Author Archives: Alice Allwright

Graduate jobs – Down but not out

As part of the annual EmpFest activities, taking part on the 13 October, 17.30-18.30, our keynote speaker is ,Stephen Isherwood, CEO of the Institute of Student Employers who will talk through what is going on in the graduate labour market. The Institute of Student Employers, formerly the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR), is the UK’s leading independent voice for student employers, representing the majority of major graduate recruiters in the UK.

There is no doubt the jobs market is tough and will remain so for at least another 12 months. But did you know that employers still filled over three quarters of their graduate vacancies in 2020? Stephen Isherwood, CEO of the Institute of Student Employers, will share his insights on how employers have responded to Covid-19 and the steps you take to make sure you have a good story to tell recruiters.

The event will be a short presentation, followed by a question and answer session, hosted by James Corbin, Head of Careers and Employability for the University of Kent. This is a great opportunity for students and staff alike to better understand the current graduate labour market.

To book, students should reserve a place on the Event webpage and staff should email careerhelp@kent.ac.uk

Dr Lois Lee on ‘Worldviews in Religious Education’

Dr Lois Lee, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies, will be taking part in an online panel discussion and Q&A hosted by Theos and Culham St Gabriel’s Trust on Wednesday 21 October titled ‘Worldviews in Religious Education’.

The event will consider the concept of a “worldview” and how it can enhance religious literacy in the UK – with particular implications for how Religious Education is taught in schools. Respondents will offer thoughts on the report, before opening up a discussion of how the concept of worldviews might impact upon our understanding of our religion or belief landscape more widely.

This event will be of interest to anyone concerned about the future of RE, and about how we develop greater public understanding of our diverse and complex society. You can register for this event via Eventbrite.

Learning at Work Week: 5-9 October

To support this year’s Learning at work week, and the theme “Learning Journeys”, we will be sharing useful learning tools, factsheets, talks and videos each day. We will be focusing on the following themes:

Monday 5 October – Self Motivation

Tuesday 6 October – Time to Reflect—Wellbeing

Wednesday 7 October – Change

Thursday 8 October – Celebrating Learning Journeys

Friday 9 October – Continue Learning

These learning tools will be shared each day via our Teams channel and blog. If you would like to be added to our channel, please email Ldev@kent.ac.uk Our blog can be found on our latest news webpage.

Thursday 8 will also feature opportunities to attend sessions.

Join our Employee Apprenticeship Manager, Loretta Izod, from 10.00 -11.00 am on Teams, to learn more about the many opportunities that Apprenticeships provide. Please email ldev@kent.ac.uk to register your attendance.

Learning at Work Week: Live. Between 13.00 – 17.00, the Campaign for Learning will be running a free online learning event, delivering 16 learning sessions. To find out more, and to register for the event, please visit their website.

Care first webinars w/c 5 October 2020

Our official Employee Assistance Programme provider, Care first offers a numbers of services and provide useful advice and support, including weekly webinars.

This week’s (Monday 5 October – Friday 9 October) webinars are as follows:

Monday 5 October 2020 – ‘How Care first can support you & an update on our services’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link.

Tuesday 6 October 2020 – ‘Change and Resilience during the pandemic’
Time: 12.30-13.00 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Wednesday 7 October 2020 – ‘Top tips for working at home’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Thursday 8 October 2020 – ‘Loneliness and Isolation ‘
Time: 12.00-13.00 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Friday 9 October 2020 – ‘Mental Health Awareness’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Patricia Norvillo-Corvalan to appear on BBC’s ‘The Forum: Jorge Luis Borges’

Dr Patricia Norvillo-Corvalan, Head of the Department of Comparative Literature, will appear on the BBC’s The Forum: Jorge Luis Borges, on Thursday 8 October at 10.00 on BBC World Service.

Borges’ works have become classics and an influence not just on many Latin American novelists but on countless writers around the world. Yet although he is one of the most analysed figures in literature, even his greatest fans struggle to fully explain his writing. This programme will ask: ‘what accounts for his enduring fame?’

Patricia will be appearing alongside other experts on Borges including Professor Evelyn Fishburn, from University College London, author of Hidden Pleasures In Borges’s Fiction; and Edwin Williamson, Professor at Oxford University and editor of the Cambridge Companion to Jorge Luis Borges.

Student nominated for Outstanding Undergraduate Dissertation Prize

BA English & American Literature and English Language and Linguistics student, Dakarai Bonyongwe, has been nominated for the prestigious Linguistics Association of Great Britain Undergraduate Dissertation Prize.

Since 2017, the Linguistics Association of Great Britain (LAGB) has awarded three prizes annually for outstanding dissertations or long-form essays in any subfield of linguistics written by undergraduates.

The Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics said: “The prize is extremely competitive with an extraordinarily high standard of entries, and we were very proud to submit Dakarai’s excellent dissertation. It reflected a year of hard work and dedication to produce an original piece of work on the phonology of a less-studied language. We are deeply impressed with the quality of Dakarai’s work, and think [she] selected an exciting and relevant topic and implemented it with an impressive level of scientific maturity.”

