Monthly Archives: April 2022

Half price Kent Sport membership offer coming soon!

Our ever-popular half-price membership offer for students, staff, and members of the public will be returning soon! You’ll be able to take out a half-price Premium Plus membership for one month at a time, between 19 April and 16 June 2022, which will give you access to all the modern sports and fitness facilities on the Canterbury campus including:

  • Access to our extensive, air-conditioned gym for cardio and resistance/weights sessions
  • A full timetable of the most popular fitness and dance classes
  • A wide range of indoor and outdoor sports
  • Use of our brand-new Indoor Tennis and Events Arena, featuring four acrylic tennis courts
  • Participation in social sports sessions** with our ALL Active team

Once you purchase a membership, you’ll need to create an online account in order to book sessions and activities.

Our prices have also been frozen from last year, so there has never been a better time to take out a Kent Sport membership:

  • University of Kent staff – £13 per month
  • Juniors* –  £18 per month
  • Alumni and public – £37 per month and includes a plus one

 

You can purchase your membership online or by visiting the Sports Centre and The Pavilion receptions. Half price membership offer is available for purchase from 19 April to 16 June 2022 inclusive and is for use for one month from the purchase date. Membership terms and conditions can be found at kent.ac.uk/sports/membership.

*To apply for the junior rate, you must be aged 16 to 18 years old. Proof of age will be required when purchasing a Junior membership. **Starting in term 3.

For Kent Sport news, events and special offers, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram and Twitter UniKentSports.

 

Cathedral view with Daffodils

Spring break 2022 opening times

If you are staying on campus over the Spring break, most of the University’s services are still on hand to help. Here’s a list of services and opening times:

And of course, Campus Security staff are on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Use our new app Order Up!

Order Up! is our new catering app for mobile ordering. It allows you to order food and drink from your favourite cafés, bars, and restaurant on our Canterbury campus.

Veggie or Vegan? We have dishes with you in mind! Why not try Origin’s Smoky Vegan Bean Chilli served with rice and guacamole? Or if it’s meat you crave how about our Hut 8 Big Stack Burger filled with a 1/3 beef patty, bacon, and cheese? Those options and so much more you’ll find on our  various catering outlets and their menus.

We have 4,900 people who use our Order Up! app and counting! As a student, staff member or visit of Kent, you too will enjoy all our app’s features and services.

How do I use Order Up!?

When you use our app, you’ll choose from the features we offer:

  • Order and pay at table
  • Order for collection or delivery
  • Use our contactless payment

You can also:

  • Browse through our menus
  • Look at your order history
  • Select our meal deals

How do I get Order Up!?

Download our app from the Apps Store or Google Play and you’ll order food and drink from your mobile wherever you are.

Want to order from your PC or laptop? No problem! Use our Order Up! web app on Safari, Chrome or any web browser.

Where do I order from?

Visit our Catering website and you’ll find a list of all our catering outlets to order from when you use our Order Up! app.

What have we achieved?

We’re very proud to have recently won the Marketing Award at the 2022 Public Sector Catering Awards for our Order Up! app. The award celebrates marketing campaigns that prove to be successful and exceed expectations. To make sure it was easy for you to use our Catering team spent many hours building the app and testing it by using the back our house software system.

To find out more about our award, read through our Staff News story.

Catering Team Wins at Public Sector Catering Awards

Commercial Services & Estates are thrilled to announce that the catering team have won the coveted Marketing Award at the 2022 Public Sector Catering Awards.

The awards, held at the Hilton London Metropole on Thursday 7 April, celebrate the culinary achievements of individuals, teams, and organisations operating in a public sector environment. There are 18 award categories that represent all areas of the sector.

The Marketing Award is an accolade which celebrates marketing campaigns that have proved to be successful and exceeded expectations. The University’s catering team were presented with the award for the development, implementation, and marketing of Order Up! – Kent’s debut food and drink ordering app. Find out more about Order Up! in our Staff News story.

The catering team worked incredibly hard to ensure Order Up! was user-friendly for customers and ready for the new academic year. Many hours were spent building the app, creating a brand identity, and designing promotional content. A tremendous amount of effort also went into testing the app and training staff on the back of house software.

Keith Williams, Head of Trading, said: “I am immensely proud of our remarkable team, it’s brilliant to see their hard work and collaboration recognised across the sector. The app they created was simply first class, a result of a tremendous amount of work and collective responsibility. Our customers have fully embraced Order Up! and benefitted from its introduction, making all the effort worthwhile.”

