The next Student Success seminar “Undergraduate Curriculum Review – School of Psychology” will give an overview of the main findings of the review which sort to modernise and streamline the Undergraduate curriculum in the School of Psychology.

This seminar, delivered by Dr Libby Drury, will look at how Psychology aim to align with the School’s strategic vision and the overall mission of the University Plan 2015-20, to adapt to increasing UG student numbers and to make best use of the revised British Psychological Society’s accreditation system. Please circulate this invitation to colleagues.

This seminar will take place on:

• Wednesday 11 April 2018, Canterbury Campus, Keynes College, Seminar Room 15, 13.00-14.00
• Friday 13 April 2018, Medway Campus, Pilkington Building, Room 104, 13.00-14.00

31 members of the school took part in nine focus groups designed to elicit students’ and staff’s opinions of how to improve the curriculum. Qualitative data from the focus groups was analysed and the most frequently mentioned issues were grouped into eight themes, including 1) increased consistency 2) large, varied cohort teaching 3) core skills, 4) curriculum flow, 5) teaching delivery, 6) avoiding duplication, 7) meeting expectations and improving transferable skills, and 8) student engagement.  Data within each theme is presented in three sections; what works well, systematic issues and suggestions for improvement.

To book a place on any staff seminar simply email through to studentsuccessproject@kent.ac.uk

More information on this and all the staff seminars can be found on the website

A recording of the BTEC seminar and Prof Karen Cox’s Inspirational Speaker Talk can be found on the staff only section of the SSP website.

The University of Kent’s Athena SWAN team has grown to its full strength this month. We warmly welcome Anne-Marie Baker (Project Manager) and Camille Barbagallo (Post-doc Research Associate) to the team, that already consists of Minna Janhonen (Athena SWAN Adviser), Ellen Dowie (Data Analyst) and Sarah Vickerstaff (Athena SWAN Working Group Chair).

The University of Kent put in the Institutional Athena SWAN Bronze Renewal application last November and is expecting to hear the results from the ECU (Equality Challenge Unit) on 30 April. Since last November the team has been implementing the Athena SWAN Action Plan as well as supporting Schools with their departmental submissions.

In case you have any questions or comments, please email athenaswan@kent.ac.uk and we’ll get back to you!

In the picture: Athena SWAN team (from left); Ellen Dowie, Anne-Marie Baker, Sarah Vickerstaff, Camille Barbagallo and Minna Janhonen.

Kent consumer law expert Professor Iain Ramsay has been appointed to the sub-panel for law for the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021, the UK’s national assessment of research in higher education institutions.

The REF is the UK’s system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions. Experts are appointed to sub-panels for each of the 34 subjects assessed, all working under the guidance of four main panels.

Professor Ramsay has internationally acknowledged research expertise in consumer law and policy, insolvency law, and regulation, and has extensive knowledge of commercial credit and contract law research in both Europe and North America.

Before joining Kent Law School in 2007, he was Professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Canada where he was also Editor-in-Chief of the Osgoode Hall Law Journal from 2003 – 2006.

Professor Ramsay has extensive experience of policy research in the UK, Canada and EU and is frequently invited to play a leading role in a range of international and national level policy, legal, and academic bodies. Most recently he was a member of the Working Group on Financial Services for Revision of the 2016 United Nations Guidelines on Consumer Protection.

Regarded as one of the foremost world scholars in consumer law, Professor Ramsay’s research profile includes a recently commissioned World Bank report on the Insolvency of Natural Persons. He publishes widely in journals across the world and has authored 12 books, 7 substantial policy reports and over 70 refereed journal articles and chapters in edited collections. His most recent book on the comparative development of insolvency regimes, Personal Insolvency in the 21st Century: A comparative analysis of the US and Europe (Hart, 2017), engages with historical institutionalism.

Dave Jordan, Health & Safety and Food Safety Advisor for Kent Hospitality is the winner of the March Pride Award. The Personal Responsibility in Delivering Excellence Award recognised Dave’s dedicated attitude and hard work for providing additional support to a residential student on the Canterbury campus in a time of need.

Any Kent Hospitality staff (permanent or casual) may be nominated from Canterbury and Medway campuses. The award is given in March, June, September/October and December with each winner receiving £100 of shopping vouchers, a certificate and a Pride pin badge.

It’s really easy to nominate a member of the Kent Hospitality team for a Pride Award. Just visit the Pride website and complete our online form.

The closing date for the next Pride Award is Wednesday 13 June 2018 at 12 noon.

Live music and science come together this Friday (23 March), as the continuing Cellular Dynamics project explores links between choral music and cutting-edge research from the School of Biosciences.

