Every year we challenge our students to create a video, which sums up what studying at Kent means to them. This year, we’d like you to use the Kent poem, created by students, staff and alumni for our 50th anniversary, as your inspiration.

The basics:

• £1,000 for first place, £500 for second place
• The video must be inspired by the Kent poem created for our 50th anniversary
• The video can focus on any aspect of student life at Kent and should promote studying at Kent
• You may submit an entry as an individual or as part of a team
• Maximum duration of 120 seconds
• Closing date is midnight on Sunday 12 June 2016
• Winners of the competition will be expected to actively engage as representatives for the University, and feature in University publications, website and press releases.

Find out more and enter.

Staff, students, alumni, lawyers and members of our local community are invited to sign-up for a 10km walk to raise funds for the Kent Law Clinic.

The Kent Law Clinic provides free legal advice and representation for local people who can’t afford it.

This year’s Legal Walk will take place in Canterbury on Saturday 11 June 2016. You can register to take part or volunteer with us by visiting the legal walk webpage.

The walk will begin at the new law building heading down into the city centre, passing iconic sites and finishing back at the University campus.

This is one of a series of legal walks taking place across the country, which are attracting the support and participation of senior judges and lawyers.

Lord Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony, one of our lead walkers said ‘These walks now play a critical part in providing funding for legal advice and assistance. They are good fun so please take part.’

For more information visit the legal walk webpages, or contact Felicity Clifford, Campaigns Officer: F.Clifford@kent.ac.uk.

A design by a Kent student has been shortlisted from over 250 to put her in the final 12 of the competition to find Britain’s best budding designer.

Rihanna Taylor, who comes from Northampton and studies Digital Arts at the University’s School of Engineering and Digital Arts, was inspired by her final-year project proposal for her degree which created an interactive website that can be used as an educational resource to learn about British history.

The 12 finalists will now design a range of templates for products, to be judged by a panel of industry experts: Jim Thacker, Editor of Computer Arts magazine; Pete Rope, founder of digital design agency ArtScience, and Andy Duke, Head of Design at digital marketing agency Stickyeyes.

The ‘UK’s Best Budding Designer’ competition was launched by online print retailer instantprint to find and recognise an aspiring designer worthy of the title and to help designers to break into the industry.

Rhianna could win £1,000 and have the opportunity to see her work showcased on instantprint.co.uk.

Congratulations to the administration team in the School of Engineering and Digital Arts which has been shortlisted in the Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards.

The team is being recognised for its outstanding work in line with the University’s institutional strategy to heighten student satisfaction and embrace the government’s Teaching Excellence Framework.

The EDA team provides outstanding innovations in student preparedness, recruitment and student success, by maximizing the creative engineering and digital media resources available.  They spearheaded an innovative animation to facilitate students’ preparedness for University, and introduced a highly successful Welcome Week Icebreaker event to help build friendships and school orientation.

They devised an innovative student progress profiling system that charts students’ academic progress which is now generating interest across the wider university and developed a Virtual Student Advisor (VSA), a dynamic webpage that centralises many of the university’s resources for pastoral/academic support.

The winners of the 2016 THE award will be announced at a special event in London in the summer.

Did you know that each donation can help save and improve the lives of up to 3 patients? Hospitals and patients rely on more than 7,000 people attending a donation session every day across England and North Wales.

Come and register to become a blood donor and know your blood group on Thursday 14 April, 11.00– 16.00, in Pilkington Atrium.

The Learning and Teaching Network in collaboration with the RLF Consultant Fellow Susan Barker, offered a half day workshop: Writing with impact on 23 March 2016.

Susan is a novelist (see publications) with two years’ experience as a Royal Literary Fund fellow at Leeds Trinity University, where she mentored hundreds of students and staff in academic and non-academic writing.

Susan provided an afternoon writing workshop for staff engaged in non-academic writing. The workshop covered many aspects of non-academic writing, from emails to reports, and focussed on techniques for stylish and effective writing. The workshop was extremely successful and well-attended.  Participants benefitted greatly from a structured approach on improving writing whilst focussing on clarity, simplicity and conciseness.

Participants enjoyed the two 90-minutes sessions of the workshop, stating that the workshop was very well-prepared with many interesting, student-centred and interactive activities. Lots of thought, effort and energy went into the planning and delivery of the workshop. Many participants expressed their enjoyment and praise for the workshop by giving unprompted and unsolicited feedback.

