Miray Has, a third year Biomedical Science student, and her team were successful with being awarded a Community Scholarship for a new project aimed to empower and uplift students of the University of Kent – Kent Talks.

At Kent Talks, the objective is to help enrich students by gaining knowledge on diverse subject matters that can be easily overlooked. Whether you are an undergraduate or a postgraduate, a bold public speaker or a nervous speaker, Kent Talks will provide you with the necessary guidance and support to become an orator on stage.

There will be four events throughout the academic year with three speeches taking place at each event. The Kent Talks platform ensures every individual within the university has access to a framework where they can talk about an interest or expertise, identify problems or simply share personal experiences that they believe others will benefit from.

The first event will be held on Monday 11 November at the Gulbenkian Theatre from 17.00-18.00. This is a great opportunity to collaborate with your friends all around campus, meet like-minded people and deepen your educational and social values.

If you have ever felt strongly about an issue or topic and wanted to raise awareness, then this is the perfect opportunity for you. All you need is a thirst to overcome barriers and a passion to continuously self-evolve. The project members will be here to prepare and mentor you for your upcoming talk.

Learn more about Kent Talks online or email Miray Has for more information.

Colleagues are invited to the Learning & Teaching Network session titled ‘Online interactive training module for students introducing academic integrity and how to identify and avoid plagiarism’ taking place on:

Date:  Wednesday 13 November

Time: 13.15-14.30

Location: Cornwallis North West Seminar Room 6

Presented by Chloe Courtenay, Senior Tutor, Centre for English and World Languages and Susan Driver, Faculty Learning Technologist

The aim of this project is to develop an online interactive Academic Integrity module to be hosted on the AI website on one platform for students and on another exclusively for staff.

The student module would include guidance about good academic practice and show examples of different types of plagiarism (e.g. copy paste, patchwork, collusion, unintentional, poor use of sources, poor paraphrasing etc.).

The staff module would include examples of different types of plagiarism but would also include interactive questions to identify what kind of poor academic practice is shown in the example. In this way it could function as a training module.

An interactive online module will also be more inclusive for both students and staff as it will comprise, audio-visual as well as written input. The aim is for the online module to be a modern, user-friendly, and visually appealing educational tool.

“In this session we will introduce the student version, show the different activities and explain how the module could be used.”

To confirm your attendance please complete the online booking form.

At Kent, we transform lives through opportunity, discovery and community. Organising for Success brings together work that will empower staff to do this, helping us meet out Kent 2025 strategy and ensure a future we can be proud of. This includes introducing seven new academic divisions with greater freedom to meet the needs of our students, simplifying or removing processes so that we have more time to do our jobs, and embracing new ways of working that mean we will be free to focus on the best of what we do.

The Project Operational Group for Organising for Success is now meeting regularly, with five core strands of activity identified to deliver the project. Read more on the implementation of Organising for Success.

Directors of Division and divisional Directors of Operations

Interviews for the directors of our new academic divisions are currently in progress, with a second internal round to be held before Christmas for the three divisions where no candidates were shortlisted.

The first round of interviews for divisional Directors of Operations has also been concluded, with a second round to follow in December for any remaining vacancies.

All appointed candidates for both roles will join a workshop with Organising for Success Strand Leads to manage their transition into the role and agree short-term objectives.

Central professional service structures

Following recent changes to the makeup of our Executive Group, design work has continued on the revised management structure for our central professional services. Formal consultation with affected leadership and management staff (Tiers 3+4) will begin in the coming weeks and will finish in the New Year, with exact timings to be confirmed.

Read the latest updates on Organising for Success

Professor Sophia Labadi, Professor of Cultural Heritage in the Department of Classical and Archaeological Studies, led discussions on a Policy Guidance on Cultural Heritage for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), a project by ICOMOS (the International Council on Monuments and Sites), the largest NGO on heritage.

The role of culture and heritage’s contributions to all the SDGs need improvements in communication, alignment, coordination and advocacy with the broader sustainable development field, and the Policy Guidance aims to fill this gap by detailing how heritage can fulfil the SDGs. This meeting took place during ICOMOS Advisory Committee and General Assembly, held in Marrakesh, Morocco on 19 October and was attended by experts from all over the world. At this meeting, Professor Labadi presented an example of what the policy could look like and collected comments to develop further the document.

Professor Labadi stresses that “this endeavour is necessary to ensure that heritage can occupy a more prominent space in the international debate on sustainable development”.

Work by PhD student Adam James will be featuring at the Wellcome Collection in London from Thursday 24 October 2019, as part of an exhibition entitled ‘Play Well’.

Why do we play? How important is it for all of us, young or old? What does it mean to play well?

Play Well will explore how play transforms both childhood and society. Using toys, games, artworks and design, this exhibition will investigate how we played as children and how we play now we’re grown up: developing social bonds, emotional resilience and physical wellbeing. By featuring video games, playing blocks, comic strips and images of people at play everywhere from playgrounds to refugee camps.

Adam has been commissioned to devise a play space for visitors to consider the impact of play in their lives. The space was put together with advice and help from the School of Arts’ workshop.

Adam’s PhD project is titled ‘Emancipatory Play: Larp Based Performance and the Redistribution of Power’, supervised by Dr Michael Newall and Dr Shona Illingworth.

The exhibition is free and runs until 8 March 2020. For more details, please see the page here.

Professor Sophia Labadi, Professor of Heritage in the Department of Classical and Archaeological Studies, has published a book entitled The Cultural Turn in International Aid. This volume analyses a wide and comprehensive range of issues related to culture and international aid in a critical and constructive manner.

Assessing why international aid is provided for cultural projects, rather than for other causes, the book also considers whether and how donor-funded cultural projects can address global challenges, including post-conflict recovery, building peace and security, strengthening resilience, or promoting human rights.

With contributions from experts around the globe, the volume critically assesses the impact of international aid, including the diverse power relations and inequalities it creates, and the interests it serves at international, national and local levels. The book also considers projects that have failed and analyses the reasons for their failure, drawing out lessons learnt and considering what could be done better in the future.

Professor Labadi says that ‘this an important book not only for the academic debate on international aid, but also for any funder interested in funding cultural project’.