Fancy being in the 2020 Kent Graduate Prospectus?
Enrolment Management Services (EMS) are doing a photoshoot for next year’s prospectus on Wednesday 22 May.
If you are a postgraduate student and would like to help the University by being part of the photoshoot, please contact Elisa (e.m.snyman@kent.ac.uk) for more details.
The photoshoot will take place at various locations throughout the day and you can come along for all or some of the day, morning or afternoon.
Where do I vote?
Most people vote in person. If you have applied to vote by post or by proxy head – find out more online.
You must vote at your local polling station (open 7am to 10pm on Thursday 23 May) – you will have received a poll card in the post which gives you the address of where this is.
Lost your poll card? Simply enter your postcode at www.vfyf.co.uk/wheredoivote
You do not need your poll card with you to vote.
What happens at the polling station?
When you arrive you will give your name and address to staff at the polling station.
If you’re in England, Wales or Scotland you don’t need anything with you.
If you’re in Northern Ireland you’ll need to also bring a photo ID – this could be your passport, driving license, Electoral Identity Card or certain kinds of Translink Smartpass.
You’ll be given a ballot paper with the people and parties you can vote for.
Who do I vote for?
It’s up to you! Find out who the parties and candidates are running in your region.
If you’re in England, Scotland or Wales you will get to vote for one party (who have put forward a list of candidates), or an individual candidate standing as an independent.
In Northern Ireland you will rank your candidates in order of preference – a system called ‘Single Transferable Vote’.
Your vote matters. Make sure to turn out on 23 May 2019.
Learning and Organisational Development have a number of training opportunities open to staff in June and July. They include:
Crucial Conversations – Wednesday 5 June, 09.00-17.00 and Tuesday 18 June, 09.00-17.00 or Monday 9 July, 09.00-17.00 and Monday 22 July, 09.00-17.00. Two-day programme for academic and professional service leaders at Grades 9 and 10.
Working in an Environment of Change – Wednesday 5 June, 14.00-16.00 or Friday 7 June, 10.00-12.00, Monday 10 June, 14.00-16.00, Thursday 13 June, 14.00-16.00, Monday 24 June, 10.00-12.00, Wednesday 3 July, 14.00-16.00. Open to all staff members.
Mental Health Awareness – Monday 10 June, 10.00-13.30. For any member of staff who would like to increase their understanding of mental health awareness and managing personal resilience.
Leading and Managing through Change – Friday 14 June or Tuesday 25 June, 09.30-16.30. This session is open to leaders and managers (academic and professional services).
Supporting Staff Through Change – Monday 17 June, 10.00-12.00 or Thursday 27 June, 10.00-12.00. This session is open to all members of staff with managerial responsibilities.
Time Management – Tuesday 18 June , 09.30-16.30 or Friday 28 June, 09.30-16.30. This session is open to all members of staff.
Pre-retirement – Tuesday 25 June, 09.00-16.30. This session is open to all members of staff.
Mid-Career Session – Tuesday 25 June 13.30-16.00 or Monday 8 July, 09.00-11.30. This session is open to any member of staff who has an interest in planning their finances to achieve their personal and financial goals.
Developing Self and Others – Tuesday 25 June, 09.30-12.30 or Monday 15 July, 13.30-16.30. For Managers/Supervisors who are involved in undertaking appraisal (RPD) discussions with members of staff. The workshop is suitable for managers new to undertaking these discussions or for more experienced managers looking to refresh their knowledge and skills in this area.
Note Taking – Thursday 27 June 09.00-12.30. This session is open to all members of staff.
Recruitment and Selection Part 2 Full Programme – Friday 28 June, 09.30-16.30 or Thursday 18 July, 09.30-16.30. This programme of activities is designed to support Chairs of Panel and hiring managers.
Appraisal (RPD) – Wednesday 3 July 09.30-12.30. For any staff members who are interested in and preparing for their appraisal (RPD) discussion.
Central Staff Induction event – Tuesday 9 July. 10.00-13.30. If you are a new member of staff, as part of completion of your probation, you will need to attend a Central Staff Induction event.
