The Former Staff Association (FSA) is open to anyone who wishes to keep in touch with former colleagues and to continue to enjoy their connection with the University following retirement or moving to another job. Spouses and partners are also welcome in their own right.

A Liaison Group, drawn from and elected by the membership, fosters links between members, manages the Association’s relationship with the University and co-ordinates the activities of the FSA. The Association is supported by the University’s Development Office.

The FSA organises a variety of social events and activities for former staff, including lectures, outings and a popular monthly catch-up lunch. The Association also works with the University on initiatives which aim to benefit former staff, current students and staff at the University as a whole. It also supports particular University fundraising projects.

If you would like to receive information about upcoming FSA events, please email alumni@kent.ac.uk.

We are looking for Greenwich and Kent alumni, students and staff based in Medway or the surrounding areas to volunteer for the Paper Hearts Project on Saturday 17 November.

The Project:

The Paper Hearts Project aims to foster social unity and community inclusion through the shared goal of achieving a Guinness World Record of a display of 60,000 origami hearts. The heart reflects the research interests of the University of Kent, Medway, Sport Studies Society from which this project is led in terms of health and sport.

The hearts will be made from 7.5cm square origami paper and full instructions will be given. The folded hearts will be collected from groups in boxes by the 17 November, affixed to recycled cardboard backing tiles, then arranged on poster boards at the Student Hub on Medway Campus. The aim is to exhibit and finalise the record attempt on 24 November, to which participating organisations and the general public will be invited.

The project’s aim is raise awareness and funds for Cardiac Risk in the Young, and The Molly MacLaren Foundation.

Our part:

We will be joining other community groups in the area to build the display of the hearts in the Deep End at Medway.

To take part all you need to do is register and then meet at The Deep End on the Medway campus, Gillingham, Chatham ME4 4GW at 9.45 on Saturday 17 November. Look out for the ‘Kent Gives Back’ lanyard so that you can find our Kent alumni taking part.

If you have any questions about taking part or would like to get back in touch with Kent please email Naomi at n.fleet@kent.ac.uk.

Alumni Pub Nights, is Kent’s social and networking series for alumni, staff and students. The next pub night is on Tuesday 27 November at the Miller’s Arms in Canterbury with our current Alumni Postgraduate Scholars coming along to speak to thank alumni for their support and speak to current students about life as a PhD student. The last pub night before Christmas so be sure not to miss it!

Students welcome! Not to worry if you have no interest in further study you can still attend to meet other alumni in the area who work in a range of careers. A great networking opportunity plus…

ONE FREE DRINK + HOT SNACKS PROVIDED!

As usual, it’s not just about the theme (Meet the Scholars!) feel free to come along if you would just like to catch up with fellow alumni in the Canterbury area. We’ll see you there from 18.00 to 20.00 on Tuesday 27 November at the Miller’s Arms pub in Canterbury.

For relevant updates check out the Facebook event page.

The next phase of work on Staff Connect is well underway with the first of the new functionality, training administration and appraisal (RPD), now live.

The absence management functionality, which includes a new annual leave system for all staff, is due to launch in early January.

If you are interested in seeing how these new elements of Staff Connect will work, user testing/training sessions, of about two hours in length, are being organised in Canterbury and Medway in the weeks starting 5 and 12 November. To indicate that you would be interested in attending one of these sessions please fill in the doodle polls:

• Doodle Poll Canterbury
• Doodle Poll Medway

For information on Staff Connect, take a look at the project website.

Dr William Rowlandson, Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies for the Department of Modern Languages, has recently been awarded a Humanities Faculty Teaching Prize for his success and commitment in teaching over a number of years at Kent.

Nine staff were recognised this year and received their awards from Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Karen Cox at the ceremony in the Darwin Conference Suite. The annual event recognises outstanding work in teaching and/or learning support that gives students the best possible learning experience at Kent.

For more information on the Humanities Faculty Teaching Prize, please see here.

The University’s academic staff continue to lead the way in outstanding research and teaching, and this has been recognised in our latest promotions.

