The Work-Study Scheme (run by the Careers & Employability Service) have nearly 2000 keen and enthusiastic students ready to work for you! We can help you recruit to roles such as Social Media Assistant, Web Content Editor, Administrator, Research Assistant or Marketing Assistant, or shorter-term roles such as Welcome Helper or Promotional Assistant. The students appreciate the opportunity to build their employability skills further, and in turn can bring fresh ideas to your team.

We have a bank of job descriptions so if you have an opportunity that could be filled by a student, just let us know, and we can help you draft a role description. We advertise the role, can shortlist and support with interviews as needed, and undertake all employment checks and paperwork, with no cost to you – all whilst providing support to the students along the way, and ensuring they receive developmental feedback and support.

We recently hired 150+ Student Helpers to work at welcome events at Canterbury and Medway. They have been stationed across campus, welcoming new and returning students and their families, answering questions about student life, and ensuring that no one is left lonely on campus by being a friendly presence. They have also assisted with the Office Lockdown Escape Room, bushcraft and life skills activities, and delivering Campus Tours. These students are all ready to work, hold a contract and have undertaken all appropriate checks, had an induction and even  have a Student Helper t-shirt and face shield, so if you need any to support your welcome activities, or longer-term roles, please do let us know!

We have limited funding available, which can be used to match-fund your costs fifty-fifty, where appropriate (students earn £9.40 per hour if they are under 25, £9.99 per hour if over 25, with no cost to you). We undertake all the employment checks, contract paperwork and training – all we need to know is how many you need, where, when, and their duties, and we recharge costs back to you once the work is completed.

Contact Hannah Greer and Jen Davey on workstudy@kent.ac.uk for more information, or to hire Student Helpers.

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 28 September – Friday 2 October) webinars are as follows:

Monday 28 September 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 29 September 2020 – ‘Positive Minds’
Time: 12.30-13.00 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Wednesday 30 September 2020 –  ‘Fake News’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Thursday  1 October 2020 – ‘Returning to the Workplace
Time: 12.00-13.00 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Friday 2 October 2020 – ‘Work Life Balance’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Kent Hospitality have reopened their catering outlets for the 2020/21 academic year.

Bag It, Create (takeaway only), Dolche Vita, Hut 8, K-Bar, Mungo’s, No.1, Origins, Rutherford Dining Hall, Sibson Café (takeaway only), The Galvanising Shop Café and The Street Kitchen are now open. For the most recent opening times for each outlet, please visit the catering website.

As of Monday 21 September the Gulbenkian Café will also be serving hot food to eat in and takeaway.

Please note that The Sports Café in the Sports Centre will be closed until further notice.

Although our outlets are running reduced menus, we are still offering a wide variety of dishes; including the Katsu Chicken from Dolche Vita, street food from The Street Kitchen and classic burgers from Origins.

If you have any questions, please email catering@kent.ac.uk

Professor David Stirrup, Professor of American Literature and Indigenous Studies in the School of English, has provided a comment for an article entitled Native Americans reclaim history 400 years after Mayflower landing for NBC News.

On 16 September 1620, the Mayflower set sail from Portsmouth and landed at Cape Cod after 66 days at sea. The Europeans encountered the Native American Wampanoag tribe, who helped them to survive their first winter. However, their interaction did not remain peaceful, with European diseases killing many of Native Americans, and rising tensions leading to war.

While the European settlers kept detailed records, the Wampanoag did not have a written language to record their experience. In the piece, David argues that this colonial perspective undermines not only the tragedies Native Americans endured, but also their contributions to history.

David says: ‘some of the people who helped the pilgrims survive that first winter had already been to Europe. Some of them spoke enough English to mediate. They were organised societies, not uncharted peoples just waiting for European forms of ‘civilization’. The native people played a quite considerable role in the development of the modern world, [they] weren’t just kind of agencyless victims of it’. 