The three other shortlisted contenders for the Marketing Award included Zoe Gill from Brakes, Emily Reeves from Cypad, and Super Wellness from OCS.

Easter Egg Hunt (14 April 2022)

Thursday 14th April 2022
10:00 – 16:30

Would you like an Easter treat? Hunt for eggs that have been hidden around campus and bring them to the College & Community Life office, above the Co-Op in the Locke Building to get your chocolate treat! 4 eggs will be swapped for an ‘egg’stra special prize.

Happy hunting!

""

Top 5 tips for promoting the NSS

With the deadline for the 2022 National Student Survey (NSS) fast approaching (30 April), here are some ways you can help encourage students to fill out the NSS.

  1. Talk to your students about the NSS and why they should complete it

If you have any revision sessions planned over the break with final year UG students, please remind them that the NSS is open, and they need to complete it by 30 April. You can also add the NSS lecture slide to any sessions you might be running.

  1. Download the promotional materials

As well as the lecture slide, you can also download a range of NSS promotional materials from the Staff Guide. Including the QR code that takes students straight to the survey and an email signature.

  1. Tell students about the changes that have been in made in response to previous NSS feedback

When promoting the NSS tell students about the changes they benefit from today because a previous student took the time to complete the NSS. You can download editable designs to add examples of changes.

  1. Use Moodle and other channels to tell students about the NSS

You can use the Moodle messaging tool or the channels you typically use to communicate with your students to let them know the NSS closes on 30 April.

  1. Make use of your targeted NSS mailing lists

The Student Data Team has created targeted mailing lists of students who are eligible to complete the NSS and haven’t completed it yet. Please make use of these lists to avoid spamming students who have already completed. To find out who in your Division has access to those lists, please email Christophe Collard.

Don’t try to influence how students respond to the NSS. Read the help card on what counts as inappropriate influence.

You can find out more on the NSS staff guidance webpages, including what the NSS is, why you should help promote and when Ipsos MORI will contact students.

Thanks for your help promoting the survey this year.

""

Apply for Summer Research Experience Placements

Apply now for a great Summer Research Experience Placement in social sciences.

The placements aim to give undergraduates from underrepresented groups a first-hand opportunity to undertake a research project supported by researchers and receive information on graduate study.

Successful undergraduates will gain benefits in terms of confidence, skills and experience that will enhance their career opportunities and any future postgraduate applications.

Research experience placement students will be made an employee of the placement host organisation and receive a salary for the duration of the placement.

Placements will take place during Summer 2022 for a maximum duration of 8 weeks.

Find out more and apply by 29 April 2022 on the South East Network for Social Sciences (SeNSS) website. 

Jeremy Carrette

Building a new future in Brussels and Paris for the University of Kent

From Professor Jeremy Carrette | Dean for Europe

The University of Kent has a long history of delivering postgraduate courses in continental Europe, beginning with the Brussels School of International Studies in 1998. While the University has many partnerships throughout Europe, the Brussels School and the Paris School of Arts and Culture, which opened in 2010, are key parts of our new Kent in Europe strategy to offer specialist postgraduate teaching in Europe.

The University of Kent European schools provide unique opportunities for students to gain international educational experience in locations relevant to the subject. They are recognized as examples of excellence in transnational education and are a key part of our new Global Engagement Strategy; being led by the new EG lead for global engagement, Professor Richard Reece.

In order to strengthen the Brussels and Paris Schools for the future, the University has agreed that the schools will be most effectively managed from September 2023 inside our new Divisional structures. This will enable a closer alignment of academic activities and an integration of the professional service teams to allow better support for staff and students. It will also mean that students in Brussels and Paris will have a deeper link to the University and its resources and provide Divisions with a stronger international outreach and recruitment opportunity. It will also enable the University to provide a clearer and more efficient central service support for the Divisions in their management of the Brussels and Paris Schools.

While the academic subjects are already integrated into Divisions, from September 2023 the Divisional links will be enhanced by linking professional service teams into the Divisions. HSS will manage – with the appropriate links to LSSJ and any other subject areas – the Brussels School of International Studies, and A&H will managed the Paris School of Arts and Culture. There will be a period of transition in the next academic year 2022-2023 to allow the most effective integration.

