Monthly Archives: October 2017

Teaching awards briefing

Considering an application for an individual National Teaching Fellowship or a team Collaborative Awards for Teaching Excellence? Come to a briefing session on Tuesday 17 October 2017.

Every UK university can nominate up to three individuals annually for a National Teaching Fellowship award, a process administered through the UK Higher Education Academy (HEA). The aim of National Teaching Fellowship (NTF) awards is to recognise individual excellence in teaching and/or supporting higher education learning. The HEA also recently developed an award to recognise the increasing importance of programme teams in teaching and student learning support: The Collaborative Awards for Teaching Excellence (CATE). While both NTF and CATE are very competitive (55 NTF and six CATE awards are made nationally), University staff have enjoyed success in both, including the 2017 round.

This briefing, presented by Fran Beaton, UELT, Academic Practice Team, is an opportunity to find out about the criteria, the application process, timescale and available support and hear about the experiences of previous NTFS and CATE winners.

Date: Tuesday 17 October 2017
Time: 13.05 – 13.55
Venue: UELT Seminar Room, Canterbury

Please confirm your attendance to cpdbookings@kent.ac.uk

Special Collections & Archives is on the move!

Our new dedicated space for Special Collections & Archives on the lower ground in Block A of the Templeman Library is now complete, and our collections are currently being moved into their new permanent home. All collections will be stored in the same space again, so it will be much easier and quicker to access material.

The Reading Room will remain open. However, as collections will be travelling between stores, we need as much notice as possible if you’d like to come in and see material, ideally a week.

If you’re a student booked in for a group visit, it’s still happening! All seminars, inductions and groups are going ahead as planned.

If you’re an academic who’d like us to host a group visit, please get in touch. We’re still taking bookings for seminars this term (and next year), but it may not be possible to host a session at the last minute unless it’s already booked.

The move is scheduled to take about three weeks. We’ll keep everyone updated on the Special Collections & Archives blog and on the website.

The Special Collections & Archives team will remain in their current office on the first floor in Block A, Templeman Library. If you have any questions or queries about the move, please get in touch.

Lorna Dillon edits book on Violeta Parra

Dr Lorna Dillon, Network Facilitator for the War and Nation Research Network in the Department of Modern Languages, has just published a book on Violeta Parra. The book is an edited volume entitled Violeta Parra: Life and Work (Tamesis Books, 2017).

Chilean cultural icon Violeta Parra was an extraordinary figure. She is best known for her contribution to the Latin American New Song movement and for her visual art, which was exhibited in the Musee des Arts Decoratifs of the Louvre gallery in 1964.

Parra spent her early career singing Mexican songs in bars and researching traditional Chilean culture. All the different phases of Parra’s life and work are discussed in this collection, with analyses of her music, paintings, sculptures, embroideries (arpilleras), and poetry. Her exhibition in the Louvre gallery and the music venue that she set up before she died, La Carpa de la Reina, are also covered.

The collection is the first book in English to consider the full extent of Parra’s accomplishments and influence.

For further details, please see Boydell and Brewer’s website

University of Kent Couch to 5K Festive Challenge 2017

Think you can’t run? Surprise yourself! #MakeYourMove

Just because you don’t run doesn’t mean you can’t. If you can walk for half an hour, chances are that you can pick up the pace and give running or jogging a try.

The University of Kent is bringing you the Couch to 5K programme. It has been especially designed for people who have done little or no running.

In this 11 week plan, you will work on your running and by the final week you will be running for half an hour, or approximately 5 kilometres.

You won’t be on your own as we have our enthusiastic Run Leader, Barry Hopkins, who will be with you every step of the way to help you achieve your target.

This challenge builds in time and effort, so you’ll constantly be impressed with what you can do if you push yourself a little.

Starting on Wednesday 11 October 2017, 12pm to 1pm, the one hour session includes warm up, cool down and stretches- so you won’t be active for the full hour. The 11 week programme finishes Wednesday 20 December, just in time for your Christmas break!

No need to register just turn up and meet at the Sports Centre Reception and Barry will welcome you. Comfy clothing and footwear advisable. The sessions are £1 per person (free for Kent Sport Gold/Silver members). Any questions please email us.

Free Global Learning Online Opportunity

Have you an interest in working with or finding out about other cultures? Two exciting new virtual mobility projects have been launched this term as part of the Study Plus offerings.

