Author Archives: Angie Valinoti

Apply now for ACU Global Summer School Grant

As an ACU member, Kent is pleased to be able to offer an opportunity to apply for a grant of up to £2000 to attend a summer school at ACU member universities overseas. The host institutions include universities in Canada, India, South Africa and a number of other countries. The full list of hosts and further details is available on the ACU website.

Eligibility criteria:

Grants are available to students who meet both of the following criteria:

Registered as a current undergraduate student
A UK citizen, or with UK refugee status

In addition, students must also meet at least one of the following criteria:

From a family with a combined annual parental income of under GBP 25,000, or
The first person in their family to go to university, or
A care leaver

How to apply:

Review the summer schools available, including checking the full costs.
Identify a first and second choice of summer school
Submit an application form to goabroad@kent.ac.uk by midnight on Monday 24th February 2020
Following an internal selection process, the university will nominate up to two candidates for the grant.
ACU will make the final decision on the grant award.

Further Information:

International Partnerships will be running three drop in sessions for anyone who is interested in the award and would like further details or help with their application. These will take place on the following dates:

Thursday 13th February 2-4pm
Wednesday 19th February 12 – 2pm
Thursday 20th February 10-11.30am

Located in the Registry extension, First Floor, Rm 155.

Alternatively, please email goabroad@kent.ac.uk for more information.

For more information on all our summer school opportunities please visit our Go Abroad Website.

Mandarin Chinese language and culture exchange visit

CEWL recently welcomed two students from Xi’an KeDaGaoXin University, China for a short-term exchange visit.

Yuan Xueru and Mei Yixiao, undergraduates studying International Chinese Teaching at Xi’an KeDaGaoXin University (KDGX), recently spent two weeks at Kent through an exchange programme between the Centre for English and World Languages and KDGX, which was established last academic year.

During their stay, the students observed our World Languages classes including Mandarin, Arabic and Japanese and led speaking and writing workshops to help students to improve their Mandarin language skills.They also attended various English Language and Academic Skills classes to improve their English. Above all, they worked hard to design and deliver some workshops in Chinese culture – which included music and singing – and calligraphy. Both workshops went down very well with the students who took part. Thank you to all of our teachers who made them welcome while they were here.

As they were here during Chinese New Year, they participated and performed in the Chinese New Year Gala organised by the Chinese Society on 27th January. They really appreciated this invaluable opportunity to immerse themselves in both British culture and university life, and they undoubtedly gained first-hand experience of British university culture by talking to and making friends with students at the University.

Kent student, Jason went to KDGX last spring holiday and Safron is planning to go for four weeks during the Easter holidays. They both became buddies with Yuan Xueru and Mei Yixiao and gave them great help during their stay. Well done and thank you to both Jason and Safron!

Clara, another Mandarin learner at Kent, will be also be going to KDGX at Easter. We have no doubt that she and Safron will enjoy everything KDGX and the historical city of Xi’an have to offer.

We hope to give more of our Mandarin learners the chance to improve their Mandarin language skills and enhance their Graduate Attributes by participating in the exchange programme in the future.

If you have questions related to learning Mandarin at Kent, or the Mandarin Exchange Programme, please contact World Language Tutor, Mrs Ru Su, directly.

Economic transformations and local development in contemporary Cuba

Dr Amhed León Tellez, Head of the Center for Studies in Management and Local Development at the University of Bayamo in Granma province, Cuba, is visiting the UK to develop his research and to collaborate with Dr Rebecca Ogden, Lecturer in Latin American Studies in the Department of Modern Languages, and Professor Par Kumaraswami (University of Reading) on a project about local development, heritage and tourism in Cuba, a project that has received GCRF funding.

Dr Amhed León Tellez will be hosted by the Department of Modern Languages between Monday 10 and Saturday 15 February, and on 13 February he will deliver a talk entitled ‘Economic transformations and local development in contemporary Cuba: what role can universities play?’

Cuba is experiencing extraordinary structural transformations of its economy in the midst of the recent tightening of the economic blockade imposed by the United States. Local development is an important mechanism to boost economic dynamics and social welfare within such economic shifts. This demands capacity-strengthening and knowledge, as well as raising the role of science and technological innovation. In this paper Dr León Tellez will share insights from his research in this field, including the role played by the university in local development.

Beyond Cinema students organise topical screenings

Film students on the module FI624: Beyond Cinema have organised a series of film screenings with a difference this December.