Managing Performance – Thursday 11 July 2019, 09.30-12.30. This session is aimed at managers and supervisors.
Understanding Statistics in your Job – Monday 22 July, 10.00-16.00. This course is open to all members of staff.
Find out more about these and other workshops/courses and book your place now via Staff Connect.
During half term (from 25 May to 1 June), there is a road closure in Canterbury that may potentially cause delays. The road is closed between the junctions of St Stephens Close and Malthouse Road. This is to allow for the installation of a new pedestrian crossing.
Alternative routes for through traffic are as follows:
You can find out more information here.
Dr Axel Stähler, Reader in the Department of Comparative Literature, who is currently working on a new Leverhulme Trust funded book project on ‘Jerusalem Destroyed: Literature, Art, and Music in Nineteenth-Century Europe’ gave a lecture entitled ‘Giving the Lie to those “Gloomy Depictions”: Nineteenth-century Jewish Reinterpretations of Josephus’ at the University of Bern in Switzerland. His lecture was scheduled in the context of the newly-established project ‘“Lege Iosephum!” Ways of Reading Josephus in the Latin Middle Ages’ (Swiss National Science Foundation) which supersedes the project ‘The Latin Flavius Josephus in its Christian and Jewish Reception’ at the Walter-Benjamin-Kolleg in Bern.
Ever since it was described in much ‘historical’ detail by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 CE has been considered a pivotal event which initiated with the loss of the Promised Land and the religious centre of Judaism the Jewish diaspora and cemented Christian supersession. The Jews, thus the Christian master narrative, suffered a divine punishment for their rejection of Christ. In his paper, Axel explored the attempts of a writer and a historian of Jewish heritage to challenge and re-write this narrative in mid-nineteenth-century Germany.
Julius Kossarski’s Titus; Or, The Destruction of Jerusalem (1855) was the very first publication of the Institute for the Promotion of Israelite Literature (1855–73), a venture that was of crucial significance to the creation of a Jewish reading public in the German-speaking lands. Within its first year the Institute published also the third volume of Heinrich Graetz’s influential History of the Jews (1856) which covers the period from the Maccabees to the destruction of Jerusalem and thus offers a scholarly complement to Kossarski’s dramatic poem.
In his talk, Axel proposed a comparative reading of both texts in relation to the emerging modern Jewish historiography in nineteenth-century Germany and to conceptions of a Jewish mission among the nations. More specifically, he offered an analysis of the narrative strategies employed in the dramatic poem and the historiographic text to undermine the authority of Josephus in order to validate Jewish existence and particularity in the contemporary present with reference to what has been called ethical monotheism.
Each year, hundreds of volunteers help new students move and settle into their new University life and Kent Union are now recruiting for Freshers’ 2019. Welcome Helpers play a vital role in the welcome experience, being the first face new arrivals meet. And whether it’s giving advice, pointing them in the right direction or simply helping with their luggage, every interaction helps put them at ease.
Settling new students is really rewarding Welcome Helpers are always telling us, remembering how nervous they were. Plus, its a good chance for student groups to showcase themselves and find new recruits. Welcome Helpers get to add to their volunteering portfolio, earning Employability Points as well as a Kent Student Certificate in Volunteering. Plus there’s free food, drinks, t-shirts and even free Venue entry during Welcome Week.*
Arrivals Weekend takes place 14th – 15th September 2019, with Welcome Helper training on Friday 13th September. More details and sign up forms can be found here.
Our Belong and Grow week (13-17 May) included over 40 events, with 391 ‘tickets sold’, many events sold out and some with over 20 people attending.
The event was organised by Learning & Organisational Development as part of ‘Belong and Grow – it’s your bag’ week’. It encompassed EDI and wellbeing awareness, Learning at Work, International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT) day, Staff Network Day and Deaf Awareness Week.
Picture shows: The star of Canine Therapy
We send a huge thank you to all of our facilitators who ran amazing sessions encompassing all of the areas above; giving their time and sharing their expertise with staff and students. A special thank you to Kent Sport who also laid on a number of events during the week.
