Dr Bike are now offering their services to University of Greenwich staff and students as well as University of Kent staff and students.

The next date Dr Bike is at Medway campus is Thursday 15 February 2018.  Find Dr Bike outside the Student Hub 11.30- 14.30 for your free bike check-up.

Dr Bike are trained bicycle mechanics who regularly come onto campus to check and adjust your bike for free.

Additional work will be quoted individually but will always be at a special reduced rate.

For more information visit the transport webpages.

Colleagues are invited to attend this session of the ‘New Approaches to Teaching for Experienced Staff at Kent’ series taking place on Tuesday 27 February 2018, 12.55-14.00 in the UELT Seminar Room, Canterbury.

Presented by Dr Elisabeth Curling, School of Biosciences.

As an academic member of the School of Biosciences, I have seen the incidence of acute anxiety within our student population rise year by year. This trend is seen across the HE sector. In a recent 2016 YouGov article (1) one in four students suffer from mental health problems, of which 74% are anxiety related. A research paper from Cambridge published in December 2017 proved in a randomised trial that Mindfulness training in helped students to be more resilient to stress, particularly at exam time (2).

We have so far run 3 X 5 week Mindfulness courses and drop-in sessions (with Lorraine Millard, a qualified Mindfulness teacher) for Bioscience students, and I will outline some of the positive feedback we have received in my presentation. The 5 week course has now been adopted by the School of Arts, and other schools could benefit from introducing Mindfulness to help their anxious students reach their full potential.

Dr Elisabeth Curling is a lecturer in the School of Biosciences with particular interests in immunology, human physiology and student welfare. After completing the 8 week Mindfulness course for staff in 2015, she has been running successful 5 week Mindfulness courses for Bioscience students (from October 2016).

References:

1. https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/08/09/quarter-britains-students-are-afflicted-mental-hea/

2. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(17)30231-1

To book a place please email cpdbookings@kent.ac.uk

On 6 February 1918 over 8 million women aged thirty and above were given the vote following decades of campaigning by suffragists and suffragettes. Throughout the year, the University of Kent will be marking the centenary with a range of interesting interdisciplinary events including round table discussions, outreach workshops and lectures.

For further details contact the Athena SWAN Team: m.k.janhonen@kent.ac.uk

Staff from across the University came together recently to present projects they are working on to enhance the student experience at Kent.

The ‘Festival of Projects’, attended by around 140 colleagues, was hosted by Professor April McMahon, Deputy Vice-Chancellor – Education and Sukhi Bath, Assistant Project Officer, Student Services.

The Festival was an opportunity for staff to network and identify opportunities for project collaboration. Among projects presented were:

• the award-winning Student Success project and work on the Virtual Student Adviser, helping to create a tailored online experience for students in EDA
• the OPERA project and Integrated Student Frontline Services project, aiming to make our services and information easily accessible to all students
• Kent Union’s work on improving students’ employability and how it is joining with the University to improve academic communities at Kent
• Careers and Employability Service’s Work-Study Scheme and B-Kew work experience bursary
• Student Support and Wellbeing projects, including increasing support for students on the autistic spectrum, encouraging individuals to look after their own wellbeing, and a number of mental health projects
• Internationalisation projects, including ways of adding more international elements to study programmes and encouraging awareness of global issues

The festival was organised by Chloé Gallien, Master of Keynes; Sukhi Bath, Susan Carte and Natalia Crisanti from Student Services; Jess Sutherland, Office of the Vice-Chancellor; and Ben Watson, OPERA project.

You can view all the projects and project leads in the Festival of Projects booklet (pdf).

Student Success Staff Seminars will  be taking place on a monthly basis, both Medway and Canterbury Campuses throughout the Spring and Summer terms.

You are warmly invited to the second staff seminar on ‘Why monitoring the academic attainment of students with BTECs is important’, taking place on:

• Wednesday 14 February, 13.00-14.00 – Canterbury Campus, Keynes College, Seminar Room 14
• Friday 16 February, 13.00-14.00 – Medway Campus, Pilkington Building, PK104

To register attendance at this or any of the other seminars published online, please email through to studentsuccessproject@kent.ac.uk

This seminar will be delivered by Dr Lavinia Mitton, Senior Lecturer in Social Policy based at the University of Kent’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research (SSPSSR).

Further to the Student Success 2017 BTEC Report, this talk will present a more in-depth analysis of 17 interviews with Kent students that were designed to explore the student identities of undergraduates who had taken Level 3 BTECs instead of, or alongside, A levels. We analysed the role of the academic–vocational divide in their student identity construction.

The purpose of this event is to allow colleagues from across the University exchange insights and explore how pathways in further education effect students at higher education.

For more details about this, and the other staff seminars, please visit the Student Success website

Have you thought about postgraduate study for career progression or personal interest? If so, find out more at Kent’s Postgraduate Open Evening on Tuesday 6 March, 17.00-19.00 in Darwin.

We will have the latest information about loans for Master’s and PhDs and you may also be eligible for a staff discount on your fees.

Most of Kent’s programmes are available part-time and some are taught online and at weekends. All Kent’s UK and EU locations will be represented.

Find out more and sign-up here.

Student Services are looking to recruit extra staff for the Sexual Assault Responder (SAR) team in Medway.

The role of the Sexual Assault Responder is to provide immediate support to victims of serious sexual assault or rape at the Medway campus out of hours (between 17.00 and 9.00) and at weekends. Full training is provided, and SARs operate on a rota system. The role is to provide advice and guidance to victims of serious sexual assault or rape with regards to aftercare support procedures. The role is NOT a counselling role.

SARs receive a £100 remuneration for joining the team and completing the training and receive £70 for the first hour of a call out, with time and a half for subsequent hours. Any transport costs are also reimbursed.

A Sexual Assault Responder must meet the following criteria:

• Be a University of Kent member of staff
• Be able to access the University of Kent Medway campus within 45 minutes of receiving a phone call from Campus Security out of hours (considering the accessibility of a staff member’s usual mode of transportation when accessing the University)
• Attend a training session
• Have the permission of their line manager to register for the role of SAR.

For more information, to request a role description, or to express an interest in becoming a SAR, please email Debbie Worthington in Student Services.

CELTA (Cambridge Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) is one of the most globally recognised qualifications for teaching English to speakers of other languages. It will enable you to apply for teaching posts either overseas or in the UK. It is regarded by employers as providing sound initial training and a strong basis from which to develop as a teacher of English.

CELTA is also an excellent way of enhancing your employability and if you are thinking of working locally, travelling over the summer, or taking a gap year after university CELTA is a great way to earn money.

The Centre for English and World Languages (CEWL) is offering an intensive full time 5-week programme starting on Monday 18 June 2018.

For more information, visit our website. Or email the CELTA Team.

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 Casteel. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]