Beyond Cinema considers the changing nature of where, when and how audiences engage with film and the moving image. As part of the module, students have organised screenings of classic films as an immersive experience and appropriate to the time of year.

The series opens with a 25th anniversary celebratory screening of Friends on Sunday 8 December at 7pm, including a Friends themed quiz, starting at 4pm in the Gulbenkian Cafe. Four episodes of the classic TV show will be screened, and tickets cost between £4 and £10. To book online please visit the Gulbenkian’s website.

On Monday 9 December there will be two screenings of Duncan Jones’ science-fiction drama Moon (2009) held in Jarman Studio 1. The screening will be an immersive experience, with an airlock walkway and the film will be show an astrodome. Seating will be on the floor, but there will be plenty of cushions to make it as comfortable as possible. The screening has been organised by BA (Hons) in Film student Tommy-Joe Brown (pictured, building the walkway), and the event is held in partnership with School of Physical Sciences.

There are 16 tickets per screening and cost £3 each and may be booked by the Gulbenkian’ website.

To capitalise on the festival season, there will be a screening of the Christmas Rom Com Love Actually (dir. Richard Curtis 2003). As this is the season of goodwill, the event is held in support of the student-led charity initiatives Kent Marrow and Canterbury Homeless Outreach. Katie Head, also on the BA (Hons) in Film and who has organised the screening, said: ‘I wanted to do a charity fundraiser for Kent Marrow and Canterbury Homeless Outreach in particular, as although they are two charities that need help and support all year round, Christmas is a time that I believe they need it the most. I thought that Love Actually would be the perfect film to bring people together for a joyous evening and then also give them the opportunity to support these charities in any way they can.’

Tickets cost between £4 and £8.70, and may be purchased from the Gulbenkian.

The final film in the series is The Grinch (dirs. Yarrow Cheney and Scott Mosier 2018) which will be shown at a family-friendly screening at the Gulbenkian cinema, at 11am on Sunday 15 December. Tickets cost between £2.50 and £4, and may be purchased from the Gulbenkian’s website.

Ben Thomas to chair debate on Leonardo’s ‘Paragone’

Dr Ben Thomas, Reader in the Department of Art History, will be chairing a debate on ‘Leonardo’s “Paragone” and Contemporary Art’ at the Warburg Institute on Monday 2 December 2019, featuring leading contemporary painter Humphrey Ocean and sculptor Phillip King. The event is part of Leonardo 500, a series of events marking the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death.

Leonardo da Vinci argued that ‘the sculptor undertakes his work with greater bodily exertion than the painter’ and that sculpture is ‘an extremely mechanical operation, generally accompanied by great sweat which mingles with dust and becomes converted into mud. His face becomes powdered all over with marble dust, which makes him look like a baker’. By contrast, the painter is a cultured intellectual wearing fine cloths and painting to the accompaniment of music and poetry recitals. Partly made for comic effect in a courtly setting, Leonardo’s arguments for the superiority of painting over sculpture – the so-called Paragone debates – are at the heart of his conception of the visual arts as noble because they required a theoretical understanding of nature.

A deeper reading of Leonardo’s arguments reveals his profound interest in sculptural problems such as lighting and view-point, and an awareness that pictorial challenges like creating the appearance of relief on a flat surface (‘rilievo’) requires a knowledge of sculptural form. To what extent are these questions and concerns relevant to the practice of the visual arts today? Humphrey Ocean and Phillip King will reprise Leonardo’s arguments, relating them to their own practice.

The event has been co-organised by the Warburg Institute; The Italian Cultural Institute; the Centre for Cultural Memory and the Friends of Italian Studies at the Institute for Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London; and the Histories Research Group at the School of Arts, University of Kent.

The event will run from 18.00 to 20.00.

For more details, and to book, please see the Warburg Institute’s page.

Kent Talks – Monday 9 December

After the success of the first event on 11 November, Miray Has and her team have organised the second event in the series, in collaboration with the University of Kent TED Society, which will take place on Monday 9th December, Sibson LT3, 18:00-19:30.

The speakers are:

Libby Kane – The Case Against Detention Centres

Aya Raphael & Riwa Haider – Lebanese Revolution is Women

Nour Barham – What is home?

This is a great opportunity to collaborate with your friends all around campus, meet like-minded people and deepen your educational and social values.