In view of the great success of this workshop, we are offering another ‘Writing with impact’ workshop on Thursday 5 May, from 9:30 until 12:30, in the UELT Seminar room.

Places are limited for this free event. Book via cpdbookings@kent.ac.uk.

Dr Rosie Wyles, Lecturer in Classical History and Literature in the Department of Classical and Archaeological Studies, will feature on the BBC Radio 4 programme Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics, tonight at 16.00.

In the first episode of the second series of this popular broadcast the acclaimed comedian and classicist Haynes gives the case for the brilliance of Aristophanes, the ancient comic playwright.

Introducing Dr Wyles, Haynes quipped ‘Rosie Wyles, you quite literally, and I hardly ever get to say this accurately, wrote the book on costume in Greeks plays!’

Dr Wyles offered insight into the cost and significance of costumes in ancient comedy. She also discussed the differences in funding and participation in the 5th-century Athenian drama festivals. Astonishingly the festival could cost the city and its citizens as much as a tenth of the amount spent on its navy for a year. This contribution was informed by her research. She drew on her existing monograph Costume in Greek Tragedy (Bloomsbury 2011). She also showcased some of her new research, due to be published next year, on the role of costume and transformation in Wasps, one of Aristophanes’ most political comedies.

Dr Wyles said ‘I was delighted to be asked to be part of this series. I admire Natalie Haynes’ work as a comedian, writer, and leading advocate of the Classics, immensely. The broadcast chimes in well with my own commitment to highlighting the relevance of Classics in the 21st-century. It was great to work with a producer, Mary Ward-Lowery, who was so enthusiastic about Classics’.

The programme is accessible on on the BBC Radio 4 website for the next 23 days.

On Wednesday 30 March, students from 18 schools involved in the Academic Peer Mentoring (APM) scheme attended an awards ceremony and lunch hosted by the Student Learning Advisory Service (SLAS).

The awards were presented to the mentors by Dr Louise Naylor, Director of UELT.

Mentors from the KBS, CEWL, Pol IR and SECL made presentations and showcased the impact this additional support has had on student achievement.

The event was recorded graphically by a small team of mentors who have received graphic recording training from Banter – a Medway based graphic recording company.

‘Being a mentor has been fun and I have learnt skills which have helped me to prioritise my workload and communicate effectively with lots of different people’. (Fatin Binti-Azhar: KBS stage 2)

The APM scheme now has 350 mentors and it has proved to be an excellent way of promoting student-centred learning.

This initiative depends on student volunteers and is very much a student-led response – both undergraduates and postgraduates offer encouragement and academic advice to other students in the year below thus helping them to improve their performance. As such, it has become an important intervention in the University’s OFFA project.

Mentors benefit greatly from the scheme as they deepen their understanding of the course content as well as enhance their employability skills. Mentoring counts towards the KSCV and employability points scheme. This year it will also be a verifiable activity itemised on students’ HEAR (Higher Education Achievement Record) as SLAS has also delivered a new optional Kent Extra module for mentors.

‘The module made me a lot more confident about my own study skills which I have been able to pass on to my mentees’. (Charlotte Harding: MFA stage 3)

If you would like to find out more about mentoring at Kent please email slasapm@kent.ac.uk.

This year’s Xercise Factor was one of the closest competitions in the promotions four year history.

All eight of the participants selected from over 30 applications completed the process and made it through until the final week.

After careful judgement of all contestants final blogs and a short testimony from each of the Fitness Team Mentors, Khawla Al Hassan was selected as this year’s winner.

All of this year’s participants received votes and Elaine Gilman pushed Khawla close finishing in second place but it was Khawla’s efforts to change her whole outlook on Health and Fitness that won her many fans amongst the Fitness Team and her Xercise Factor peers.

Liz Coult (Khawla’s Mentor throughout the Xercise Factor) had this to say ‘when Khawla first came to me she had a poor diet, low self-esteem, and lacked any form of exercise, however over the course of the Xercise Factor there has been a dramatic transformation in her fitness, her dedication to a heathier and balanced diet and her general commitment to her new healthier lifestyle. I have seen an amazing transition and a more confident Khawla has emerged from her Xercise Factor experience’.

For more information visit Kent Sport and to keep up to date with news and events follow UniKentSports on social media.