Friends and colleagues at the University were sorry to hear of the death of Jessica Ashdown, who died on 4 August 2019.

Jessica started to work at the University in 1988 as Secretarial Assistant in the Registry, Academic Division.  In 1990 Jessica was appointed as Personal Assistant to the Registrar and by the time that she left the University, in 2000, Jessica had worked for three different Registrars.

Jessica will be remembered as a wonderful colleague and a kind and gentle person who will be greatly missed.

Jessica’s funeral is on Tuesday 27 August 2019 at 12.30pm in Blean Church, with a reception afterwards at the Tyler Hill Memorial Hall.  The Registry flag will be flown at half-mast on that day.

Alumna Ece Ger, who graduated with an MA in Film – including a term at Kent’s at the Paris School of Arts and Culture – in 2015, saw her documentary film Meet Jim, Citizen of the World screened on BBC Scotland last Saturday 17 August 2019.

He dined with The Beatles and shacked up with the Rolling Stones. He rubbed shoulders with soul diva Mama Cass, folk troubadour Leonard Cohen and a fledgling Pink Floyd. He was a figurehead for a new generation of playwrights. After he was stopped at Munich airport with a bag full of blank ‘world passports’, he lectured bewildered German border police about the virtues of ‘world Government’.

Today, at 83, Jim Haynes just won’t slow down: this ‘godfather of social networking’ organises open dinners every Sunday night in the Parisian artist studio that’s been his home for the past 50 years. Total strangers, unknown both to him and to each other, meet in his living room and Jim’s friends show up to cook cheerfully for crowds of 60 or more. It’s simple: you sign up, you come over, you meet Jim. As he once said: ‘My home is a World Government Embassy that never closes.’

The documentary composes an impressionistic portrait of Jim Haynes the man and the cultural phenomenon, as seen by the many and diverse people whose lives have been touched by his. The film is a hymn to the lasting spirit of the 60s, an inspirational living proof of how we can all chose to live on the bright side: to Jim, the choice is ready-made: ‘Life is short: we have a duty to enjoy ourselves.’

The documentary first premiered as Meeting Jim at the Edinburgh International Film Festival last year. It was supported by a crowdfunding campaign that ran in early 2016. For more details on its background, please see the page here.

To view the documentary, please see the page on BBC iPlayer here.

Here at the University of Kent’s Sports Ready Clinic, based at Medway Park Sports Centre, our 2nd and 3rd year Sports Therapy & Rehabilitation students provide our services under the supervision of vastly experienced therapists.

Through the use of our state-of-the-art equipment and innovative techniques we can reduce your pain (sporting and non-sporting injuries) and aid your recovery time, as well as offering advice on how to prevent future injuries. 

Services:

• Sports Therapy & Rehabilitation (Assessment, Diagnosis, Treatment and a Personalised Rehabilitation Plan)
• Injury Prevention
• Sports Massage
• Alter-G session.

 Prices:

• 1-hour £20
• 30-minutes £15

Discounts are available for Sports Therapy & Rehabilitation, Injury Prevention and Alter-G sessions (excluding Sports Massage):

• FREE for University of Kent SSES staff & students.
• 50% discount for University of Kent staff & students (non SSES).
• 25% discount for family of University of Kent staff & students.
• 25% discount for University of Kent Alumni. 

Specialist Equipment: 

• Alter-G Treadmill, an anti-gravity machine that helps us get you back to walking/running quicker after injury or surgery.
• Gait Analysis, using the RX scanner and Gwalk can enable us to adapt your technique if needed. 

Clients who have recently used the Alter-G Treadmill include: 

• Men’s 1st Team players from Gillingham Fc and Ebbsfleet United Fc, recovering from surgery. 
• A female Para triathlete training for the World Championships in Switzerland in August.
• Lastly, a young man with Friedreich’s Ataxia, a nervous system degeneration condition resulting in him being a wheelchair user. Using the Alter-G, he can walk and maintain the strength in his legs. 

For more information about our opening times or to book please contact us below:

Phone: 01634 888137   

Email: sportinjury@kent.ac.uk

 Book Online here.

 Visit our Website.

Dr Richard Guest of the School of Engineering and Digital Arts and core member of the Kent Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Cyber Security has been selected to join the UK Home Office’s Biometric and Forensics Ethics Group.

Appointed by the Home Secretary, Richard Guest will join the independent group of leading multidisciplinary experts to provides advice and guidance to ministers and government on issues of biometric and forensic data use and systems implementation, such as the use of facial recognition technology.

Richard Guest’s appointment builds on the success of biometric research at Kent within current projects such as the AMBER Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network, the Hummingbird interdisciplinary project and collaborations with organisations such as the UK National Cyber Security Centre.

Gulbenkian is inviting University of Kent staff to join them on Friday 23 August for a special preview event before bOing! International Family Festival 2019 on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 August.

From 17.00-18.00 on Friday 23 August, Gulbenkian will be running FREE entry for University of Kent staff to Daedalum Luminarium, located on the field between Eliot and Rutherford, on a first-come first-served basis, subject to availability.

Daedalum is a brand new luminarium, launched this year, with bOing! as one of its first outings. It features 19 egg-shaped domes as a central maze. Passing through the maze the visitor can discover two original features – an incredibly intricate rainbow-coloured tree and a cavernous dome on whose lofty ceiling is inspired by the Pantheon of Rome.

From the Guggenheim in Spain to the Sydney Opera House in Australia, the monumental and interactive walk-in sculptures – Luminariums – of Architects of Air and designer Alan Parkinson have astounded audiences across the globe. Enter a dazzling maze of winding paths and soaring domes where Islamic architecture and Gothic cathedrals meld into an inspiring monument to the beauty of light and colour and where visitors of all ages can happily lose themselves.

For more information about bOing! International Family Festival please visit www.boingfestival.com.

In the latest episode of the Nostalgia podcast series, Dr Chris Deacy, Reader in Theology and Religious Studies in the Department of Religious Studies, speaks to Senior Lecturer in Higher Education Fran Beaton.

We learn that Fran was brought up in East Anglia and that there was a strong Welsh dimension to her childhood. The pair talk about the extent to which childhood memories are composite in form and about the change of culture in 30 years around ‘stranger danger’.

Chris and Fran go on to talk about how Kent has changed over the years; different styles of writing; Benjamin Britten operas; what happens when things on wrong on stage at the theatre; travelling on her year abroad; becoming a teacher educator; the value of doing a PGCHE; the EEC and CND; the role of politics in shaping our lives; and gathering around the JCR to watch ‘Monty Python’. They also unpack some of the baggage around nostalgia and the notion of ‘developing resilience’.

Kent staff are eligible for reduced fees on the eight ‘Language Express’ world language courses run by the Centre for English and World Languages.  You can choose from Arabic, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian or Spanish at Canterbury, or French and Japanese at Medway.

The fees for staff are £269 for 40 hours of classes during the autumn and spring terms. Courses start in October and most classes take place in the evening.

As a member of staff, you can apply for 50% funding towards the course fees, whether or not the language studied is relevant to your role at the University. You may be awarded 100% funding if the language studied is directly linked to your current role.  Please apply for funding via Learning and Organisational Development

CEWL also offers Level One  and Level Two British Sign Language courses. The fees are £458 and £680.  Please note that the funding does not apply to these two courses.

Find out more and book your place on the CEWL website