Last week Denise Everitt, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer, signed the Trade Union Congress (TUC)’s ‘Dying to Work’ Charter which seeks to offer additional protection to employees who are diagnosed as terminally ill.

The Charter represents the University’s commitment to support employees following their diagnosis in order to avoid added stress and worry. It provides security of work, peace of mind and gives the employee the opportunity to choose the best course of action for themselves and their families, helping them with dignity and without undue financial loss.

By signing the Charter, the University commits to supporting employees who are coming to the end of their life, giving them the freedom to choose whether to remain at work irrespective of their ability to fulfill all requirements of their contractual role.

“Many staff will be aware that the University has a long standing practice of doing its utmost to support colleagues who are terminally ill. We all recognise the vital role that work can play in establishing some normality, security and social support when colleagues and their families have to face the challenges and difficult decisions raised at end of life. The Charter gives us the opportunity to make a clear and public statement so that our commitment is known and unnecessary worries avoided both for those directly affected, and for their colleagues who want to know that University will show both compassion and support for those affected.” Alison Ross-Green, Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development.

We have developed a Memorandum of Understanding which outlines how earnings will be protected if working hours are reduced. In addition, the maximum sickness allowance of six months full pay, followed by six months half pay will be available for staff with one year’s service, rather than the usual requirement of five years’.

Each individual and situation is different and therefore the employee’s line manager, Human Resources representative and Occupational Health representative will work with the employee to develop a work plan tailored to them.

All cases will be managed on an individual basis, with respect, dignity and compassion.

Owen Lyne from the University of Kent Branch of UCU said “We welcome wholeheartedly the University of Kent’s signing of the Charter as well as its adoption of a memorandum of understanding. We believe this will provide significant reassurance to members of staff and their families when facing the trauma of a diagnosis of a terminal illness.”

More information can be found on the Human Resources website and on the TUC’s Dying to Work website

On Thursday 17th August, two Hub students will be travelling to Virginia, USA, to compete in the Virginia tech KnowledgeWorks Global Student Entrepreneurship Challenge.

Each year the University of Kent selects a student, or a team of students, to compete at the Virginia Tech University in the USA along with students from 14 other countries. These students all have one thing in common: a great business idea.

The University of Kent represents the UK to compete in this prestigious competition with other countries including Ecuador, France and Australia. Students pitch their business ideas with the chance to win $25,000 and the title of ‘Global Entrepreneurship Champion’.

The University of Kent’s entry this year is “ToDo”- the business idea of students Daniella Golden and Saga Rad. ToDo is an online platform for collaborative environmental volunteering with a connected webshop.

Daniella and Saga put forward a business idea for the University of Kent Big Ideas Competition, run as part of the Hub for Innovation and Enterprise. The duo were selected to receive comprehensive mentoring to prepare for the Global Entrepreneurship Champion Competition and free workspace at the University’s business incubation and support unit.

Daniella and Saga will be presenting their business idea at 20.35 (BST) On Thursday 24th August You can support our student entry and watch live here.

If you have a business idea or would like to find out more about how the University supports students looking to start-up a business please email email us.

Kent Sport staff member Lesley Parker set off on Saturday morning with her husband Andy and good friends Lizzie and Martin, on an epic cycle ride of 1,125K (700 miles) through France. The adventure started in Bishopsbourne and will end in Bagneres de Luchon in the Pyrenees. The idea was hatched one evening in their local pub (the Mermaid) over a pint or two. The group will end their adventure at Billy’s Bar- a local bar in Luchon where people enjoy watching the Tour de France each year.

Lesley has trained hard by cycling to work along with a few gym sessions and a lot of encouragement from her colleagues and friends. She has chosen the Pilgrims Hospice as her charity and just hopes she can keep up with the other three! Kent Sport wishes her luck.

Lesley says of her chosen charity “I have personally seen the excellent care and support that the Canterbury Hospice provides for family members and friends. I recently took part in the annual cycle ride for the hospice which was supported by Kent Sport where I work. The vision for hospice care is that everyone in east Kent should have access to service so they can cope with life-limiting illness with dignity and free from pain. Pilgrims Hospices has been providing end of life care and support for patients and their families across east Kent for more than 30 years. It is for these reasons that I am determined to complete the journey”.

To support Lesley in her epic ride and fundraising efforts for Pilgrims Hospices you can visit her JustGiving page. To find out more about the team and their route visit their Facebook page for updates.

In w/c 21 August 2017 there will be several service disruptions across campus. Please see below for details.

Grounds Maintenance work

Works on the woodland area between the Security and Transport Centre and the Marlowe Building will start on Monday 21st August lasting for three days. Areas which will be affected will be the pathway adjacent to the Marlowe Building, the Jarman Plaza and the Eliot footpath.

Large construction vehicles will be operating in this area throughout the works. Banksmen will be in place to inform the public what work is being carried out, and to help guide other vehicles when they are moving in the area.

Cornwallis South – Annual Emergency Light Testing

On Tuesday 22nd August the annual emergency light test is due to take place in Cornwallis South from 08:30am – 11.30am.

The test will take approximately 3 hours and lighting levels will be reduced for the duration.

Darwin and Tyler Court- Portable Appliance Testing (P.A.T)

From Tuesday the 22nd of August 2017 until approximately Friday the 29th of September 2017, the portable appliance testing for Darwin College and Tyler Court is due to take place.

Please ensure all equipment is available for testing.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and we will endeavour to keep any disruption to a minimum. If there are any queries please call the Estates Helpdesk on ext. 3209.

