Attracting sold out audiences across the globe, the world’s most prestigious mountain film festival is coming to Canterbury on Tuesday 3 March with a brand new selection of extraordinary short films from the world’s leading adventure film makers. Exhilarating and captivating, this is a must-see for anyone with a spirit of adventure!

Through the big screen be transported to the world’s last great wild places, follow the expeditions of some of today’s most incredible adventurers, experience extraordinary footage of adrenaline packed action sports and be inspired by thought-provoking pieces shot from the far flung corners of the globe.

An inspiring evening with lots of free prize giveaways! Visit the Banff website for more details.

Book in advance before tickets sell out.

The University’s Tonbridge Centre is pleased to offer new subjects in its Spring Short Course Programme which has just been published.

People and Conservation, Politics and International Relations, and Professional Studies workshops in association with the University’s Centre for Child Protection, join the regular subjects available in the coming months at the Tonbridge Centre.

Karon Kullman, who organises the programme, says:

‘Our short courses are very popular, and we are pleased to be able to offer these new subjects, some of which were requested in feedback from our course evaluations. Working with the Centre for Child Protection means we can offer their professional studies to a wider, west Kent audience.

‘We hope our Short Courses Programme will continue to inspire people to explore a subject among like-minded individuals, without formal assessment. New students join us all the time, and we receive much favourable and complimentary feedback – the short courses are a great success.’

For further information, view course details online.

To contact the University’s Tonbridge Centre, email tonbridgeadmin@kent.ac.uk or call 01732 352316.

Kent Union is pleased to have been awarded a ‘Very Good’ status by the National Student Union.

The Students’ Union is the first in the UK to be assessed under the new NUS quality model for students’ unions.

This quality model has been developed over the past two years by NUS to assure and improve the quality, standards and effectiveness of students’ unions in the United Kingdom.

The model covers 12 categories including Governance, Strategic Planning, People, Services and Impact. Kent Union achieved a rating of ‘Outstanding’ in 8 categorises and ‘Very Good’ in the remaining 4, on a scale of Outstanding; Very Good; Good; Accredited; Not-Accredited. The overall rating placed Kent Union as ‘Very Good’.

The NUS Quality Mark succeeds the Students’ Union Evaluation Initiative, which was established following significant funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The Quality Mark is a single management tool that interlocks with, and complements, relevant standards and codes that already exist, such as Investors in People and Investing in Volunteers.

Jim Gardner Kent Union CEO says: ‘We are extremely pleased to have achieved this level in what has been a rigorous assessment, which involved a comprehensive self-assessment process, a series of interviews with an external and independent auditor and a series of interviews with a wide range of staff and students. We believe that the report provides a strong reflection of our current strengths and weaknesses.’

The Union is in the process of developing an action plan to help ensure the organisation achieves ‘Outstanding’ within two years. The action plan will be presented at the October Board of Trustees’ meeting.

As part of the University of Kent’s 50th anniversary celebrations we are delighted to announce scholarships to attend the Summer School in Brussels and Paris.

To make an application and for further information please see the Summer School Scholarship webpages.

The scholarships are open to second and final year undergraduate students 
across all subject areas at Kent.

The two-week Summer School Scholarship includes:

• tuition,
• excursions,
• accommodation
• and travel expenses from the UK (from a designated point of departure).

Please note that you may only apply for one location.

The programmes are scheduled to take place on the following dates:

• Brussels Summer School | 22 June to 3 July 2015
• Paris Summer School | 13 to 24 July 2015

This is a fantastic opportunity to discover the wonderful cities of Brussels or Paris.

The Summer Schools will offer the chance to either enhance and deepen your knowledge of your own subject area or study something completely different for a period of two weeks.

The Summer Schools will also provide an insight into a wide variety of subject areas and scholars will gain expertise, skills and intercultural awareness which will be attractive to potential employers.

Sessions with expert lecturers and guest speakers will be combined with related excursions, resulting in an intellectually stimulating programme and an experience of living and studying in one of Europe’s major capitals.

All tuition will be in English although some knowledge of French may be helpful, it is not required for the Summer Schools.

The deadline for applications is Thursday 29 January, 17:00 (GMT).

On behalf of the University of Kent we would like to express our most sincere thanks to Santander UK for donating £2,217.90 towards the Kent Law Campaign through their Staff Matched Donation Scheme.

Throughout the Autumn Term, Adam Baker and Sam Winstanley from the campus branch of the bank have become heavily involved with the Kent Law Campaign and have taken part in various events organised by the Kent Law Campaign Student Group.

Adam acted as quiz master at the freshers’ quiz, Sam dressed as the Kent Bunny (the University’s 50th anniversary mascot) at the 5km fun run, they both sold tickets for the fun run and season’s greetings cards. Sam even took part in a sponsored skydive!

It was through this involvement that Santander UK agreed to reward their dedication by matching everything they helped the students to raise.

Sam said:

‘Santander Universities is committed to supporting higher education globally and the University of Kent branch’s involvement with the Kent Law Campaign is a great example of how we can support both staff and students.’

Hilary Edridge (Head of Campaigns), Anna Pollard (Campaigns Manager) and members of the Kent Law Campaign Student Group were delighted to receive a giant cheque from Adam and Sam on Monday 15 December. The University matched their generosity creating £4,435.80 towards our vital work.

Access to the following will be interrupted for a short period:

8am – 11am on Tuesday 6 January:

University webpages including the Student Guide will be unavailable.

What will still work? Moodle, SDS, the Library Catalogue, Reading lists and some other online systems will still work. If you visit any webpage, instead of seeing an error there will be a page giving the links to the online systems that you can still access.

8am – 11am on Thursday 8 January: Moodle and MyFolio will be unavailable.

During any outages, an appropriate message will be shown on screen to let visitors know what is happening, and when services should be resumed.

Why is it necessary?

We are moving the data for the University website, Moodle and MyFolio to our new SAN (Storage Area Network: this is our primary data storage facility). The old SAN is reaching end of life after many years of good service, and most existing services have already been transferred to the new SAN. It is significantly faster than the old one, and provides the infrastructure to make our services more responsive and flexible.

We are sorry for the inconvenience that this essential work will cause. The date and times have been chosen with consideration for minimising the impact on students, staff and visitors.