Learn more about Kent Talks online or email Miray Has for more information or if you would like a presentation slot for one of the future events.

Applications Invited for Student Projects Grant Scheme

The Student Projects Grant Scheme 2020 is now inviting applications from student groups and societies.

Funded by the Kent Opportunity Fund, which was established to increase opportunities for students at Kent, The Student Projects Grant Scheme allows donations given by alumni and friends of the University to reach as many students as possible by enabling groups of students to bid for funds to run their own projects.

The 2020 Student Projects Grant Scheme will be open for applications on 1st December 2019. The maximum grant is £2000 per project. There is £10,000 available to fund Student Projects this year. Applications are welcome from student societies in Kent Union, and students groups representing departments, faculties and schools across the University, including the campuses in Canterbury and Medway, our centre in Tonbridge and the University’s European centres in Brussels, Paris, Athens and Rome. The deadline for the applications will be 17th January 2020.

If you have any questions, please contact Alex Perkins (01227 824547). To find out more please visit the Student Projects page.

“The Students Project Scheme receives a number of varied applications from students each year. Applications for funding are always of a high quality and this year the Panel has to allocate £10k to support projects that will further enhance the student experience and employability of Kent students.”

– James Corbin, Head of Careers and Employability Services

Global Hangout Christmas Special December 2019

All Kent students are invited to the upcoming Global Hangout Christmas Special which will be hosted at the Gulbenkian cafe on 10 December from 5 – 7pm.

There will be an interactive quiz to test student’s knowledge on holiday traditions across the world, as well as other games and activities such as decorating gingerbread people.

Come along for some Christmas cheer, food and networking fun. Mulled wine and mince pies will also be provided!

Book your place and encourage any friends to sign up and celebrate the end of Autumn term.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Hosted by Kent’s Global Officers, c/o International Partnerships.

For more information, please visit Global Hangout page.

Ben Thomas publishes on Humphrey Ocean RA

Dr Ben Thomas, Reader in the History of Art, has just published a new book on Humphrey Ocean RA for the Royal Academy of Arts.

Over five decades, the painter Humphrey Ocean’s work has filtered into our national culture. This includes his series of portraits entitled ‘A Handbook of Modern Life’ displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in 2013; his portrait of Christopher Le Brun, President of the Royal Academy of Arts; and the cover of Sir Paul McCartney’s 2007 album Memory Almost Full, which featured one of the Chair series.

Ocean’s practice encompasses painting, printmaking, sculpture, book-making and drawing. Of the last, he has said: ‘Paper is lovely, immediate and personal. I draw as an end in itself.’

In 2019, his exhibition ‘Birds, Cars and Chairs’ is on display at the Royal Academy of Arts. Of these subjects, he says: ‘Birds, cars and chairs are, in that order, ancient, modern and intimate. Without them life would be a lot less bearable.’ These works are reproduced alongside others in the book to provide a fascinating overview of Ocean’s career.

For the volume, Ben contributes an essay that sets out to discover exactly what it is that makes Ocean’s art so appealing and universal.

The book was launched at the Royal Academy of Arts on the 27 November 2019.

For more details, please see the publisher’s page.

Exciting news for the Centre for Professional Practice!

The Centre for Professional Practice (CPP) celebrated two professional achievements at the British Association of Dental Nurses National Conference which took place earlier in November.

MSc in Advanced and Specialist Healthcare graduate Jacqui Elsden has been elected as President of British Association of Dental Nurses and during the Conference she presented the Head of CPP Debbie Reed with her BADN Long Service Badge of 20 years.

Jacqui said: ”It was a great honour and a lovely surprise to receive a bouquet of beautiful flowers from Debbie Reed, Head of Centre for Professional Practice, during my inauguration ceremony as President of BADN, at the Annual National Dental Nursing Conference which was held at Oxford in November 2019. It was particularly notable as Debbie was my educational supervisor for my MSc in Advanced and Specialist Healthcare at the University of Kent during my time of study, from whom I received selfless professional support and guidance”.

Why study the MSc Professional Practice at the University of Kent?

The programme offers:

– Flexible, part-time studies over 3 years, on average 4 to 6 weekends a year at our Medway Campus

– Work-based studies to enhance your professional knowledge and career progression

– Accreditation of prior experiential and certificated learning is welcome

– Kent’s staff may be eligible for staff fee remission

Find out more and apply: www.kent.ac.uk/cpp