Working with either a university in Hong Kong or Japan, students will work in small groups on a common task and produce a presentation at the end. Themes surround the issue of Migration and Free Trade. Students will be expected to work with their counterparts from Hong Kong or Japan and communicate via Skype and other technologies.

Deadline for initial applications is 4pm Friday 13 October

For more information and to sign up click here.

Coach Trip to Bodiam Castle and Rye Sat 21 Oct

After a ride through the attractive countryside in the Weald of Kent, we arrive at the ‘fairytale’ Bodiam Castle, a 13th Century building in an excellent state of preservation. The cost of admission to the castle is included in the £15 ticket price, as is your picnic lunch. Later we proceed to the coast near Rye for a seaside walk. The day ends with free time in the attractive mediaeval town centre of Rye, with its historic buildings and unusual shops. We aim to have arrived back in Canterbury by about 6pm.

This popular annual excursion, organised by the University Chaplaincy, departs from the Canterbury Campus at 9.00 on Sat 21 Oct. Tickets available now from Kent’s Online Store.

Picture by Stephen Laird

SMFA concert series launches Tuesday 24 October

The new SMFA concert series featuring talented students performing a range of musical styles starts on Tuesday 24 October at 13.00 with the SMFA Ensemble lunchtime concert. Taking place in the Galvanising Shop Performance space at the Historic Dockyard Chatham, all these concerts are free to attend and usually last for 2 hours.

You can find out more about all these events online here.

Concerts later in the term include:

Weds 29th November and 6th December, 11.00-14.00, Undergraduate Lunchtime Concert
Tues 12th December, SMFA Ensemble Concert, 15.00-17.00

And don’ t miss the Popular Music Gig at Cargo Bar, Liberty Quays on Thursday 14th December, 20.00 until late.

Picture by Jason Dodd.

What’s Changed in the Templeman Library

For full details of what has changed in the Templeman Library now that the whole building is open again please see the Information Services blog post here.

Kelli Rudolph on Ancient Tastes

Dr Kelli Rudolph, Lecturer in Classics and Philosophy in the Department of Classical & Archaeological Studies, has just edited a new book entitled Taste and the Ancient Senses (Routledge, 2017).

Olives, bread, meat and wine: it is deceptively easy to evoke ancient Greece and Rome through a few items of food and drink. But how were their tastes different from ours? How did they understand the sense of taste itself, in relation to their own bodies and to other modes of sensory experience? Kelli’s book is the first of its kind to explore the ancient sense of taste, and draws on the literature, philosophy, history and archaeology of Greco-Roman antiquity to provide answers to these central questions.

By surveying and probing the literary and material remains from the Archaic period to late antiquity, contributors investigate the cultural and intellectual development towards attitudes and theories about taste. These specially commissioned chapters also open a window onto ancient thinking about perception and the body. Importantly, these authors go beyond exploring the functional significance of taste to uncover its value and meaning in the actions, thoughts and words of the Greeks and Romans. Taste and the Ancient Senses presents a full range of interpretative approaches to the gustatory sense, and provides an indispensable resource for students and scholars of classical antiquity and sensory studies.

For more details, please see the publisher’s page here.

Welcoming new International Students

We were delighted to welcome our new cohort of international students to our campuses at the end of September and kick start the new academic year in style!

During Arrivals Weekend, we welcomed nearly 400 new international students via our airport transfer service from Heathrow and Gatwick airports. In booking this service, the students were welcomed at the airport, had transport arranged to then take them to the Canterbury or Medway campus, where our Meet and Greet team welcomed and escorted them directly to their accommodation. As well as staff members, it was wonderful to have many of our current students who have just returned from their Year Abroad overseas, volunteer to be part of this meet and greet service both at the airports and on Campus.

Following the weekend, our Welcome Week saw a series of activities to help settle the students into their life of Kent. These included our annual ‘Global Hangouts‘ launch a popular networking and interactivity event designed for all new international and European students, and hosted at both our Medway and Canterbury campuses. With internationally-themed activities and refreshments, the atmosphere was one of connectivity, fun and cultural festivity and kicked-off an annual series of smaller-scale Global Hangouts arranged throughout the academic year that are open for all students to join.

Welcome Week concluded with approx 450 students enjoying our organised trip to Leeds Castle. Katharina Kalinowski remarked:

“It was lovely to meet new people and spend time with the international community. It was also interesting to learn about British history. I would definitely recommend it and would like to go on similar trips in the future.” Known as the ‘Loveliest Castle in the World’, students had the opportunity experience a little of our heritage right here in Kent.