Dakarai says: “My research is inspired by a childhood frustration of mine. I grew up with non-Shona speakers mispronouncing the alveolar implosive /ɗ/ at the start of my name as the alveolar plosive /d/. Shona, my native language, is tonal and the phonemes can be contrastive.” She goes on to say: “this study had its challenges, but was deeply fascinating and satisfying. I would love to expand on it in future, allowing for a deeper analysis of results…I want to thank SECL and the University of Kent for creating the platform to enable independent research.”

Find out more about undergraduate programmes in Linguistics.

New Language Centre launched

The University is celebrating the launch of a new Language Centre which offers Kent students the opportunity to study a variety of language modules.

The new Language Centre allows students to study language modules as part of their existing degree programme or as an additional extracurricular module.

Nine modern foreign languages – Arabic, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish – are offered at different levels to suit students who already have some language knowledge or who are starting as complete beginners.

Dr Wissia Fiorucci, Director of the Language Centre, said: “We’re delighted to launch the University’s new Language Centre, which brings all our language provision together and gives students the option to choose from a range of nine modern languages at different levels; they can strengthen existing skills or pick up something new from scratch!

As we celebrated the European Day of Languages on 26 September, there could not be a better time to promote the benefits of language learning and to give as many students as possible the opportunity to benefit from the enthusiasm and expertise of a dedicated team of language teachers from all over the world.”

For more information, email languages@kent.ac.uk.

Modern Languages receives support from UCML

Dr Alvise Sforza Tarabochia, Head of the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, and Dr Wissia Fiorucci, Director of the Language Centre, have received a grant from the University Council for Modern Languages (UCML).

The grant supports the Modern Languages Teaching Forum, which aims to bring together teachers of modern languages at all levels to share good practice, discuss the challenges facing the sector, support language teaching and promote the language learning.

The Forum has already met a number of times, discussing themes including grammar, speaking and – most recently – distance learning in modern languages. The group plan to reconvene in late November, once again with a distance learning theme but this time with a particular focus on assessment.

Alvise said: “We are delighted to receive the support of UCML, and to be notified on such an apt day! We have just celebrated the European Day of Languages, which reminds us that linguistic diversity is the best tool to achieve intercultural understanding. The Modern Languages Teaching Forum at the University of Kent, now with the support of UCML, will continue its local, national and international effort to bring together teachers of modern foreign languages, at all levels, in order to promote the wonders of learning new languages and unlocking their cultures.”

Online launch for books by Kent academic and PhD alumna

A launch event for books authored by Kent international law expert Dr Emily Haslam and PhD law alumna Dr Serena Natile will be hosted online on Wednesday 18 November.

The Slave Trade Abolition and the Long History of International Criminal Law, by Dr Haslam, and The Exclusionary Politics of Digital Financial Inclusion, by Dr Natile, are both published by Routledge.

The event, from 16.00 – 18.00, will be hosted jointly by the Law School’s Centre for Sexuality, Race and Gender Justice (SeRGJ), the Centre for Critical International Law (CeCIL), and research group Social Critiques of Law (SoCriL).

Dr Haslam’s book will be introduced by Professor Michael Lobban (LSE) and Dr Christine Schwobel-Patel (University of Warwick), and Dr Natile’s book will be introduced by Dr Luis Eslava (Kent Law School) and Professor Kate Maclean (University of Northumbria).

Dr Haslam’s book offers a close and critical examination of litigation that arose from British efforts to capture slave ships in the nineteenth century. It shows how the slave trade and abolition has influenced (and continues to influence) international criminal law in multiple ways.

Dr Haslam is a Senior Lecturer at Kent Law School. Her research interests lie in the field of international criminal law, specifically the treatment of victims and the role of civil society, and in international legal history.

Dr Natile’s book (developed from her PhD thesis) focuses on Kenya’s path-breaking mobile money project M-Pesa to examine and critique the narratives and institutions of digital financial inclusion as a development strategy for gender equality. It argues for a politics of redistribution to guide future digital financial inclusion projects.

Dr Natile is Assistant Professor at the University of Warwick’s School of Law. She completed her PhD thesis at Kent in December 2016.

Please register on Eventbrite.

Virtual Exchange Opportunities at Kent

Would you like to develop a solution for a real-life problem alongside other students at the University of Calgary? Or maybe you would be interested in joining a common reading experience with students across the world at West Virginia University?

These are just a couple of the opportunities we have available for Kent students to engage with virtual activities at our partner universities across the world.

Virtual exchange allows students to engage in meaningful, cross-cultural experiences as part of your education. These projects are becoming ever more important in offering students an international learning experience. With recent events preventing traditional study abroad, these projects provide the framework for students to develop their cross-cultural attitudes, skills, and communication in addition to improving their digital literacy skills valued by employers.

For more information and to sign up, please visit the Global Education webpage.