We were so lucky with the weather and our outdoor sessions of Tai Chi, Meditation and the guided Labyrinth walk were just perfect in the sunshine. You can find all of the details and photos on our Twitter page: UoKLDev.
Also, please do send us your feedback on the week, either to Ldev@kent.ac.uk, or by using #bagweek
Same time next year? We think so!
The French translation competition for A level students, organised by Dr Sara-Louise Cooper, has been won by Shifa Mahomed Teeluck. Shifa won £50 and the two runners up won £10 each. For this competition, entrants were tasked with translating a short passage by contemporary author Patrick Chamoiseau . After the competition, local entrants will be invited to a translation workshop at the University of Kent to discuss the passage and learn more about the author.
The winning translation is featured below:
‘Pain has no borders!
No pain remains an orphan!
No suffering inflicted on the living has a limit to it.
The victim is within us and the persecutor too. Threats make alliances and affect us together. Each one of us is a target without shelter. A front line and a transmitting antenna. Inaction gives the slightest indecency a terrible impetus. A child who dies in the Mediterranean recaps the ignominies tolerated for thousands of years by the human conscience and accuses us too. And those who have let him die, claim our name and put us at their bedside as if we were complicit. The slave trade prospered at a level of consciousness fed by the Enlightenment. Our current level of consciousness, which is that – phenomenal – of a connected consciousness, becomes infected by the slightest cowardice, but it welcomes with as much force and speed a simple refusal, a little bit of indignation, a rage, a smile, a coffee… the slightest radiance where vital integrity is protected, and sustained, like an ultimate torch, human dignity.’
Sara said of the event: “There were over forty entries to the competition and the standard was very high.”
A collaborative venture across the Library, Student Success Project, SECL and SSPSSR Medway received the Talis Aspire User Group Creativity Award 2019 for using reading lists as a mechanism to develop diverse library collections.
This national award was made by a group of peers drawn from UK universities, who stated: ‘This is a truly innovative use of Talis Aspire reading lists and data, and there’s potential for this project to have national impact.’ (The Talis Aspire User Group, May 2019)
Students Collins Konadu-Mensah and Evangeline Agyeman and Liaison Librarians Emma Mires-Richards and Sarah Field accepted this award on behalf of the project and presented a paper to the conference that outlines the work and its outcomes – Diversity in the curriculum: a collaborative approach.
Over the last year, Diversity Mark pilot projects have taken place in:
Professor April McMahon, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education, said: ‘This is a measure of all the fantastic work that [the group] have been doing in Library Collections and in the Student Success Project in partnership with students and the wider University. We are absolutely delighted that they all have been awarded the 2019 award for their work to diversify library collections and support the development of a more inclusive learning experience. It is great for this innovative, first-class and highly collaborative project to receive national recognition in this way – it is very richly deserved.’
Following the success of the Diversity Mark pilot, there are plans to offer this service to other schools in the next academic year. For more details, contact the Student Success Project or your Liaison Librarian.
After last year’s success, the School of Anthropology and Conservation (SAC) are organising another Soapbox Science Canterbury event to promote women’s research to the public.
Come see some fabulous women scientists from SAC alongside the Schools of Biosciences and Physical Sciences at Kent, and hear speakers from Birkbeck and NIAB EMR talk about their exciting research.
The event will take place on Saturday 15 June between 13.00 and 16.00 in Westgate Gardens in the centre of Canterbury.
Hear twelve women speak about their scientific work on a broad range of topics including forensic anthropology, planetary science, molecular biology, illegal wildlife trade, biological anthropology and conservation science. Come and learn about capuchins and elephants, your brain and your teeth, and many more interesting topics in the lush surrounds of Westgate Gardens.
The event is free and open to all ages. whether you choose to drop by for ten minutes or stay the full three hours.
Our Soapbox speakers:
Soapbox Science is a novel public outreach platform for promoting women scientists and the research they do. The events transform civic areas into an arena for public engagement and scientific debate.