The University of Kent Players are proud to present a live recording of The Scarlet Pimpernel, a staged radio play set during the French Revolution.

Following the success of their first staged radio play, the Players will be taking the most elusive of characters, The Scarlet Pimpernel, to France and back (and back again) on Friday 30 November/Saturday 1 December 2018.

During the French Revolution, a mysterious English nobleman known only as The Scarlet Pimpernel, snatches French aristocrats from the jaws of the guillotine. Armed with only his wits and his cunning, he recklessly defies the French revolutionaries while being hunted by ruthless French agent Chauvelin.

Radio dramas were once the most popular form of entertainment and were usually broadcast as live performances. This performance recreates the entire experience – from actors performing to a foley team creating sound effects such as daring horse riding and swashbuckling fights.

“They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere…..”

Buy tickets
Tickets cost £6.50 (£6.00 for concession) and are available online.

Kent is part of the NERC funded ARIES Doctoral Training Partnership, a consortium whose members include the Universities of East Anglia, Essex, Plymouth and Royal Holloway University of London. The DTP’s multi-million pound bid to fund new postgraduate research vital to the future of our planet has been successful, and applications are now open to PhD students looking to start in October 2019.

The funding will support at least 80 PhD students to carry out vital environmental research in areas such as atmospheric and ocean science, biodiversity and conservation, geosciences and natural hazards, the application of microbiological and genetic science to environmental problems, and sustainability of water, energy and food supplies.

ARIES will enable its partners to pool experience and resources to create rich training environments for students, to encourage knowledge-sharing to the benefit of all and to give students the opportunity to undertake internships during the course of their PhD.

Partners from industry, policy bodies, research organisations and charities will add to the vitality of ARIES. Professor Richard Griffiths, Professor of Biological Conservation said:  “I am delighted that NERC has funded the expanded postgraduate training partnership ARIES. This funding means that Kent will continue to provide cutting-edge postgraduate training in environmental science through the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology and the National Centre for Statistical Ecology.”

Professor Paul Allain, Dean of the Graduate School said: “It is really excellent news that Kent and its partners have been successful with ARIES, which means that we will continue to equip students with the necessary skills and tools to meet global challenges in this vital area of research.”

Find out more about ARIES studentships at Kent.

We have recently heard about a WeChat scam aimed at Chinese students, where the caller claimed to be from the Chinese Embassy and asked for bank details. You should never give a caller your bank details. Please read this warning from UKCISA about this particular scam.

If you receive an unexpected email, phone call or letter from someone claiming to be from the Home Office, be careful, as it may be a scam. The Home Office has issued new guidance on how to protect yourself from tricks and scams.

Some students have been tricked into paying large sums of money to fraudsters. If you think you might have been contacted by a fraudster, please contact Kent Union Advice Centre.

Dr Oliver Double, Reader in Drama in the School of Arts and Director of the Centre for Popular and Comic Performance, featured on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row last week, to attempt to answer why is the unfortunate mishap hilarious – so long as someone else is falling off the ladder?

Front Row is a magazine programme discussing the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music.

‘One of the oldest theories of why we laugh is that we laugh at the expense of somebody else,’ explains Olly, who features 2 minutes into the programme, ‘we can trace this back to Aristotle, who said “comedy is an imitation of men worse than average”. But that’s not really an adequate explanation, in the sense you do laugh at Laurel and Hardy falling over but at the same time they also inspire great affection.”

Olly was interviewed alongside Jonathan Sayer of Mischief Theatre, and stand-up comedienne Natalie Haynes.

The programme may be heard on the BBC’s website.

As part of its commitment to Employability and Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity, the School of Engineering and Digital Arts is delighted to announce that on Wednesday 17 October at 13.00 in Jennison Lecture Theatre, it will be welcoming Dawn Bonfield, MBE to the University of Kent for an inspirational lecture on Inclusive Engineering and Technology.

Inclusion in Engineering and Technology is a competence that allows engineers and technologists to ensure that their work is inclusive of and accessible to everybody.  It is a methodology to ensure that products and services have been designed with 360 degree visibility, and that the needs and requirements of all users – both now and in the future – have been considered. It takes into account traditionally under-represented groups, ensuring that data sets which have been used to inform design are complete and non-biased, and that these groups are represented in the design process, as well as considering the manufacturers, maintainers and users of the finished product or service.

Dawn Bonfield is a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor of Inclusive Engineering at Aston University, and Founder & Director of Towards Vision, a Company which aims to work towards a vision of diversity and inclusion in engineering. She is Past President and former Chief Executive of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES), and in 2018 is an Ambassador for the Year of Engineering.

To book your ticket for this event, please book via Eventrbite or alternatively, just turn up. All welcome.

George Mindano is the first PhD student to complete his degree through the Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of Kent. His thesis investigated students’ understanding of the concept of ‘student voice’ to investigate whether strong group identity influences students’ responses to mechanisms designed to capture this. His findings indicated that student and academics have both varied and multi-dimensional understanding of the ‘student voice’ phenomenon. His study also revealed that while the majority of senior academic leaders maintain that ‘student voice’ has been amplified through various feedback mechanisms, most students think that surveys such as the NSS are not an accurate representation of their voice, with institutional failure to act effectively on their feedback and change practice.

George found doing his PhD at Kent was probably one of his most fulfilling and best experiences ever. ‘I chose University of Kent because of the support and interest I received from my prospective supervisors. I was also lured by Kent’s reputation, location and institution’s willingness to fully support my studies. I received tremendous support from my supervisors (Drs Joanna Williams pictured with George and Janice Malcolm), the Centre for the Study of Higher Education and the Graduate School. I was involved in two research projects and presented at several international conferences, which helped my growth as an early research career’.

In June 2018, George completed a postdoctoral research fellowship with University of Sussex and has returned to Malawi with his family.  He is teaching at University of Malawi’s Polytechnic on part-time basis and also consulting with the Ministry of Education.

Black History Month is the celebration of the people of Afro-Caribbean descent, their experiences and goals.

The month’s theme is “Black and Powerful” celebrating the different Black students in Leadership positions across the University.

Over the course of the month there are events run by numerous student groups aiming at teaching, nurturing and supporting students from all backgrounds here at Kent. Visit the Kent Union website to see more this month.

Keynes College, which celebrates 50 years this year, is proud to host two art exhibitions for Black History Month.

The Keynes Atrium features ‘Celebrating Amanda Nsubuga’, a multimedia artist of East African descent, born in London, England. Nsubuga completed a BA Fine Art degree at The University of Kent in 2018. Her work depicts women of colour, and their external beauty, often young girls but sometimes uses herself as a character. She has described her work as non-fictional, with her chosen subjects relating to her own narratives and still representing themselves, exploring personal anecdotes. Her work is executed in sequences, using each medium for separate objectives but the same function. Nsubuga cites Contemporary artists Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Zanele Muholi as influences. Recently, Amanda Nsubuga exhibited at the Old Truman Brewery in London.

The Keynes Teaching Foyer features ‘A History of Immigration to the UK’ by Tania McGee, a highly informative exhibition that tracks the history of immigration from pre-colonisation to the Windrush era, interspersed with photographs, documents and articles to create a high impact visual history.

Location: Keynes College

Dates: 1-31 October 2018

Time: All day