Monthly Archives: January 2018

Jolly Sailor Pub in Canterbury

Join us in celebrating two years of pubTALK!

Please join us next Monday 5 February, 19.00-21.00 for Dr Tracy Kivell’s pubTALK; Thumbs up! The evolution of our hands and help us celebrate two years of pubTALK!

As usual this pubTALK will take place in the upstairs function room at The Jolly Sailor, Canterbury. Doors open at 19.00 for a 19.30 start and entry is free of charge. Everyone is encouraged to stay behind after the talk to continue the discussions for a drink or two!

Please feel free to invite colleagues and friends – all are welcome. You can also get up to date information via our website or mailing list.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Best wishes,

The Q-Step team

 

[Picture: 7-14 Canterbury by David CasteelCC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

SK project 1 staff town hall meetings

New online guide for staff

Following research as part of the Simplifying Kent Internal Communications Project, work has begun on developing a new online staff guide.

The new guide would replace the existing Campus Online webpages and act as a one-stop shop for all staff-related information and services across Kent.

Corporate Communications is leading the development of this project and we want to involve as many staff as possible in developing the guide to ensure it works for everyone.

To start, we are planning a number of focus groups with staff at different campuses to find out what you want from the new-look webpages.

Please help us by joining in a focus group at:

Canterbury:

  • Monday 5 February, 9.30-11.30 – Grimond Seminar Room 7
  • Tuesday 6 February, 11.00-13.00 – Grimond Seminar Room 4

Medway:

  • Thursday 15 February, 14.00-16.00 – Gillingham Building Room 4-12

 Brussels:

  • Thursday 22 February –  11.00-12.00 or 14.00-15.00 – room to be advised

Refreshments will be provided so please let us know whether you can attend by emailing us at communications@kent.ac.uk by 31 January stating which group you’d like to join in.

We look forward to seeing you!

Wendy Raeside and Etienne Donzelot, Corporate Communications

 

Professor John Batchelor

£1.3m EPSRC research grant announced

Congratulations to Principal Investigator, Professor John Batchelor from the School of Engineering and Digital Arts, in collaboration with Dr Maria Alfredsson from the School of Physical Sciences, and Professor Stephen Yeates at the Manchester School of Chemistry, on the award of a £1.3m EPSRC grant.

The grant is entitled ‘Formulating and Manufacturing Low Profile Integrated Batteries for Wireless Sensing Labels’, which seeks to create wireless sensors unlike existing electronics.

You can find out more on the EDA webpages.

Call for papers for interdisciplinary conference exploring metamorphosis and law

Kent Critical Law Society has issued a call for papers exploring the relationship between metamorphosis and law in advance of its Critical Law Conference in March.

Conference organisers are interested in research that critically examines the different ways law has evolved and changed the world. Some examples include: the adaptations of the law to suit social, political, economic, or developmental change; legal historical analyses of the evolution of law; emergences of new legal fields; regressions; and the need for and possibility of reform.

A non-exhaustive list of possible topics includes:

  • Law and social change
  • Transitional justice
  • Adaptation to crises
  • Histories of law
  • Change in the international legal order
  • The progression of human rights
  • The effects of technological advancement
  • Global development
  • The emergence of alternative dispute resolution
  • Political shifts and the change of law
  • Reform and the housing crisis
  • Sustainable development
  • Newly emerging fields of law
  • Law and metamorphosis in literature
  • The changing face of crime and justice
  • Legal psychologies

Papers are welcomed from academic staff, undergraduate students, postgraduate students and practitioners across all disciplines. Proposals from literary, scientific, socio-political, economic, historical and philosophical fields are particularly encouraged.

Contributors are asked to submit an abstract of no more than 250 words, together with a biography of no more than 50 words, to conferencekclsoc@kent.ac.uk by Friday 23 February 2018. Any informal enquiries can be directed to: presidentkclsoc@kent.ac.uk

Kent Critical Law Society (KCLS) is a student-led critical lawyers’ group that aims to interrogate the social, economic and political dimensions shaping legal doctrine and contemporary society.

This year’s conference on ‘Law and Metamorphosis’ will be held on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 March in the Grimond Building on Kent’s Canterbury campus.

Templeman Library study spaces

Bookable group study booths

We now have four booths available for booking, between 9:00 – 21:00, near the IT and Library support desk in Block C on Floor 1. The spaces are perfect for group study so we’ve put them on our booking system for exactly that purpose! You can find a slot through isbooking.kent.ac.uk.

Find a study space in the Library

Similar to our popular Find a PC service, Find a Study Space live availability screens will now show where desks are free in the library.

Sensors under desks can detect whether a space is free or not and the information is then displayed online and on screens throughout the library.