The Department of Classical & Archaeological Studies is delighted to announce that Graham Landon has completed his PhD, with a project entitled ‘The Speeches in Herodotus and Thucydides: a Comparison’, under the supervision of Dr Csaba La’da.

Graham’s thesis asks why did the two great classical Greek historians use speeches in their narratives? Why did Thucydides, who appears so critical of his predecessor in other respects, follow Herodotus in employing this technique? What common sources may have influenced both authors in their inclusion of speeches? His thesis sets out to answer these critical questions as well as providing an original comparative statistical analysis of the speeches in both works.

Our congratulations to Dr Landon.

For more details of the PhD in Classical & Archaeological Studies, please see the website

Photo source FreeImages.com/Lucretious

From Wednesday 9 to Thursday 31 August, the emergency lighting is being tested intermittently between 08.00 and 16.00 in Sibson. During testing, lighting levels will be affected for short durations.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause. If there are any queries please contact the Estates Helpdesk on ext.3209

Part of the University’s internationalisation strategy; the University of Kent Summer Schools have just taken place for the second year running at our Canterbury campus with more schools having taken part than ever before.

Students from all over the world signed up to participate in our two-week postgraduate-level Summer Schools which ranged from ‘European Security and Foreign Policy’ with the School of Politics and International Relations to ‘Investigating the Social Mind’ with the School of Psychology. This year we also had schools taking part for the first time including Kent Business School who ran a course on ‘Global Business in a Dynamic Environment’.

Students were able to gain an insight into studying with one of the UK’s top Universities; participating in expert seminars and workshops in their field of study and gaining valuable life skills to take with them in their continuing studies and into the workplace.

One student on the Business Summer School has summed up her experience on the course as follows: “I can honestly say that I have learnt so much in such a short space of time. During the two weeks, we have had the privilege of being taught by some of the best professors from the University of Kent discussing different topics ranging from law to marketing and hearing about their personal experiences and lessons learnt in the world of business. We did this whilst writing an editorial piece – something I had never done before. We were assisted and guided by our professors and researchers and now, I can confidently say that I can write an editorial about any subject- not only in international business.

It is not only the course and the taught material that I enjoyed; I met a wonderful group of people and made friends from different countries, got to explore the beauty of Canterbury, Whitstable and London, through trips led by Kent’s student ambassadors, and got to experience what it was like to study Masters at the University of Kent. I have already suggested Kent’s summer courses to my University in Jordan, as I believe that plenty of other students will enjoy the experience and will truly benefit from it.’’

Summer Schools Co-ordinator Sophie Punt has described the summer schools as “diverse and enriching opportunities allowing students to not only learn in depth about the subject matter but gain intercultural awareness and meet peers from all over the world. Students have been very enthusiastic and made the most of their time in Canterbury.”

Applications for our summer schools in Canterbury and at our European centre’s for summer 2018 will be opening soon.

Richard King, Professor of Buddhist and Asian Studies and Head of the Department of Religious Studies, has just published a major edited collection entitled Religion, Theory, Critique: Classic and Contemporary Approaches and Methodologies (Columbia University Press, 2017). The book provides an extensive overview to the study of religion, comprising of 56 chapters over 675 pages, including contributions from several colleagues within Religious Studies at Kent.

Religion, Theory, Critique is an essential tool for learning about theory and method in the study of religion. Leading experts engage with contemporary and classical theories as well as non-Western scholarship. Unlike other collections, the anthology emphasises the dynamic relationship between religion as an object of study and different methodological approaches and openly addresses the question of the manifold ways in which religion, secular, and culture are imagined within different disciplinary horizons. The collection is the first textbook that seeks to engage discussion of classical approaches with contemporary cultural and critical theories.

In addition to editing the volume, Richard has contributed a chapter entitled ‘The Copernican Turn in the Study of Religion’; Dr Ward Blanton and Professor Yvonne Sherwood have co-authored a chapter ‘Bible/Religion/Critique’; and Professor Jeremy Carrette has contributed no less than four chapters, including ‘The Psychology of Religion’, ‘William James and the Study of Religion: A Critical Reading’ (co-authored with Professor David Lamberth from Harvard Divinity School), ‘Foucault and the Study of Religion’, and ‘Globalisation and Religion’.

For further details, please see the publisher’s website

Kent Law Clinic solicitor Sheona York spent her vacation completing an expedition in the Antarctic this summer, following in the footsteps of polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton.

Sheona, an immigration and asylum specialist, is also an accomplished rock climber and mountaineer with 30 years of experience amassed from climbing in the UK and across the world.

This year she joined an Australian commercial expedition to mark the 100 year anniversary of the final leg of Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. In 1917, Shackleton was forced to sail 800 miles with five men to seek help from a remote whaling station in Stromness on the island of South Georgia while his remaining crew of 22 men were left stranded on a tiny rocky beach on Elephant Island.

Sheona began her own epic journey in Ushuaia, on the southern tip of South America where she sailed in a Russian boat with a Russian crew, 50 passengers and 10 expedition staff to the Antarctic peninsular. From there, following in Shackleton’s footsteps, the expedition crossed the Weddell Sea to Elephant Island and then on to the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean. Sheona was one of only six experienced climbers chosen to make the two-day traverse of the South Georgia mountains.

After the gruelling voyage from Elephant Island to South Georgia, Shackleton’s small crew had run out of fresh water and were forced to land on the west coast of the island. To reach the whaling station on the east coast, Shackleton had to cross the unmapped mountainous interior. One hundred years later, Sheona’s team followed in Shackleton’s footsteps across crevasses and high passes to reach Fortuna Bay and a final 7km hike to Stromness.

Sheona is also a Reader at Kent and is involved in teaching, research and policy work.