with Professor Leif Ostman and other members of the team.
Recordings of the K-MOOCs Beacon Project special event, ‘MOOCs and beyond: Exploring the opportunities for Kent’ are available for University staff on KentPlayer – see the K-MOOCs website for details or, if preferred, click on a direct link to the KentPlayer recordings.
The event was held on Tuesday 10 February at the Unit for Enhancement of Teaching and Learning to explore the potential value of MOOCs for the University of Kent and the possible wider impact, drawing on the experience and expertise of leading MOOC providers.
A capacity audience enjoyed excellent and thought-provoking presentations from our external speakers – W Michael McCracken (Georgia Institute of Technology), Helena Gillespie (University of East Anglia), and Amy Woodgate (University of Edinburgh) – alongside the background and latest updates on our own K-MOOCs project from Mark O’Connor (UELT) and Simon Thompson (School of Computing). Following the presentations, we held a lively and enlightening panel discussion and Q&A session.
Picture shows panel members at the event (from left: W Michael McCracken, Helena Gillespie, Amy Woodgate and Simon Thompson).
The 2015 Learning and Development Awards Ceremony is taking place this week, on Thursday 26 February. The Ceremony provides an opportunity to celebrate the learning and development achievements of members of staff and to recognise the funding and other support provided by the University.
Due to the large number of award recipients attending this year’s event, unfortunately we will not be taking any further bookings from today (23 February 2015). Therefore, if you received an invitation letter but have not replied, unfortunately you will not now be able to book a place as the final arrangements are now taking place.
To avoid disappointment, please note that we will not be able to accommodate staff who turn up on the day with their certificate without having returned the reply slip.
We will be posting a full list of awards and also a selection of the photos taken at the Awards Ceremony on the Learning and Development website, following the event.
The recently inaugurated Centre for Early Christianity and its Reception has now launched its new website.
At Kent, there exists a substantial focus of multidisciplinary interest in early Christianity from its beginnings until Late Antiquity, including the exploration of its reception, which has been further strengthened by recent appointments of new staff, as well as building on those already in post and graduate students. The general interdisciplinary setting of the School of European Culture and Languages (SECL) provides an opportunity to develop a highly visible research community at the university over the coming years, hosted under the Centre.
The director of the new centre is Professor Karla Pollmann, Head of Classical & Archaeological Studies and Deputy Head of SECL. The Centre is the sixth research centre currently based within SECL, joining centres for Heritage, Language and Linguistics, Late Antique Archaeology, Modern European Literature, and Reasoning, which combine to create an active and energetic research community.
The #EarBox series of events returns to Studio 3 Gallery on Thursday 26 Feb at 4pm, with ‘GlassWorks,’ a recital of piano music by American minimalist, Philip Glass, performed by Daniel Harding.
Continuing the collaboration between the School of Art’s gallery and the Music Department, set amidst the gallery’s current ‘Palindrome’ exhibition, ‘GlassWorks’ will include sections from the soundtrack to ‘The Truman Show’ and the BAFTA-winning film, ‘The Hours.’
The recital lasts 45 minutes, and is the opener to the evening Q+A session with artists Brian Rice and Richard Rome, featuring in the exhibition, in conversation with the curator, writer and expert on British art, Ian Massey.
More details about the event can be found here (https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/palindrome-qa-with-ian-massey-brian-rice-and-richard-rome-tickets-15651255326; admission to both recital and the evening is free (the latter event by ticket).
The Centre for Child Protection (CCP) is hosting The National Centre for Therapeutic Residential and Foster Care conference on Wednesday 29 April 2015 in Darwin Conference Suite. The focus of the conference is ‘Child sexual exploitation and trauma: the implications for young people in care’ and keynote speakers are Professor David Shemmings, Dr Jane Reeves and Dr Emily Blake of CCP, Yvon Guest, University of the West of England and Assistant Chief Constable, John Campbell of Thames Valley Policy, who will address the role of the Police in multi-agency work.
For further information and to book a place please see CCP’s website.
The National Centre for Therapeutic Residential and Foster Care provides a forum for sharing, discussing, disseminating and testing models of high quality therapeutic residential and foster care and for the sharing and dissemination of university research on residential and foster care and the needs of looked after children.
Due to demand, we have increased the number of student places available on a Chaplaincy ‘Weekend Away’ at the Friars, Aylesford, a beautiful and historic place which has been described as the ‘Hogwarts’ of East Kent. You can use the time, from Friday evening 27 Feb until Sunday afternoon 1 March, as you wish or join in activities. Own room, food and transport to and from campus and all for just £35. Please contact the Anglican Chaplain, Revd Dr Stephen Laird, if you are interested.
Dr Ellie Lee, Director of the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies based in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, is presenting the paper ‘After the ‘need for….. a father’: ‘The welfare of the child’ and ‘supportive parenting’ in UK assisted conception clinics at the Confronting Science, Law and Bioethics event on Wednesday 25 February. This is one of a series of events organised by Kent Law School (KLS), Bioethics Institute Ghent (BIG), and the University of Kent Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies of Reproduction (CISoR). Further details of the event can be found on the CISoR blog.
Dr Lee’s research and teaching draws on constructionist theories of social problems and sociological concepts such as ‘risk consciousness’ and ‘medicalisation’ to analyse the evolution of family policy and health policy.