Over 90 members of Kent’s academic staff are celebrating promotion to professor, reader, senior lecturer or senior research fellow across our Faculties of Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences, with effect from 1 October 2018.

The new professors include: Professor Mattias Frey, from the School of Arts; Professor Simon Kirchin, School of European Culture and Languages; Professor Barbara Bombi, School of History; Professor Dan Lloyd , School of Biosciences; Professor Peter Rodgers, School of Computing; Professor Anna Corrias, and Professor Stephen Lowry, School of Physical Sciences; Professor Fragkiskos Filippaios, Professor Zaheer Khan, Professor Ekaterini Panopoulou, Professor Maria Paola Scaparra and Professor Shaomin Wu, Kent Business School; Professor Emilie Cloatre, Kent Law School; Professor Heather Ferguson and Professor Jane Wood, School of Psychology.

Alison Ross-Green, Director of HR and Organisational Development, said: ‘The University is dependent upon the personal growth and career attainment of its academic staff to refresh, develop and strengthen our organisation for the future. Congratulations to all those promoted in 2018, your outstanding performance, hard work and dedication form the bedrock of the University, and the outstanding student experience and research achievement that is so important to our success going forward.’

Taken collectively and individually, these academic promotions give us a great deal to celebrate.

Further information on all the newly-promoted academics is available.

The Queen’s Own Buffs, The Royal Kent Regiment Collection was given to the University of Kent by the Regimental Association of The Queen’s Own Buffs in 2017, and is cared for as part of Special Collections & Archives. It consists of mainly printed and published material from the 19th century to the present, along with some archival material.

Over the past year we have undertake a year-long project, funded by the Regimental Association of the Queen’s Own Buffs Royal Kent Regiment, to catalogue the Collection and selectively digitise some of the regimental journals held in the Collection.

To celebrate this project we are launching a new exhibition in the Templeman Gallery, ‘Kent, its Regiments, and the First World War’, and Professor Mark Connelly will give a lecture entitled ‘The East Kent Regiment, Canterbury and the Great War’ to launch the exhibition at 2.30pm on Monday 29th October 2018. The talk will explore the links between Canterbury and the Buffs during the First World War. It will show how the city and surrounding region maintained a great interest in the actions of its local regiment, even after conscription led to great changes in its demographic. Home and Fighting fronts are often thought of as very distinct and separate entities, but this lecture will highlight the degree to which they were inextricably linked and that communication between the two was continual. This lecture is open to all, with tickets bookable via eventbrite. Attendees are welcome to visit the exhibition afterwards, which is held in the Templeman Gallery and will be running from 29 October 2018 to 4 January 2019.

During this event, we will also be launching our new project ‘Diaries of the Here and Now‘, where we are inviting everyone to record their experiences of 11 November 2018 for future generations, and deposit their diary with Special Collections & Archives.

‘Kent, its Regiments, and the First World War’, Templeman Gallery, 29 October 2018 – 4 January 2019.

Diaries of the Here and Now: diaries will be available to collect in the Templeman Library from the 29 October until 11 November, and need to be returned by 25 November 2018.

The Department of Modern Languages recently helped organise a Modern Foreign Language 6th form Conference at Simon Langton School for Girls.

Just some of the highlights included workshops on ‘the relations between the German epistolary novel and digital Social Media’, ‘the poetry of Pablo Neruda’, and ‘Pablo Picasso’s 1937 painting Guernica’, run by Tobias Heinrich (Lecturer in German), and William Rowlandson (senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies) respectively.

There were also sessions on French language, and an introduction to Russian run by David Hornsby (senior lecturer in French and Linguistics for the Department of English Language and Linguistics) as well as a translation workshop led by William Rowlandson, with the help of a 4th-year Hispanic student.

Two students doing an Erasmus+ traineeship at the University of Kent were also present to moderate a German discussion forum on the 2015 refugee crisis. ‘It really made the day having Kent’s Department of Modern Languages present, and the feedback from the students has been nothing but positive,’ said Mr David Stalley, Head of MFL at Simon Langton Girls’ Grammar School, ‘I would also very much like to be able to count on their support for a repeat of the conference next year.’