Find out more and book.

The centrepiece of the concert is Ola Gjeilo’s colourful and popular ‘Sunrise Mass,’ performed by the University Cecilian Choir and String Sinfonia, which will be accompanied by live image- and video-projections curated by Dr Dan Lloyd. The hour-long performance is prefaced by short choral works by Whitacre, Stanford and Sir John Tavener, creating a meditative atmosphere in which to experience a range of film and photography drawn from the School of Bioscience’s latest research.

The performance starts at 19.30 in Colyer-Fergusson Hall; find out more about the Cellular Dynamics project online.

Image credit: School of Biosciences

Stephen Connolly, an artist filmmaker, Lecturer in Film Production, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham and Fine Art PhD student and Graduate Teaching Assistant in the School of Music and Fine Art (also a Kent 50 Scholar), has been shortlisted for a 2018 British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) Award, in the Moving Image category under Best Practice Research Portfolio for Machine Space. The results will be announced in April.

BAFTSS encourage best teaching and research practice, promoting the training of postgraduate students in research and giving researchers and practitioners the opportunity to attend and present a paper at the annual BAFTSS conference.

Connolly’s Machine Space is an essay film exploring a city as a machine; a place of movement and circulation. The city is Detroit, a place that has changed from producing the means of movement to producing space itself.  The film uses formal representational devices to explore this content, and addresses issues of complicity of audiences in the state of affairs in the city. It is a visualization of the ideas of Henri Lefebvre, philosopher of space and urban life.

The film was shown at London Film Festival and Wexner Center for the Arts at the Ohio State University.

You can read the LFF Review (in which it is described as “brilliant”) on MUBI.

Connolly’s work investigates cinema and representation through place, politics and history. His award winning single screen work which explores the interface between spectatorship, material culture and subjectivity, has been widely shown internationally since 2002. A FLAMIN award recipient, he has had solo screenings at the ICA and BFI Southbank in London, and was a juror at the Ann Arbor Film Festival (Michigan, USA) in 2011.

Image credit: Stephen Connolly

SMFA Lecturer in Music, Jackie Walduck, will be performing with her improvising ensemble Ignite at London’s Wigmore Hall, in an early evening performance at 17.45 on Wednesday 21 March. Tickets cost £5. Find out more and book.

A composer and vibraphone player, whose work explores the meeting points between composition and improvisation, and their impact on ensemble performance, Jackie Walduck has performed across the UK, Europe and in the Middle East, with musicians as diverse as the Philharmonia, Sinfonia Viva, Kala Ramnath, and the Royal Army Band of Oman.

The programme will include her new piece Skeeter, which plays with the sounds of mosquitos.  Other pieces include works written for Ignite by Luke Bedford, Stephen Warbeck and a new commission form Layale Chaker.

Image credit: Hannah Strijbos

Small Satellites are the most disruptive technology in space industries. Recent development in electronics enabled satellites to become smaller and more intelligent.

A Special Issue on ‘Small Satellites’ has been published in Proceedings of the IEEE (March 2018 issue).

Prof. Steven Gao, from the School of Engineering and Digital Arts, is the Leader Guest Editor of this Special Issue.

Guest co-editors of this Issue include Professor Sir Martin Sweeting (OBE), Executive Chairman of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, UK, Prof. Shinichi Nakasuka, University of Tokyo, Japan, and Prof. Peter Worden, former Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, USA.

The Special Issue consists of 11 papers on different technologies of small satellites, authored by leading experts such as Prof. Paulo Lozano, MIT, et al. Prof. Gao is the leading author of an invited paper titled as ‘Advanced antennas for small satellites’. Proceedings of the IEEE is the flagship Journal of IEEE and has an impact factor of 9.237, much higher than other IEEE Journals.

Colleagues are invited to attend the Learning and Teaching Network session titled ‘Running an effective Board of Examiners’ on Wednesday 21 March 13.15-14.30 in Sibson Seminar Room 2, Canterbury.

Presented by Malcolm Dixon, Head of Quality Assurance.

This session will give an overview of the processes relating to running effective Board of Examiner meetings. Participants will be given up-to-date guidance about the Credit Framework and related examination conventions / procedures for the classification of awards, in accordance with Annexes J and K of the Code of Practice. The relevant policies and procedures will be reviewed, and there will be time for questions and discussion.

This session is for University staff who are involved with organising, attending or recording Board of Examiner meetings. Staff new to Boards of Examiners are strongly encouraged to attend.

As places are limited attendance will be restricted to one person per School.

To book a place, please email cpdbookings@kent.ac.uk