The University of Kent Players are delighted to present JB Priestley’s Dangerous Corner at the Gulbenkian, Canterbury, 27-29 February 2020.

One of Priestley’s ‘time plays’, the plot concerns a group of people enjoying a dinner party when a cigarette case and a chance remark leads to secrets being revealed about the suicide of friend. Once things start to be known, there is no turning back – even though it feels like they are driving at high speed with dangerous corners ahead. Will their lives ever be the same?

Tickets priced at £12 (£10 for concessions) are on sale now on the Gulbenkian website.

The University of Kent Players are entirely self-funded and the only money available for productions comes from ticket sales, membership fees and any donations. So they need as many people as possible to come along and support their productions. Your support is appreciated!

Since the start of the year, talks have continued between UCU and UCEA in an attempt to find a resolution to the current industrial action. UCEA have now made a series of proposals that address the specific issues of pay and working conditions. These will be considered by UCU at a meeting being held today (30 January) and we will provide a further update shortly after.

The proposals set out a series of expectations on individual universities on the three non-pay areas of dispute: workload, gender and ethnicity pay and casual employment. The position on pay remains unchanged.

The University welcomes the proposals put forward at national level and believes that, although considerable work has already taken place in these areas at Kent, there is further work to do at sector-level.

You can read more about the proposals here:

UCEA press release 28 January 2020

UCU briefing 28 January 2020

You can also find regular updates on our Industrial Action webpages.

Organising for Success brings together work that will empower staff to transform our students lives, helping us meet our Kent 2025 strategy and ensure a future we can be proud of.

As part of this, we are currently consulting with affected staff on a proposed new central professional services leadership structure. During the consultation period, we will both agree the final leadership structure and discuss with individual affected staff what this will mean for their roles. Teams affected at this stage have been directly contacted by their relevant Executive Group member – the proposed University-wide leadership structure is also now available for information on the HR website. The final confirmed structure will be shared once consultation is complete.

Other updates across the project:

Directors of Operations

We are delighted to announce that Amanda Ollier has been appointed as Director of Operations for the Division of Arts, Culture and Design – see the Transitional Arrangements section of the website for more information.

Strand 3 / 4 – Divisional operations and professional services design

These two areas of work have now ‘formally’ come together, to reflect the amount of overlap between them. There is more information on the Implementation section of the website. Alongside this:

– Workshops are ongoing between Directors of Operations and central professional service leads to begin establishing where accountability and resource should sit in the new structure

– Workshops will also start shortly to begin mapping processes in key areas so we can agree how they could be reflected – and simplified wherever possible – when divisions launch in September. The Project Management Office (formerly known as BIPU) will contact relevant professional service leads shortly to arrange these, and assistance with providing initial details on any existing processes in advance would be greatly appreciated

Strand 5 – Standing down Faculties

Considerable progress has also been made to transfer essential activity currently taking place within Faculties to divisions. Recent highlights include:

– Protocols agreed for managing the final faculty committees, which will take place this summer – IS are also working on ensuring key website information is retained and transferred appropriately

– A vision for Quality Assurance in the new structure has been drawn up and will go to Senate in March, ensuring we have a have common framework and a consistent approach

– A team drawn from the Faculty Support Office, QA, the Graduate School, Student Services and Kent Union are also beginning to rewrite our codes of practice and regulations, with support from an external adviser to ensure everything is aligned in our new organisational structures

For latest information on Organising for Success, see the Updates section of the website. There is also supporting information under Frequently Asked Questions

The School of Art’s Studio 3 Gallery has launched a new exhibition this month, entitled ‘AI and I’.

The exhibition will run until the Thursday 20 February 2020 and the gallery is open Monday to Friday, from 10.00 – 17.00.

The exhibition has been curated by Alice C. Helliwell, who is currently on the PhD in the History and Philosophy of Art, and Studio 3 Gallery curator Dr Eleen M Deprez, as well as Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms.

The exhibition is an experiment: using works from the Kent Print Collection, the exhibition explores how AI can facilitate curating and enhance the visitor’s experience of art.

AI broadly refers to technologies that create intelligence in a computational machine. Some AI recreates human behaviour (such as writing a text or identifying objects in a picture). Others aim to go beyond our human capabilities, avoiding human error. AI has an increasingly wide application, from face recognition on social media, to voice assistants Siri and Alexa. In the arts, people are developing AI that can identify, evaluate and create artworks.

The exhibition explores these possibilities by utilising a number of AI technologies. AI was used to help select, design, interpret and describe the works on display. Google Vision API suggested how works could be displayed together and EyeEm helped inform which works were aesthetically pleasing. AI looked carefully at the various portraits in the collection and suggested matching faces in other works of art. GPT-2 wrote short narratives based on the works. The ‘AI and YOU’ section of the display is designed to encourage you to try out some of the technologies yourself.

For more details of the Studio 3 Gallery, please take a look at this blog 

What would our world, our city and our lives look like if we all took action? Join us for a fun family day focusing on themes of sustainability and saving our planet.

When: Saturday 15 Feb from 10.00 – 16.00

Where: Gulbenkian, Canterbury

Tickets for the WHOLE DAY are only £2! and can be booked online now. Please note some of the events below have a limited capacity, and will be first come, first served on the day.

Book now on the Gulbenkian website 

Join artist Amanda Thesiger on a Nature Walk through the university grounds with no particular destination in mind, allowing yourself to be led by your senses.

Artist Peter Morton is back with a hands-on Animation Workshop inspired by all things treeish.

Enjoy a live performance from members of Pequeño Samba Pelo Mar, Whitstable’s community samba band.

Our chefs demonstrate live how to cook a delicious meal, using only locally produced ingredients from within a 30 mile radius!

Spoken word artist Henry Maddicott asks you to put pen to paper and write a Letter to the Earth (you can perform it too later if you like!).

Help artist Hope Fitzgerald to make small folded books which capture important ideas from the day.

Come and have your say on a range of climate change topics in one of our Mini Citizens Assemblies, and put in your vote on how you think things should change.

At the end of the day, join a discussion panel of climate change experts and activists and hear the results from our day of Mini Citizens Assemblies.

What will you do to help save the planet? Grab a pen and add your action or pledge to our Sustainabili-TREE.

Film Screenings: (ticketed separately at £3pp)

Wall-E – 10.00

2040 – 13.00

The Biggest Little Farm – 16.00

An updated copy of the University’s Privacy Notice is now available.

The Privacy Notice sets out how everyone’s personal data is collected, processed and stored by HR.  The full Notice can be found on the HR webpages.

Key changes in this update are the use of CCTV images, retention periods for data in Staff Connect and the introduction of an archive system to enable us to provide basic employment references for staff for many years after leaving our employment.