We are fast approaching the end of what has been a most unusual Autumn term at Kent, and across the country as a whole. Staff from all Schools and Divisions across our University have worked tirelessly and with great skill and dedication to provide the best possible experience for our students. Your adaptability, care, commitment and continued enthusiasm during these difficult times are very much appreciated.

Student departures

The Government has now released its plans to bring students safely home for Christmas. This means that many of our students will be leaving our University earlier than they would have in previous years utilising a planned Student Travel Window of 3-9 December 2020.

To help facilitate their departure, all our face-to-face teaching will end by 4 December 2020. Specific end dates will vary depending on the face-to-face activities that are scheduled between the end of the current lockdown period (Dec 2) and the end of face-to-face teaching. Students without scheduled face-to-face teaching on Thursday 3 December or Friday 4 December will be encouraged to arrange their travel for 3-6 December. Those that do have face-to-face teaching on 3-4 December will be encouraged to arrange their travel between 5-9 December. This information will be available in students’ timetables on SDS.

Students have received an email outlining the staggered departure dates and plans on 19 November 2020.

Student FAQs concerning Christmas travel and vacation arrangements have also been updated.

Asymptomatic testing facility

The Department for Education has asked for expressions of interest from universities wishing to participate in the asymptomatic testing programme for students to provide reassurance to them and their parents on the return home for Christmas.

This is a very large project which requires significant planning and resources. We are currently looking to put a 12-booth testing facility in the Sports Hall on the Canterbury campus with Greenwich looking at running a similar facility at Medway on behalf of all the HE/FE partners there.

Universities are being encouraged to begin testing students on 30 November 2020. This is to tie into the planned Student Travel Window. We anticipating meeting this deadline for a pilot group of students with a view to growing the programme in the New Year.

Although no DfE guidance has yet been published for Spring term, we anticipate the testing programme will continue and we will need to increase the scale of the asymptomatic testing facilities to possibly accommodate repeated testing for students on their return to campus and throughout the term.

Spring term plans

Our framework for our plans for teaching and the student experience in the Spring term have now been set and the details are currently in development. We will continue to provide a blended approach to our teaching, which will enable us to pivot should we need to deliver online learning only at the start of the new term or at any point thereafter.

As I mentioned earlier, we have achieved so much together this term. Thanks to feedback from students and excellent work done by colleagues, especially during Review Week, there’s no doubt that we can build on what we have achieved this term and provide an even better student experience in the Spring.

Best wishes

Richard

Professor Richard Reece | Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education and Student Experience

A huge amount of work continues to take place in the divisions and professional service departments in support of the Government’s plan to enable students to travel home between 3-9 December, designated as the ‘Student Travel Window’. As you will be aware, all face-to-face teaching will be suspended on a temporary basis by 4 December to allow for staggered departure dates from the University.

In addition, following the submission of our ‘expression of interest’ in participating in the national scheme for asymptomatic testing of our students, we continue to liaise with the Department of Health and Social Care and other national agencies over the arrangements to have this in place by the 30 November deadline.  It is our expectation that this scheme will remain in place to support a return to campus after the Christmas vacation.

We are also now looking beyond the end of the current lockdown period. As the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Kent and Medway continues to rise, it is clear the region may not return to Tier 1 on 3 December, and we are preparing to respond to the impact of any changes this will bring.

While our own figures remain comparatively low, they do show an increase on previous weeks which, given the regional trend, is not unexpected. As of 16 November, there are currently 57 students and 2 members of staff who have reported as testing positive for Covid-19.  We continue to work closely with, and follow the advice of, the local Health Protection Team.

While my thanks go to all of you who are working so hard during these unprecedented times to support the University, I wanted to say a special thank you to colleagues in Student Services, Commercial Services and Estates who have worked tirelessly to support students who have had to self-isolate in campus accommodation. Staff in the Accommodation and Conference Offices have been amazing and, thanks to the efforts of the Catering team, we have been able to provide an astounding 15,000 meals and 1000 care packs to those in self-isolation.

My very best wishes to you and your families,

Karen

Professor Karen Cox | Vice-Chancellor and President

Photo- “So much reading”- Julie Freiburghaus, overall winner.

The Colleges and Community Life Team along with the Resident Life Assistants are delighted to announce the winners of the College Life Photo competition, that invited students to be inspired and get creative by taking part in a themed, photo a day-style competition, based on first experiences of University Life and being away from home, especially for the first time, for many.

The team was blown away by the wonderful snapshots of exploration, creativity and sense of community & hopefulness, in a time where we all need it the most, among these extraordinary times. In total, 100 photos were submitted and so it was a very tough decision to decide the overall winners.

However, in First place, many congratulations to Julie Freiburghaus (Park Wood College), a second year Erasmus student.

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They especially loved Julie’s photos in the categories of: Let’s be Social, So much Reading, and Your College.  Julie wins £80 cash prize and a chance to exhibit within the Colleges, come Spring Term 2021.

In Second place, came Jireh Mwebaze Akandwanaho (Keynes College), a second year Kent Law School student. Congratulations!

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The judges particularly loved Jireh’s photos in the categories of: Monochrome, Makes You Smile, and The Changing Seasons.  Jireh wins £50 cash prize and a chance to exhibit within the Colleges, come Spring Term 2021.

