Monthly Archives: May 2016

Coming of Age: Exhibition in Keynes College

Keynes College is delighted to host ‘Coming of Age’: an exhibition by the Moving Memory Dance Theatre Company. The exhibition features photographs of company members and their work captured over the years by Matt Wilson, and will be on display in the first floor Keynes Teaching Foyer from 11 May to 22 June.

Moving Memory Dance Theatre Company is an innovative company that offers workshop and performance opportunities for older women. Participants have the opportunity to try out new dance-theatre based skills and make high quality performance projects alongside professional artists. Celebrating life-long creativity, the company challenges views of being an ‘old’ woman, and offers older women a presence in the world of performance where they are rarely offered the opportunity to participate, let alone valued or applauded. Their work considers the funny side of things, the stuff of life, and in order to reach as diverse an audience as possible, they perform both in traditional venues, as well as in public spaces, such as the streets.

The core company, Moving Memory is a company of women aged between 53 and 83, who have been working and performing together for the last six years, touring all over the South East. The company’s strong concern with the representation of women in society stimulates in the work a unique wry humour reflecting the company’s life experiences, the work often startling and surprising audiences. The company have a strong interest in exploring the creative use of digital technologies in choreographing and presenting performance. Work to date has been funded by Arts Council England, Kent County Council, University of Kent, and through host/venue fees. The company will be touring their new show, Beyond the Marigolds, in autumn 2016.

www.movingmemorydance.com

Free preview tour of new Historic Dockyard facilities

The Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust is inviting all University staff to join a free preview tour of a new visitor experience at The Historic Dockyard, Chatham.

The brand new ‘Command of the Oceans’ visitor experience features four superb new interactive galleries, two significant archaeological discoveries, a new children’s play area and a restored historic environment. Command of the Oceans has the latest design technology that will take you on a voyage back to the ‘Age of Sail’.

The free preview tours take place on Tuesday 24 May 2016 from 11:00 – 13:00 and
Wednesday 25 May 2016 from 10:00 – 14:00.

The Dockyard Trust would be delighted if you would become a Critical Friend. A Critical Friend is someone who is encouraging and supportive, but who also provides honest and candid feedback!

The Trust would welcome your views to ensure that every visit in the future is an exceptional one for all. At the end of your visit, they will ask you to  give  valuable feedback and your opinion of your experience. The Trust would like to hear what you thought about everything – from car parking to the new visitor reception, shop, restaurant, facilities and customer care. They will be testing everything which will be new to us too, so your feedback will help us be ready for opening to the public.

Spaces will be allocated on a FIRST COME FIRST SERVED basis and the Trust will endeavour to offer other dates later in the year for those unable to visit this time.

This opportunity includes the  new ‘Mess Deck’ restaurant and, to tempt you to test this, the Trust is pleased to offer 50% off food and drink.

To register please email events@chdt.org.uk providing your name, guest names (up to five guests), address, telephone number and company name/group – the Trust will confirm whether your application is successful via an email.

Think Kent lectures attract nearly 40% more subscribers

Since the launch of the first five ‘Think Kent’ lectures on 9 December 2015, the number of subscribers to the University’s YouTube channel has increased from 1,732 to 2,400 (as at 5 April 2016), an increase of 38.5%.

Not all of these additional subscribers were a result of the ‘Think Kent’ videos, but there is a sharp spike in the number of new subscribers once all of the Think Kent lectures were published and our advertising campaign was running.

‘Think Kent’ videos are among the most viewed content on the University’s channel: Heejung Chung’s lecture, published in December 2015, is the 7th most viewed video out of all the publicly available videos on our channel. There are a further six ‘Think Kent’ videos within the top 20 most viewed videos on our channel. Many users are also adding the Think Kent videos to their own YouTube playlists.

The lectures have attracted viewers from around the world, with particular international interest from the US, Italy, Japan and Ghana. Many of the videos are also above average at retaining viewers compared to other YouTube content of similar length.

In addition, the videos are being published on the University’s Facebook page (two each week) and have proved popular with users, generating a large number of views, likes and shares.

Dr Anthony Manning, the University’s Dean for Internationalisation, said: ‘Sharing Kent’s academic excellence with the wider world is an important part of our internationalisation programme. The sharp rise in views of our ‘Think Kent’ videos across many different countries is therefore highly significant.’

Have you got a question about the EU referendum?

A team from SSPSSR will be answering staff questions between 13.00 and 14.00 this Wednesday 11 May.

All staff are welcome to come along and enjoy some refreshments while hearing answers to the questions colleagues have about the referendum.

Questions can be submitted anonymously in advance via one of the question boxes located in the Gulbenkian and SSPSSR.

You can also submit your question via email to b.j.leruth@kent.ac.uk – though questions submitted this way won’t be completely anonymous.

The event will take place in the Cornwallis 3rd floor staff room, Canterbury campus.

EDA hosts EU Referendum on 25 May at 14.00 in Jennison Lecture Theatre

The Referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union will be one of the most important political decisions in this country in a generation.

The School of Engineering and Digital Arts (EDA) is committed to the dissemination of knowledge for public benefit and to the free exploration of ideas. In order to raise awareness and facilitate debate and the exchange of views from all shades of opinion, EDA will be hosting a debate for students and staff on this matter, on Wednesday 25 May from 14.00 – 15.00 in Jennison Lecture Theatre, kindly facilitated by Dr Richard Whitman from the School of Politics and International Relations.

