A contractor has now been appointed to construct a secure cycle enclosure on the piece of ground adjacent to Darwin college as shown on the attached drawing. Works are due to commence on 17 August 2015 and will be complete by 11 September 2015.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation whilst we undertake these improvements.

Should there be any queries please contact the Estates Helpdesk on 01227 823209.

Steven Blay
Senior Building Surveyor

As tomorrow is A level results day, the volume of calls from potential students is expected to be exceptionally high.

This may cause intermittent problems when ringing from the University on Thursday 13 and Friday 14 August. The switchboard is also likely to be very busy with related enquiries during the following week (17-21 August).

We appreciate your patience and co-operation during this time.

If you have any queries regarding this, please contact the Helpdesk on ext 3209.

Sarah Cooke
Telecoms & Administration Manager
Estates

Dr Lubomira Radoilska from the Department of Philosophy has been awarded a British Academy Research Grant of £10,000 for a two-year project on ‘Reassessing Responsibility: Why Knowing What One is Doing Matters’ starting on 1 September 2015.

A central assumption in the literature on responsibility is that an action can only be responsible to the extent that its agent knows what she/he is doing. The underlying knowledge condition of responsibility is closely related to another one, the control condition, stating that a person can be held responsible only for things that are up to her/him. Both conditions seem compelling, if we focus on discrete intentional actions as primary objects of responsibility. Yet, as recent work on the practice of holding one another responsible shows, habitual behaviours and attitudes, some of which are unconsciously held, should be acknowledged as important in assessing responsibility as intentional actions. Such behaviours and attitudes do not typically satisfy the knowledge condition and, as a result, often fail to satisfy the control condition too. The proposed research will aim to address the apparent paradox that arises from widening the scope of legitimate objects of responsibility while maintaining the two standard conditions, with particular emphasis on the knowledge condition.

The British Academy provides a range of grants and fellowships to support research across the humanities and social sciences. In this case the research activities will include the organisation of a workshop and a conference, the preparation of three research papers and an edited volume on Reassessing Responsibility.

Full details of the British Academy/Leverhulme Small research grants.

Professor Averil Macdonald OBE will share her ‘10 Top Tips for Success’ at the Athena SWAN Awareness Event on Friday 18 September.

Since our last Canterbury event, six of the Science Schools at Kent have been awarded Athena SWAN Bronze Awards, and the initiative itself has expanded to include all disciplines, professional service staff in Schools, and wider gender issues including trans students and staff. This year’s annual Athena SWAN Awareness Day is a celebration of our achievements to date and an invitation to wider staff to think about becoming involved. The theme is: Sharing and Building Success. The Athena SWAN initiative facilitates organisational and personal success, and participants can gain insight into how these can be achieved.

The Athena SWAN initiative is also about recognising advancement of gender equality: representation, progression and success for all. This is something we are committed to, and by pursuing this agenda, we create the best working environment for all staff. This year’s event will cover themes relevant to staff across the Faculties and Professional Service departments.

Professor Averil Macdonald OBE (leading influencer on engaging under-represented groups with science) will speak, Professor Diane Houston (Dean of the Graduate School) will open the event, a panel discussion will spark debate, and the workshops are designed to inform or provide practical help.

A draft programme is already available and we invite you to join us in the Keynes Foyer at 12:00. The event will run until 15:30 and includes lunch.

We welcome all staff – men and women; Academic Schools and Professional Services; Medway and Canterbury based – to attend the event.

To find out more, and register for the event, go to the Awareness Day webpages.

If you use Firefox, whether on a Windows device, Mac or Linux, you need to upgrade it to version 39.0.3 because of a security vulnerability in all previous versions.

If you use Firefox with FTP clients, Subversion, or any other software that uses saved passwords, you should change the stored passwords.

If you have SSH keys saved, which allow SSH login to servers without entering passwords, delete them and replace them immediately (both on your local machine and the server they are connecting to).

Full story:
http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/isnews/if-you-use-firefox-update-it-today/