And finally, in third place, well done to Reece Welsh (Park Wood College), a 1^st year student studying English Language and Linguistics.

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The judges were really drawn to Reece’s photos in the categories of: Mindful Moment, Take in the View and Favourite Building.

Reece wins £30 cash prize and also a chance to exhibit his photographs within the Colleges, come Spring 2021.

Huge congratulations to the three overall winners; it was a real pleasure and delight receiving them.

Finally, to every student who entered, we hope the competition helped familiarise yourselves with your new College environment, while getting to know your spaces, meeting new faces and having some fun along the way of course! The judges were so impressed by the standard that all photographs entered will be part of the exhibition in Spring term 2021, where College prizes will also be announced, so watch this space.

For more information about the friendly Colleges and Community Life Team, what we offer and how we support students living on and off-campus, please check out our College website and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, Twitter and the College Facebook pages (Darwin College, Eliot College, Keynes College, Rutherford College, Turing College, Park Wood College, Woolf College and Medway College) where you can meet and get in touch with the Team.

Professor Shujun Li, Professor of Cyber Security at the School of Computing and Director of Kent Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Cyber Security (KirCCS), has contributed to Dr Jessica Barker’s best-selling book: Confident Cyber Security.

Dr Jessica Barker is a renowned cyber security expert in the human nature of cyber security, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Cygenta and a member of KirCCS’s Advisory Board. The book aims to encourage more people to go for a cyber security career. Professor Shujun Li appears in Chapter 14 “The Future of Cyber Security and What it Means for Your Career” to showcase a cyber security career in academia.

Dr Barker said, “Confident Cyber Security helps academics specialising in cyber security with communicating core cyber security concepts to students, with delivering outreach activities and with designing and advocating the development of more interdisciplinary cyber security degree programmes. The book highlights the breadth of the cyber security field, the extent to which cyber security is about technical, human and physical issues and the variety of careers that make up the discipline. Confident Cyber Security would also help academics who are not cyber security specialists, but work in linked fields, understand cyber security and how their discipline relates to it.”

Professor Li said, “It was a great pleasure to have worked with Jessica on the book project. Cyber security is an area where we need more skilled professionals and are currently seeing a great shortage in talent. As an intrinsically interdisciplinary subject, more people can pursue a cyber security career, even those with a non-technical background. For instance, Jessica herself completed a BA in Social and Political Studies at the University of Sheffield, an MA in Research Methodology and a PhD in Civic Design at the University of Liverpool, and she is now one of the top 20 most influential women in cyber security in the UK. I hope the book and my own small story can encourage and inspire more pupils and college students to pursue a cyber security career, and those working in a different area to consider switching into a cyber security career pathway.”

To learn more about cyber security career pathway, you may also be interested in visiting KirCCS’s YouTube channel and watch this Cyber Security Career Tips video.

Here’s some further information about Confident Cyber Security. 

Celebrate the most wonderful time of the year at Gulbenkian!

Gulbenkian’s Christmas Season 2020 is a scrumptiously Christmassy selection box of treats! From a wondrously wintery family show to festive films, Gulbenkian has Christmas all wrapped up this December.

Gulbenkian are reopening on 3rd of December so head to their website to find out what’s on in December!

Here’s a sneak preview of what’s coming up…

The Muppet’s Christmas Carol – Sun 6 December 2020, 15.00

Elf – Tue 8 December 2020, 19.00

It’s a Wonderful Life – Sat 12 December 2020,18.00

How The Grinch Stole Christmas – Tue 15 December 2020, 19.00

A range of bite-sized learning modules designed to help all of us to keep on top of this rapidly changing landscape and adjust to new ways of working.

The ongoing pandemic has forced many organisations to reconsider the way they ask their workforce to engage with each other and with customers. As we start to envisage what the future of work may look like, would this be more flexible and hybrid working patterns or new ways of working, our continued success will depend on our ability to support ourselves and each other in adjusting to the ‘new normal’. The reality of remote working is here to stay in some shape or form, and the ability to adapt to the changing ways of working still present challenges to what we do and how we do it.

We have created a new Future of Work online programme of learning which has been designed to offer support for colleagues and to help adjust to the ‘new normal’ whilst building and maintaining a high-performing team and delivering success in the new way of doing things remotely.

The Future of Work programme contains a number of 5-15 minute online courses, as well as resources, tips, tricks and videos so that ourselves and our teams can be as proficient and effective as possible in working remotely while also preparing for what work may look like post-covid.

All the courses can be found on Staff Training Moodle.

For further personal support, you can find information on the Employee Assistance Programme webpage or contact Care first on 0808 168 2143

If you need any further information, please contact the team at Ldev@kent.ac.uk.

You can also join our “HR-T&OD staff Training” Teams channel and Twitter to keep up to date with our latest news.

The E-Learning team will be running the second webinar in their new series of Digitally Enhanced Education Webinars on Friday 11 December from 10.00-12.00.

The second session, on ‘Using Electronic Feedback and Assessment to Engage Learners’, will feature six speakers from both inside and outside of the University. They will share their teaching experiences and provide some concrete examples that colleagues could adopt or adapt for their own practice.

If you would like to join the webinar series, please express your interest by enrolling on the Digitally Enhanced Education Webinars Moodle module and we will add you to the Team linked to the webinar series.