Our trial of this service last summer was successful and we received good feedback from students who used it to find a space to study.

No other information or personal data is collected from the sensors; they’re there to save you time when looking for desk space and to give us a better idea of how the library is used.

Group study rooms

There are two new group study rooms available for booking in D block on the Ground Floor, making a total of 8 group study rooms!

All can be booked up to four weeks in advance and have a large screen and student PC, perfect for collaboration.

Writing Consent: Reframing Sexual Violence with Words

Speaker: Bridget Minamore

Date: Wednesday 7 February 2018

Time: 18:30 – 20:30

Venue: Cornwallis Northwest Seminar Room 5

Admission: Free

Discuss the narratives of sexual violence and consent with Bridget Minamore and explore your personal writings style to convey your thoughts and feelings on the topic.

Bridget is a writer from and based in SE London. She is part of the creative team behind Brainchild Festival and works with charity My Body Back, a project to empower women who have experienced sexual violence. She mostly writes about London, pop culture, race and feminism, as well as the intersections between them.

Find out more and book on Kent Union’s website.

Awareness into Action: Supporting survivors of childhood sexual abuse

Speaker: Silke Grygier

Date: Friday 9 February 2018

Time: 18:30 – 20:00

Venue: Cornwallis Northwest Seminar Room 5

Admission: Free

Join Silke and her team of fellow survivor activists from her ‘Not The Only One’ project as they discuss​ sexual abuse in childhood, the consequences and understanding our reactions to trauma.

Themes will be addressed through lived experiences, learnings from activism in the survivor community and in a professional practice. The presentation will be followed by a workshop for survivors.

Find out more and book on Kent Union’s website.

On the fiddle: award-winning folk musicians to open Music department spring series

Back by popular demand, the Music Department is delighted to welcome the young award-winning exponents of Scottish folk music, Fara, for a full evening concert to launch its spring events on Friday 9 February at 19.30. Book on the Gulbenkian website.

Comprising four emerging young players at the leading edge of the Scottish folk scene, the group has the title of Winners of the BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award amongst its many accolades, and after its hugely popular lunchtime concert last year, the group brings part of its 2018 tour to Colyer-Fergusson.

In addition, staff and student instrumentalists are warmly invited to take part in a workshop which the group will lead at 17.30 on the same day, exploring the genre; if you’d like to take part, please do email the Director of Music, Susan Wanless on s.j.wanless@kent.ac.uk!

Details and tickets about the evening concert can be found online here: prepare to be transported to the shores of Orkney as Fara’s latest tour comes to the campus.

Here’s a clip of the group in action.

Find out more about Fara.

Image credit: Fara

The University of Kent Players present ‘The Ghost Train’ this April

The University of Kent Players are proud to present Arnold Ridley’s ‘The Ghost Train’ this April.

The University of Kent Players was founded in 2013 by Neil Hornsey and made up of staff at Kent who love the theatre.

The plot revolves around a party of assorted railway travellers who find themselves stranded in the waiting room of an isolated country station in the evening. Despite the stationmaster’s weird stories of a ghost train, they decide to stay the night in the waiting room. Soon they regret this decision as ghostly and not so ghostly apparitions materialise, before a young man reveals the true reason behind the night’s events.

The play will be performed on the 12 -14 April at the Gulbenkian and tickets can be booked online.

All profits made from tickets sales and programme sales will go to Canterbury and Coastal Stroke Association

SMFA’s Adam Chodzko adjudicating ARTiculation Prize South East Regional Finals

SMFA’s Adam Chodzko, Senior Lecturer in Fine Art, is adjudicating The ARTiculation Prize South East Regional Finals at Quarterhouse, Folkestone on 31 January.

The ARTiculation Prize is a nationally acclaimed annual event designed to promote the appreciation and discussion of art and encourages students aged between 16 -19 in full-time further education, to express their opinions and thoughts via a ten minute presentation to an interested audience about a work of art, artefact or architecture of their choice. Adjudicators are asked to assess each presentation as a whole, looking at content, structure, delivery and the speaker’s original approach and unique potential. In 2018 nine Regional Finals will be held across the country.

Adjudicators will select a first, second and third prize winner in each Regional Final, who will each receive book prizes sponsored by Laurence King Publishers. The first prize speaker from each Regional Final will go on to give their talk at the ARTiculation Grand Final on Friday 9 March 2018 at Clare College, University of Cambridge. Winning 2018 Finalists will be awarded 1st Prize £300, 2nd Prize £200, 3rd Prize £100. All ARTiculation Finalists will receive one year’s free membership to The Art Fund to include an Art Pass and a year’s membership to the Friends of The Roche Court Educational Trust.

More info here http://rochecourteducationaltrust.co.uk/articulation-prize/?platform=hootsuite