The Estates Department carried out another year of fantastic fund raising in 2017 for their chosen charity, ‘Mind’.  Estates choose a different charity each year and Mind was nominated by Emily Mason, Environmental Sustainability Assistant.  Emily explained why she had put forward Mind, “I nominated Mind as they are a charity that, now more than ever, are crucial for helping people at crisis point, and preventing people who struggle with their mental health, from reaching crisis point”.

Estates collected various donations throughout the year as well as holding a successful Estates staff raffle and raised the tremendous total of £1834.14.  On receipt of the cheque, a spokesperson from Mind said, “We would like to say a huge thank you. It is important for us to make sure everyone with a mental health problem has somewhere to turn for support and advice”.

To find more out about Mind and the great work they do, you can visit their website.

The project team for the Simplifying Kent Project 1: Programme Approval and Curriculum Design has undertaken and completed a great deal of work in the last twelve months including:

• the introduction of a revised programme and module approval process (for details on the pilot, please see the QA website)
• the preparation of recommendations to the University in relation to timetable planning
• a regular review of taught programmes to ensure they are viable

At every stage, these recommendations have been informed by feedback received from the SK1 Stakeholder Group, and feedback from colleagues in academic schools and professional service departments across the University. The project team is now preparing to draft the final recommendations report, and we would welcome your input on these areas:

• The structure within which taught programmes of study are organised and run
• Reviewing the pilot of the revised PMAS processes, and considering whether any further changes are necessary
• The impact of proposed recommendations on staff, students, marketing and recruitment, and other areas

Therefore, we invite all interested members of staff to a “town-hall” style meeting to give your input on the project’s proposals. These will be held on the following days:

• 15:00-17:00 on Thursday 15 February in M2-28, Medway Building, Medway campus
• 14:00-16:00 on Wednesday 21 February in SLT2, Stacey Building, Canterbury campus

We hope to see you at one of these sessions. If you are not able to come along, and/or would like more information about the Simplifying Kent programme or this project, please see our SharePoint site or email us.

The American University of Paris, University of Kent Paris School of Arts and
Culture and the Centre Culturel Irlandais (Irish Arts Centre) are pleased to
announce that Daniel Hahn has been appointed to the first Paris Writer’s
Residency. We look forward to welcoming him to Paris to work with our
students and to join our community of writers.

Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator with around 50 books to his
name. His work has won him the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the
International Dublin Literary Award and the Blue Peter Book Award. He has
been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and the LA Times Book
Awards.

Recent books include the new Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature
and a co-translation of a Guatemalan novel. He is a past chair of the Society of
Authors (the UK’s writers’ union) and currently on the board of a number of
organisations that work with literature and free expression.

The Royal Literary Fund (RLF) publishes bite-sized audio recordings by writers, exploring topics around writing. Dr Maggie Butt, RLF on the Canterbury campus, talks about why she writes on the RIF website.

The RLF is a charity which places professional writers into universities around the country to work one-to-one with student writers. The RLF Fellows hosted by the Student Learning Advisory Service  (SLAS) are here to support academic writing at all levels, both at Canterbury and Medway.  Their aim is “to help write now”. Appointments with them can be booked through SLAS CONNECT, the online booking system for SLAS. In order to book 1:1 appointments, students need to visit this site.

The University was very sorry to hear of the death of Jacqui Suggett on 13 January 2018, following a long illness.

Jacqui, who retired from the University in 2008, was the Alumni Database Manager in the Communications & Development Office. After she retired Jacqui returned to the University on short term contracts until 2010, as her wealth of experience was vital to the smooth running of the University’s Degree Congregations. Jacqui’s hard work had made a considerable difference to the Degree Congregations for years.

Jacqui was employed by the University in August 1976 as a Secretariat Assistant (Word Processing Machine Operator) in the Academic Division of the Registry. In 1989 Jacqui started to work for the Public Relations and Information Office on desktop publishing, the University prospectus, and database work. In later years Jacqui worked in Alumni Relations, with particular responsibility for the alumni database until she retired.

Jacqui was an extremely dedicated and accomplished colleague, who pioneered the use of office technology in its infancy training many people to use word processors when they were first adopted. Jacqui was also knowledgeable, wise, and a wonderful friend who would do all she could to help fellow members of staff.

Jacqui’s funeral has been arranged for Thursday 8 February at 1.15pm. The service will be held at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, Clarence Road, Herne Bay. Following this a short service will be held at Barham Crematorium. Refreshments will be provided, with details to follow.

Jacqui requested no flowers, and instead asked for donations to the Church or to the Pilgrims Hospice, Canterbury.