The latest issue of the Leadership Bulletin, designed to give an overview of key developments at Kent, is now available.

This edition features a ‘Long Read’ from Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor and Provost David Nightingale, focusing on a step-change in our approach to marketing and recruitment activities and our preparations for Clearing.

The Bulletin is distributed fortnightly to all members of the Senior Leadership Forum to cascade to staff in schools and professional service departments. If you haven’t received your copy yet, you can read the bulletin online.

Dr Kaitlyn Regehr, Lecturer in Media Studies, featured in article published in iNews this week, published on 25 June 2019.

The article, entitled ‘Love Island Shows How Men Use Female Sexuality to Increase Their Own Social Capital’ and written by Ruchira Sharma, explores how the reality TV show demonstrates the way that some men use ‘locker room talk’ to boast about themselves and objectify women.

The article cites a particular example from Love Island, where contestant Tom Walker bragged about his own conquests while belittling fellow contestant Maura Higgins. The piece draws upon Kaitlyn’s expertise in digital and modern culture and its impact on gender.

‘I think this is very telling as it shows how normalised this behaviour is,’ explains Kaitlyn in the article. ‘The fact that he continued this banter while he knows she’s there shows that it’s not about her – it’s about his own capital within this group of men.’

Read the full article

From Monday 1 July to Friday 12 July, 20 staff members from institutions in the Lille area will attend a bespoke two-week programme in CEWL entitled ‘Everyday English for Work and Business’. The programme includes Business English language classes, Presentation Skills classes and visits to places of cultural and historic interest. There are also sessions on topics of interest delivered by colleagues from around the University (including sessions on International Partnerships, Research Services, Internationalisation at Kent).

A networking afternoon tea will take place on Thursday 4 July with staff from across the University of Kent. This will allow Lille colleagues to meet with their Kent counterpart to present their institution and explore potential collaboration.

The visit has been arranged in the context of the I-SITE ULNE project led by the University of Lille and in which the University of Kent is a partner, along with Belgian universities Ghent University and KU Leuven, creating a cross-border network of institutions. A range of activities are already taking place within the network including joint Kent-Lille PhD Scholarships and joint Kent-Ghent projects  with more collaborative activities under development.

If you would like to meet with members of the delegation or to find out more please contact International Partnerships: internationalpartnerships@kent.ac.uk

Lecturer Dr Jason Nurse has been called on to give his expert opinion on a security vulnerability on a popular gaming platform.

Jason is quoted in a Wired UK article entitled ‘A series of dumb security flaws left millions of EA Origin users exposed’.

EA are the makers of hugely popular games such as the FIFA series of football games, Star Wars, Madden NFL and SIMS. Researchers managed to find a flaw in the way EA managed its subdomain names which left users’ data vulnerable to hackers. However there is no evidence that this vulnerability has been exploited in the wild.

Earlier this year, Jason was also asked to give his cyber security expertise on a Fortnite security flaw also in Wired.

Jason’s  research focuses on the interaction between users and aspects of cyber security, privacy and trust. He is part of the School of Computing’s Cyber Security Group and is a core member of the Kent Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Cyber Security (KirCCS). The Centre has NCSC and UKRI recognition as an Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR).

Colleagues from the departments of Comparative Literature, English Language and Linguistics and Modern Languages hosted this year’s Text and Language Day on the theme of ‘Unlocking Language’ on 26 June.

Text and Languages Day is an annual event which forms a key part of the School’s outreach programme, and is aimed at enthusing and motivating students about language and culture. It follows World Languages Day events for younger pupils, which took place at the University’s Medway and Canterbury campuses on 19 and 25 June.

Aimed at year 12 pupils studying English Language or Modern Languages, Text and Language Day explores approaches to language and text at A Level and beyond. The day is designed to encourage pupils to think more boldly about text and language, exploring different approaches to key ideas covered at A Level and providing an opportunity to discover some of the ways in which language and literature are studied at university. The University was delighted to welcome pupils from St George’s C of E School, Dover Grammar School for Boys, Rainham Mark Grammar School, Ashford School, The Harvey Grammar School, and Chatham Grammar School for Girls.

Dr Alexandra Martin-Carey, Humanities Subject Specialist in the University’s Partnership Development Office, who organised the day, said: “It was fantastic to work with a range of colleagues and postgraduate students from across three departments to create a day of exploration for local year 12 pupils. Students from a range of A level subjects were able to discover the connections between their own studies and disciplines taught here at the University, and to forge connections between those various disciplines, whist learning about university life and our campus.”

Feedback from students attending the day included:

“The subjects discussed were different from A Level so were eye opening”

“I already wanted to do linguistics and modern languages and now I am even more excited to!”

Dr Eleen M Deprez, curator of the Studio 3 Gallery, has been awarded a grant from the British Society of Aesthetics to support a symposium hosted by the Aesthetics Research Centre to discuss Immaterial: A Philosophy of Contemporary, a forthcoming book by Professor Sherri Irvin.

Professor Sherri Irvin specialises in aesthetics and the philosophy of art. She edited the collection Body Aesthetics (Oxford, 2016) that explored the aesthetics of the body in relation to social justice, art, evolutionary theory, race, gender, disability, sexuality and sport.

The funding will cover a reading group/discussion session with Irvin, to be held on 20 March 2020, followed by and a one-day symposium on 21 March 2020, with Sherri Irvin, Diarmiud Costello, Elisabeth Schellekens, Elisa Caldarola, Kathryn Brown, and Louise Hanson.

Eleen completed her PhD in the History and Philosophy of Art last year, with a thesis entitled ‘The Curated Exhibition: A Philosophical and Historical Analysis’, last year.

