Welcome to Kent (and welcome back to all returning students)! Hopefully you are starting to settle into the swing of things, establishing a routine, making friends and settling into your classes. With that in mind, now seems like the perfect opportunity to bring your attention to the all-student e-learning Moodle module, Expect Respect.

You have probably seen Expect Respect on your Moodle homepage, or seen information about it circulated by your Academic School, but may not have opened it yet or know what it is all about.

Expect Respect is an open module that every student, regardless of course, year, level or mode of study, is automatically registered on when they first join the University. Kent is a large, diverse organisation with different nationalities, cultures, religions, ages, disabilities, sexualities, genders, philosophies, values and beliefs all represented. This means Kent is a vibrant, energising and exciting place to learn about how other people think and navigate the world, but can also mean that sometimes those beliefs and values can cause conflict between people when they disagree. We want everyone to feel at home and that they belong at Kent. Expect Respect is designed to introduce you to some of the behaviours that we expect all students (and staff) to display whilst they are with us and to help ensure that any difference in view or opinion is discussed or treated respectfully.

Expect Respect introduces you to ideas and concepts, some of which may be familiar to you and others may be completely new. It covers topics such as racism and becoming actively anti-racist, gender identity and gender critical viewpoints, Academic Freedom of Speech, ageism and sexism and religious discrimination as well as an introduction to having challenging conversations and being an active bystander. Importantly, it introduces you to all the support services at Kent, including our Report and Support system to help you get access to specialist support for anything in relation to discrimination, harassment or sexual assault. It has been developed in collaboration with academic staff and student societies over a number of years to ensure it is balanced and truly reflective of the myriad voices we have here.

Some of the topics in the module may well be uncomfortable for you. That is OK! Much of your learning at university will encourage you to think and reflect critically and Expect Respect is no different. Worried that a topic may be upsetting for you? No problem, you have the option to skip specific sections if you need to. The Specialist Wellbeing Team is also available to provide you with help and support if you would benefit from this. You don’t have to complete the module all in one go, although we would encourage you to finish it by the end of the first term if possible.

If you have any questions about Expect Respect please contact the Student EDI Officer on StudentEDI@kent.ac.uk