This event will introduce the state-of-the-debate in the referendum campaign and offer an opportunity to discuss alternative futures for the UK either within the EU or outside. The session will be run by Professor Richard Whitman who is currently working on the ESRC-funded UK in a Changing Europe programme which is providing independent and authoritative commentary on the UK-EU relationship.All members of the Kent community are invited to attend and get involved in this lively event.

There will also be an opportunity for networking and further discussion after the event at 15.00 in the Jennison social area over afternoon tea/refreshments.

Tickets for the debate can be obtained via Eventribte here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/debating-europe-the-uks-eu-referendum-all-you-need-to-know-tickets-24992168248

Kent Union Cycling Fundraiser

A team of Kent Union staff and officers are Cycling to Paris to raise funds for our Access to Activities Fund which supports students from disadvantaged backgrounds or who have a disability to participate in our sports clubs, societies or our wider student activities.
Kent Union doubled the fund to £4,000 this year, but we have been inundated with applications from students for support from the fund. So, we have set ourselves an ambitious target of raising another £10,000 to further increase the fund over the next couple of years.

The challenge we have set ourselves is to cycle the 230 miles from Canterbury to Paris in 3 days. As part of this challenge, we are also completing a 24-hour cycling challenge on the plaza in front of Essentials on Wednesday 11 May. If anybody can come and support the team, that would be very much appreciated by all involved.

If you are unable to join us for the 24 hour cycle, but would still like to donate, here are a list of our Just Giving page links:

https://www.justgiving.com/DanielJoeHatfield
https://www.justgiving.com/chi-lau
https://www.justgiving.com/Jack-Burdon-to-Paris
https://www.justgiving.com/Jim-to-Paris
https://www.justgiving.com/Tony-Logan
https://www.justgiving.com/Nina-Mehmi1

Information Services strategy workshops: help shape our future services

We’d like to invite University staff to a workshop to help us shape our strategy for 2016 – 2020.

We’re developing an Information Services strategy to guide the next five years of technology and library services at Kent.

We’re running a series of lively and thought-provoking workshops, open to all University staff. If you’d like to be part of a conversation shaping Information Services for the future, book a place on one – email is-admin@kent.ac.uk, stating which date you’d like to come.

Workshop dates 

Academic staff (all departments) – a choice of four dates:

  • Friday 13 May 13:30 – 15:30
  • Monday 16 May 13:30 – 15:30
  • Friday 20 May  13:30 – 15:30
  • Friday 27 May 10:00 – 12:00

Professional services staff (all departments):

  • Tuesday 17 May 13:30 – 15:30

Academic Division staff can attend any of these sessions.

About the workshop
The workshop will be a lively interactive session. We’ll look at how we work with and for students, academics, professional services and partners. There will be a graphic facilitator on hand to make a visual narrative of the workshop and ‘draw’ out themes from the activities.

You’ll have the chance to:

  • say what matters most to you about the future of Information Services
  • understand Information Services better

What happens next?
We’ll be engaging with IS staff through a departmental meeting where we feed back and discuss workshop findings. We’ll use the results to create a draft strategy document, which we’ll circulate from June.

Enjoy a Sensory Walk – and receive an Amazon voucher

Sensory Walks in Canterbury are running every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 12.00, 14.30, 17.30 for the next few weeks. You are cordially invited to participate.

The walks take one hour and the meeting point is the Beaney M­useum Café in Canterbury city centre. Tea and cake are provided at the end of the walk.

If you participate until 15 May, you will receive a £10 Amazon Voucher from the School of Architecture.

Sign up to walk with your senses by sending an email to kv50@kent.ac.uk

Comics exhibition at Templeman Library

“There Is An Alternative! Critical Comics and Cartoons” is now live in The Gallery at the Templeman Library (Floor 1, West), at The University of Kent, Canterbury Campus. The exhibition can be visited, free of charge, until the first of July. For more information about visiting, please refer to https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/templeman-exhibitions/visiting/. For pictures, please refer to https://tinyurl.com/TIAAKENT.

Through the displayed material, and drawing on the position of comics as an underground or marginal form, the exhibition investigates the issue of what it means to be ‘alternative’ and ‘critical’ in contemporary society.

The material on display comes from a variety of sources, most prominently the Les Coleman Collection at the London College of Communication, the British Cartoon Archive at The University of Kent and personal collections of artists. The exhibition showcases originals, published work, reprints an paraphernalia of mostly British and American artists, including Andy Singer, Cristy C. Road, Darrin Bell, Gord Hill, Hunt Emerson, J.J. McCollough, James van Otto, Jen Sorensen, Kate Evans, Khalid Albaih, Lauren Weinstein, Matt Bors, Mike Goodwin and Dan E. Burr, Rachael House, Robert Armstrong, Safdar Ahmed, Spike Trotman, Stephanie McMillan, Suzy Varty Ted Rall, Tom Tomorrow (Dan Perkins) and Vegan Sidekick.

This exhibition was made possible with generous financial support from the Templeman Library Exhibition Fund, Creative Campus, the School of Arts Graduate Studies Committee, the Centre for Popular and Comic Performance, the Centre for Film and Media Research and the Aesthetics Research Centre.