Booking details for the symposium will be made available when confirmed.

On Friday 28 June, the Grounds Maintenance  team will be assisting  with the removal of a tree in the Keynes pond courtyard which has been identified as being at a high risk of failure. As this tree is in a highly populated location, the risk of injury is too high for it to be left in place.

The felling of the tree will be carried out by a contractor called Blean Tree Care. They will cordon off the area, and fell the tree in sections and remove the wood from the court yard are through the side gate leading to Turing College.

In the autumn the felled tree will replaced by a substantial new one.

There will be some disruption whilst this work is taking place, and footpath closure whilst the wood is being removed.

We apologise for any inconvenience this work may cause. If there are any queries please contact Estates Customer Services on extension 16666.

Kent Sport Physiotherapy Clinic will be running a staff-only discount on massages throughout July to help you relax and unwind now that summer is here! Massages are being offered at £19 for 30 minutes – and that’s the same great price regardless of whether you’re a Kent Sport member or not.

Massage has a number of both physical and psychological benefits, these include:

• Lifting your mood
• Relax tense muscles
• Reduce stress
• Relax the mind
• Improve circulation
• Increase overall feeling of wellbeing

To book an appointment, please visit the reception desk inside the fitness suite at the Sports Centre, call the clinic staff on 01227 824375 or email physio@kent.ac.uk

Please remember to bring your staff Kent One card so we are able to apply the discount!

“It must be wonderful working at a university with that long summer break.” That’s something you’ll hear a lot if you ever choose a career in higher education. For three months between the end of the summer term and the start of the next academic year, it would be nice to think that we all relaxed in hammocks with a glass of something chilled on hand. So students are often surprised when they find out how busy the staff they leave behind for the summer are.

Graduations

We like to see off the graduating final year and PhD students in style. As well as their formal congregation ceremonies in Canterbury or Rochester cathedrals we hold receptions where we can say our final au revoirs (we don’t like goodbyes) and raise a glass to the prize winners. However, teaching continues over the summer as we supervise our large cohort of Master’s students, who don’t submit their dissertations until shortly before the new students arrive in September. The Master’s students and those who take resit exams wait until November to graduate.

Does the marking ever end?

Speaking of resits, for those whose results weren’t quite as good as they hoped, there are exams in August, with all of the marking and administration that goes alongside that for our academic and professional services colleagues.

Research conferences

As much of the teaching has finished for the academic year, the summer is the period when many of our staff work intensively on research. For some this means building systems, constructing proofs, writing papers, grant applications or books, or travelling to conferences around the globe to present our ideas and results. Some colleagues host conferences or summer schools for their peers or industry leaders. This summer this includes:

•          Machine learning: a new era of disruption
•          Human Aspects of Cyber-crime and Online Fraud summer school
•          UKICER – The UK and Ireland Computing Education Research Conference
•          Kent Cyber Security Forum (KCSF) 2019

Placements

If you know anything about the School of Computing, then hopefully you’ll know how proud we are of our placements. Over 100 students take part in a paid year in industry every year, often achieving awards and gaining offers of graduate employment. The placement team is visiting students across three continents this summer, making sure that everyone is on track with their assessments which are handed in in July. Then they all have to be marked (yes… more marking, there does seem to be a theme).

New students – 2019

Before the class of 2019 has graduated we are already planning timetables and welcome week for the next cohort of students ready to start in September. Some will go through Clearing, and we will have staff on hand to guide them through the process.

Computer Science is evolving quickly so we can’t teach the same material every year. Our staff will be busy ensuring their teaching is up to date with the latest research. We also listen to student feedback to improve how the material is delivered.

New students – 2020

Open Days have already started as prospective students for 2020 come to see Kent for themselves. If they can’t make the summer events, there are more Open Days in October, but the sun is less likely to shine! The subject brochures and the postgraduate prospectus are finalised and printed. The undergraduate prospectus for 2020 was printed back in the spring and writing the 2021 prospectus will happen next term – how the years fly by!

Postgraduates

While the undergraduates may have left campus in May or June, many of our postgraduates are still here. The PhD students work across the calendar year and the Master’s students are working on projects or for clients in our consultancy, the KITC.

Social media

We’re still here! If you want to get in touch with ‘@UniKentComp’ on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or YouTube, we will respond. We love passing on good news about the achievements of our staff, students and graduates. There may be the occasional picture of a dog too! Our emails and telephones are also answered. Until AI gets much, much better, it will be a human member of staff on the other side of the screen or phoneline.

University of Kent staff are invited to join Kent Innovation & Enterprise and local businesses for breakfast and an interactive session explaining the UK’s Industrial Strategy on the 12th July at 8am.

 This breakfast briefing will be a quick, informative and interactive way to learn about the Challenges and how to access opportunity funding. As part of the morning we will have a working session to illustrate how the Strategy highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the UK economy. 

The Industrial Challenges to be discussed are:

Artificial Intelligence and data – new industries in their own right, they are also transforming business models across many sectors as they deploy vast datasets to identify better ways of doing complex tasks.

Ageing society – ageing populations will create new demands for technologies, products and services. We have an obligation to help our older citizens lead independent, fulfilled lives, continuing to contribute to society.

Clean growth – whole new industries will be created and existing industries transformed as we move towards a low carbon, more resource-efficient economy.

Future of mobility – a profound change in how we move people, goods and services around our towns, cities and countryside. This is driven by extraordinary innovation in engineering, technology and business models.

If you are interested in attending, please book your free place on Eventbrite.