Building on significant advances made at the launch of the Kent Law School student project “Decolonising the Curriculum” manifesto which was facilitated by Dr Suhraiya Jivraj, the Graduate School’s Postgraduate Community Experience Awards provided funding for a half-day workshop “Strategising for Anti-Racist Action” on 23 May 2019. It was facilitated by members of Building the Anti-Racist Classroom (BARC) and organised by doctoral researcher in English, Katja May with doctoral researcher in Law, Ahmed Memon. BARC are an international collective of women of colour scholar-activists whose mission is to develop anti-racist pedagogy and practice for higher education. Approximately fifty people were present at the event.

Participants engaged with contemporary concepts and research-led best practice in anti-racist thinking and organising, including reducing white fragility and building resilience for conversations about race, exploring the notion of micro-aggressions, and challenging the student deficit model around attainment gaps in favour of a structural analysis of how white supremacy implicitly and explicitly shapes higher education.

The workshop was centred around an innovative tool, the BARC student journey game commissioned by the Reimagining Attainment for All 2 (RAFA2) project of Roehampton University and Queen Mary University of London, and developed in collaboration with QMUL student researchers of colour. Participants had the opportunity to collectively consider how to develop anti-racist actions, and offered a framework for how to evaluate action plans for change based on who they benefit, and to what extent they support and protect students and staff of colour.  

Feedback from the workshop highlighted the need for compulsory anti-racist and cultural competency trainings that account for institutional power structures. Participants were also keen to find out more ways to translate learning from the day into their classroom practice.

As part of a continued course of action within the university, Student Success Project Manager  within the school of Sport and Exercise Science Dave Thomas has invited BARC back for another workshop on Medway campus in autumn, to be confirmed.

Dr Tamara Rathcke, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics in the Department of English Language and Linguistics, has been awarded a grant by The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation.

Tamara currently holds a research grant from the Leverhulme Trust for a project entitled “Does language have groove? Sensorimotor synchronisation for the study of linguistic rhythm”, to investigate entrainment with language by native listeners of French and English. This research is among the first attempts to apply the sensorimotor synchronization technique to the study of rhythm in language.

There are currently no existing three-way language comparisons of sensorimotor synchronisation patterns from rhythmically distinct languages, traditionally associated with the syllable-timed (French), stress-timed (English) and the mora-timed (Japanese) group. Funding from the Sasakawa Foundation will support a direct comparison of the sensorimotor synchronisation performance between native speakers of Japanese, English and French and will help illuminate the link between the acoustic signal and its rhythmic perception. This research will contribute to the controversially debated topic of language rhythm, potentially creating a fundamentally new ways of conceptualising the phenomenon.

Four final-year Hispanic Studies students spent three weeks in Havana during the Easter vacation on a work placement thanks to funding from the Faculty of Humanities Mobility Fund and the generosity of John Washington, a donor to the University.

Two students worked at the University of Havana teaching English, and two worked as translators for the cultural journal La Jiribilla. Dr William Rowlandson, Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies, said: ‘The placements offered cross-cultural engagement and skills exchange, and the students benefited from immersed language practice in context, increased spoken fluency, broadening of cultural horizons, and the development of specific skills including teaching, presenting and translation.’

Carla Biondi commented: “Within the first day, [Cuba] had exceeded all my expectations. I suddenly understood what I’d always been told: ‘Cuba has to be seen, it can’t be described’”.

João Martins Pereira said: “As an aspiring teacher, the experience proved to me that it is still possible to learn and teach incredible lessons even if the only resources to hand are passion, dedication, a chalkboard and a slightly outdated textbook. During the placement, we gave presentations on the UK education system, British stereotypes, and even an amusing quiz on the English language and British culture. At the end of the placement, we gave the students some England football team branded wristbands and some keyrings kindly donated by Kent Union. Overall, it was an amazing experience which I would not hesitate to do again if I had the chance.”

Stephen Hockley described the experience as: “…fantastic and so rich. To have been the recipient of an internship that took me across the world and into the suburbs of Havana is always going to be a cool thing. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity.”

Dr Paul March Russell, Lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature, gave a keynote address at the Borders, Intersections and Identity in the Contemporary Short Story in English conference at the University of Santiago de Compostela in May.

Paul’s topic was Daisy Johnson’s short story collection, Fen, which he explored in terms of the borderlines between human and animal identities, especially between the blurred lines between human and natural activity in the East Anglian landscape.

Paul also gave another keynote address titled ‘On the Threshold of Sexual Difference: Re-Gendering the Eerie in Daisy Johnson’s Fen’ at the Current Research in Specualtive Fiction conference in Liverpool on Thursday 6 June. Here, Paul continued to explore Johnson’s work while also discussing his preliminary researches into New Wave science fiction and the Decadent imagination.

“Both talks examined Daisy Johnson’s short story collection, Fen, in relation to Mark Fisher’s conceptualisation of the eerie,” Paul explains, “The first did so by looking at a series of ‘border crossings’ – geopolitically (the relationship of the Fenland periphery to the economic heartland of ‘Silicon Fen’), geologically (the deep time of the Fens), and ecologically (in the encounters between humans and other kinds of non-human life). The second drew on the last of these themes, and explored in more depth Derrida’s claim that human-animal encounters occur ‘on the threshold of sexual difference’ by examining the ways in which Johnson describes sexuality through the meetings between human, animal and non-organic life-forms.”

As of midday on 12 June 2019 all professional services, academic and research staff are able to use Staff Connect to submit expense claims replacing the existing paper based solution.

If you need assistance with transitioning to the new system please contact the Payments Office at expenses@kent.ac.uk

The Staff Connect Expenses module allows for the submission of expense claims online and to attach scanned copies of receipts to the claim. The claim will then be forwarded, via the system, to an agreed Authoriser within your area, for approval. 

Once the claim has been approved it will be forwarded automatically for payment. Payments will be made on a fortnightly basis into the same bank account used for your salary payments.

Drop-in sessions

Drop-in sessions will be held in the period following the launch of the expenses module to allow anyone who wishes to attend for informal training, support and to answer any questions. Please find dates, times and room locations within Cornwallis South East Octagon below:

Wednesday 12 June all day – SE14

 Thursday 13 June 10.00-12.00 – SE20

 Tuesday 18 June 10.00-12.00 – SE20

 Wednesday 19 June 14.00-16.00 – SE14

 Monday 24 June 14.00-16.00 – SE14

 Friday 28 June 10.00-12.00 – SE20

 Medway Thursday 20 June 09.00-12:30 – G4-04

 Further help:

 If you have any questions about Staff Connect and the launch of this new module, there is guidance, including a frequently asked questions section, on the Staff Connect website. To find out more about using Staff Connect to make expense claims, please come to one of the demo and drop-in sessions available for all staff and line managers. There is a high level guide available in relation to the process for submission and approval. Please go to support to find out more. Online user guides are available.

In the latest episode of the Nostalgia podcast series, Dr Chris Deacy, Reader in Theology and Religious Studies in the Department of Religious Studies, speaks to Katy Hanrahan, who works in special needs education and attended the University of Wales, Lampeter.

Katy and Chris talk about Teeside, growing up against the backdrop of an industrial region whose heritage has now gone, being the first in her family to go to university, and Katy’s keenness from a young age to learn about people from different backgrounds. We also find out about what Katy’s perceptions were of returning to Teeside after spending three years in Lampeter and finding that nothing had changed. The conversation then turns to childhood memories and what she remembers doing. We discover that Katy has always been very animal-centred, including having a passion for looking after horses from a young age, as well as why her mother pushed her into something she could thrive at.