This integration will enable the Divisions to establish a stronger sense of ownership and have a clarity of operation in Europe for both teaching and research links in the cities of Brussels and Paris. It is hoped that this new structure will make the European schools more agile in responding to the new demands of global education. It will allow more effective management and provide an operational framework for other subjects in the University to benefit from European links and subject delivery through the new structures should they wish to explore these options.

In the increasing challenging world of global education, this new organizational structure of our European Schools signals how they remain a vital part of our vision for the future.

Thank you to our celebration ceremony volunteers

From The Congregations Team

Thank you to all of those who volunteered to help at the celebration ceremonies in Rochester and Canterbury.

It was such an important moment for our students who had graduated in absentia in 2020 and we know how much they appreciated that Kent made sure they could have their special day. The graduates are of course the stars of the day, but it takes a team to make sure the show can happen for them – and you were a big part of that.

We know our call for volunteers came at an already busy time and we are very grateful you joined us to make the occasion a success. We hope that you enjoyed taking part and the opportunity to make the Cathedrals your office for the day! Please do let us know if you have any feedback from the events that you would like to share with us.

This May we will be hosting our graduates from 2021. We begin in Rochester on 11 May, and then Canterbury from 16 – 20 May. We hope you will join us again, and that you will also encourage colleagues to take part.  Please sign up online here.

We have made this video to thank the staff involved, and we hope it will also show others that it may be hard work, but it’s a lot of fun too!

 

 

Student Bella pushing wheel barrow in Kent Community Oasis Garden

Kent Star: Sustainability Superstar Bella

This month, we’re celebrating Sustainability Superstar Isabella who has been working with the Sustainability Team on a wide range of projects this year. Hear from Bella about the Climate Café project, the Hedgehog Friendly campus initiative, the Kent Community Oasis Garden and much more:

“My name is Isabella Sabin-Dawson, and I’m currently in the 3rd year of my Environmental Social Science undergraduate degree. I am interested in ‘eco-anxiety’, a new concept that describes the fears that people experience in response to dangerous changes in the climate system, and also how spending time in nature can have a positive impact on our wellbeing. I can often be found at the beach walking with my dog, practising mindfulness, or crocheting amigurumi characters in a cosy corner.”

What are you doing to improve Sustainability at Kent?

“This year, for my year in professional practice, I have taken on the role of ‘Sustainability Projects Officer’ at Kent as I was lucky enough to get a work placement here with the Sustainability Team. Throughout this academic year I have planned events during Climate Action Week, helped the University achieve gold Hedgehog Friendly Campus status, written and filmed educational videos for the Sustainability website, and developed a new sustainability training module for staff to undertake in the new academic year.

In my second year at Kent, I began working with the School of Anthropology and Conservation Sustainability Working Group (SWG). I am now the SWG Wellbeing Subgroup Lead and we were recently awarded a runner-up position in the Sustainability Student Prize for our Climate Café project. A Climate Café is a space where our fears (and other thoughts and feelings) about the climate crisis can be safely expressed without judgement or advice. Expressing these thoughts and feelings can help to relieve eco-anxiety and help us to feel less alone in the changing world that we live in. There is always cake too, which is a bonus! We will be running Climate Cafés at the Kent Community Oasis Garden (KentCOG), so keep an eye on their Instagram if you are interested in coming along.

I have been volunteering this year with KentCOG, spending time with other students, staff and members of the public to grow fruit, vegetables, herbs and much more! Volunteering at the garden is very rewarding as you can see your hard work turn into something beautiful, and it has also been a great opportunity for me to make new friends and learn from others that have much more gardening experience than I do!”

What advice would you give to other students?

“If someone asked me for advice, I would say get involved! There are so many groups and societies that are working on loads of exciting projects. I’ve built dams in Blean Woods and planted trees on campus with UKC Conservation; made banners, attended climate marches and discussed climate politics with ECS society; and built campfires and experienced mindful walking with Community College Life.

Other environmental groups you could try out are BeetBox, EcoGeog, VegSoc, the Kent Union Sustainability Network, and the SAC SWG. I was hesitant to join in when I first started University, but getting involved with groups like this means you make friends with people that have similar passions and help you make a difference within your community.”

What are your plans for next year?

“Next year I will be back in seminar rooms and lecture theatres after finishing my placement in May! I am extremely excited to travel over the summer but I am also looking forward to starting my new modules in September. I like to keep busy and spend as much time in nature as possible, so I will make sure I can continue volunteering at KentCOG and working with the SAC SWG whilst studying. I intend to make it a fantastic final year!”

Learn more about the Kent Stars campaign.