The full piece can be read on NBC’s website. 

From Monday 21 September, Gulbenkian Café will be serving hot food (eat in or takeaway) on weekday lunchtimes (Mon – Fri 12-2.30).

Our lunchtime menu includes favourites like our Homemade Thai Fishcakes, Sweet Chilli Chicken Burger, and Chicken and Avocado Cesar Salad, plus toasties and jacket potatoes.

The café offers drinks, cakes and snacks at other times, with full opening hours listed below:

Monday – 8.30 – 15.00*,

Tue – Fri – 8.30 – 15.00* & 18.00 – 20.00

Saturday – 18.00 – 20.00

Sunday 13.00 -15.30

(*Hot food served 12-12.30)

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 21 September – Friday 25 September) webinars are as follows:

Monday 21 September 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 22 September 2020 – ‘Positive Minds’
Time: 12.30-13.00 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Wednesday 23 September 2020 –  ‘Fake News’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Thursday 24 September 2020 – ‘Returning to the Workplace
Time: 12.00-13.00 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Friday 25 September 2020 – ‘Work Life Balance’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Dr David Walsh and Dr Luke Lavan, Lecturer in Archaeology in the Department of Classical & Archaeological Studies, are currently leading a group of 30 Kent students excavating an archaeological site on the northwest edge of the University estate. For the next two weeks the group will be uncovering the ditches left by Bronze Age burial mounds, alongside traces of Mesolithic and Medieval occupation.

To observe social distancing on the dig, the diggers are organised into pods of 6 with their own tools, hand sanitiser pump, and own toilet, and they don’t mix with the other groups through the duration of the dig. Within the pods we advise 2m distance and in the office masks are worn, with rules on entrances and exits to reduce mixing.  office we wear masks and have entrance and exit rules, to reduce mixing. Doors stay open.

The site is available for visitation on Friday 25 September, 14.00-16.00. The site is located next to Blean Church, which is 10 minutes’ walk from the Oaks Nursery, up the Crab and Winkle path, just beyond the Sports Pavilion.

This dig has been made possible thanks to the support of Paul Dyer and the Parish of St Cosmus and St Damian in the Blean.

You will be able to follow the progress of the Blean dig daily on the site’s blog: ukcbleandig.wordpress.com.

Turn on your radio and listen to the Dominic King show on BBC Radio Kent for a two-part series featuring Daniel Harding, Head of Musical Performance at Kent.

In the series, Dan will be in conversation with the Whitstable-based crime writer, Julie Wassmer, about the use of music in her ‘Whitstable Pearl’ series of crime novels, which are set in Kent.

The first episode will be broadcast Wednesday 16 September at 20.12 and the second episode will be going out Thursday 17 September at 20.12.

THE DOMINIC KING SHOW

Monday – Thursday  18.00 – 21.00

The Arts Show for Kent

Social Media channels: @bbcradiokent @DominicKingBBC #TDKS

In the latest episode of the Nostalgia podcast series, Dr Chris Deacy, Head of the Department of Religious Studies, interviews Reverend Dr Justin Lewis-Anthony who did his PhD in Religious Studies at Kent from 2008-12 and was Chris’ first PhD student to complete.

Justin talks about how he ended up doing a PhD with Chris, and why the topic of leadership was something that made him angry. He talks about how cinema is the functioning mythological delivery system of this age and how many people expect Church leaders to function like John Wayne, while Justin would rather teach people to be disciples.

Justin also tells us why he’s bored by dark superheroes, and we find out about the problem with thinking of authenticity as an empirical standard and why it’s not a goal for human flourishing. Justin reveals why he isn’t crippled by memories of the past and having a sensitivity to one’s surroundings and history in the context of having a Welsh father. He talks about ‘disasters survived’ and recognising one’s responsibilities to others rather than introspection.

At the end of the interview, Justin talks about what it is that justifies his own existence, and the danger of living one’s life through one’s children.