Author Archives: Miriam Sandiford

Register to vote- an election is coming!

Have you registered to vote yet? A General Election is coming! Don’t miss the chance to register and have your say in the future of our country.

When do I need to register by?

Midnight Tuesday 26 November.

Am I eligible to vote?

You can register to vote in the General Election if you will be aged 18 or over on day of the election, and you are a British, Irish or qualifying Commonwealth citizen.

How do I register to vote?

You can register online to vote. It only takes a few minutes.

As part of the registration process, you will be asked to provide your National Insurance number. If you do not have one, you can select ‘I can’t provide a National Insurance number’ and enter ‘student’ for the reason.

Can I register to vote at my term-time and home address?

You may be able to register to vote at both your term-time and home address, however you can only vote once. It is illegal to vote more than once in a General Election.

When is the General Election?

Thursday 12 December 2019. Term ends the following day, Friday 13 December 2019.

What should I do if I will not be around on the day of the General Election?

If you will not be around to vote on Thursday 12 December, you can apply for a postal vote.

Who can I contact for more information?

You can contact your local Electoral Registration Office to find out if you’re already registered to vote, or more for information.

Owl display for Canterbury Nightline, 15 November

Join us for a real life owl display in partnership with Kent Union and Canterbury Nightline.

Owls are symbolic to the Nightline volunteers who stay up throughout the night to listen to any problems you may have.

The owl display will take on Friday 15 November, 13.00-16.00. Find us outside the Senate Building, opposite the main entrance to the Templeman Library.

It’s free to attend so come along to learn more about the owls and Canterbury Nightline.

Join our Medway photoshoot and receive a £10 Amazon voucher

Fancy taking part in the University’s photoshoot on Tuesday 12 November? It can be a lot of fun and for every student who takes part, we’ll be saying thank you with a £10 Amazon voucher.

You don’t even have to pose! Most of our photos merely require you to sit and chat to your fellow students in various locations around the campus. Sounds good?

We have three photography slots to choose from:

10.15am – 11.15am

11.30am – 12.30am

12.30pm – 1.30pm

To volunteer, simply email Karen (kad@kent.ac.uk) in the Publishing Office as soon as you can. State in your email which time slots you can manage. And if we book you for more than one slot, you’ll receive more than one voucher.

Management Undergraduate of the Year Award returns!

Are you looking for a future career in management? Do you have good customer service and communication skills?

The Management Undergraduate of the Year Award celebrates all of this!

You could be on your way to winning a summer placement with Enterprise in these simple steps:

1. Go to https://undergraduateoftheyear.com/management and register

2. Answer the question set by Enterprise. The Careers and Employability Service can read through this before you submit if you would like support – all you need to do is book a quick advice appointment on Target Connect.

3. Complete three online tests

If you get through these stages you will be invited to a telephone interview and assessment centre, which the Careers and Employability Service can support you with through our Quick Advice scheme.

The deadline for the awards is 31January 2020.

Good luck!

Between landscape and abstraction exhibition in Keynes College

Keynes College is delighted to house ‘Between Landscape and Abstraction’, a new exhibition of paintings by Angela Rumble and David Hayward which can be admired in the Atrium, as well as in the Keynes Gallery on the first floor of the College, until 15 December.

The work of these two artists may appear quite different in both style and technique but all the paintings in this exhibition are profoundly linked to elements of landscape – to organic growth, material substance and transient experience.

There are obvious structural differences between Angela Rumble’s web-like compositions and David Hayward’s layered approach but perhaps the main distinction lies in methodological direction – Rumble works from the real towards abstraction while Hayward begins with the abstract and then informs with the real.

Angela and David are no strangers to the College, as ‘Uncertain Places’, a very successful joint exhibition of their work, was held there in 2015, and it is a pleasure to have them back!

All paintings in this exhibition are for sale. Prices on request from the Keynes College Master’s Office – keynesmastersoffice@kent.ac.uk or direct from the artist.

Angela Rumble website, angela@hernhill.plus.com

David Hayward website,: dwhayward@btinternet.com

Learn more about the Mindfulness@Kent initiative

Colleagues are invited to the Learning and Teaching Network session titled ‘The Mindfulness@Kent initiative: what is it, why is it needed and does it really work?’

The session takes place on Wednesday 20 November, 13.00-14.00, Cornwallis North West Seminar Room 6.

Dr Elisabeth Curling, Senior Lecture at the school of Bioscience, will lead the session.

Dr Curling will explain how and why the practice of mindfulness across the University is actively helping a diverse range of students (and staff) who are studying and working within the higher education sector at Kent.

The session will focus on our widespread development of staff and student Mindfulness courses and drop-in sessions (from very humble beginnings in 2015) within the University of Kent and elsewhere and how this can really improve both staff and student well-being and academic success.

This session will provide an opportunity to develop a shared understanding of what is Mindfulness, how it positively affects brain function if practised regularly, and how you can get involved in Mindfulness provision for your students.

During the presentation, examples of Mindfulness courses and drop in sessions taking place at Canterbury and Medway will be shared and discussed, as well as giving you a flavour of our future initiatives. Plenty of time will be allocated for questions and discussion after the presentation.

The University Support Prize was awarded to us in July 2019 for this work on Mindfulness provision across the University.

This session will be of particular interest to academic and professional support staff who are involved in supporting students in any way, but all staff are welcome to attend who are interested in finding out more about Mindfulness.

To confirm your attendance please complete the online booking.

International Men’s Day event – 19 November

It is a common feature of gender equality events that most of the attendees are women so we often miss out on the male voice when discussing issues that affect us all such as work-life balance, wellbeing and workplace culture.

Last year the Athena SWAN team addressed this by surveying* our male colleagues on their experience of gender equality in the workplace.

This year we are using the occasion of International Men’s Day to hold a panel and audience discussion, on the key themes arising from the survey:

Does it feel that gender equality initiatives are targeted only at women?
Is there a macho culture that prevents an inclusive one?
What is it like being a Dad at the University?

The event is being held in Grimond Lecture Theatre 3, Tuesday 19 November. Teas, coffees and afternoon treats from 14.30 and discussion 15.00-16.00.

Everyone is welcome! Book your place and pass on the details to any colleagues you think may be interested.

*You can read more about the responses to our gender equality surveys on our Equality Matters blog.

Sexual Assault Responders required for Medway campus

Student Support and Wellbeing are looking to recruit staff to the Sexual Assault Responder (SAR) team at Medway.

The role of the Sexual Assault Responder is to provide immediate support to victims of serious sexual assault or rape at the Canterbury and Medway campuses out of hours (between 17.00 and 09.00) and at weekends. Currently we are only recruiting SARs for the Medway campus.

Full training is provided, and SARs operate on a rota system. The role is to provide advice and guidance to victims of serious sexual assault or rape with regards to aftercare support procedures. The role is NOT a counselling role.

SARs receive a £100 remuneration for joining the team and completing the training, and receive £70 for the first hour of a call out, with time and a half for subsequent hours. Any transport costs are also reimbursed.

A Sexual Assault Responder must meet the following criteria:

Be a University of Kent member of staff
Be able to access the University of Kent Medway campuses within 45 minutes of receiving a phone call from Campus Security out of hours (considering the accessibility of a staff member’s usual mode of transportation when accessing the University)
Attend a training session
Have the permission of their line manager to register for the role of SAR.

For more information, to request a role description, or to express an interest in becoming a SAR, please email Becky Wyatt in Student Support and Wellbeing.

Nostalgia podcast with Jacqui Double

In the latest episode of the Nostalgia podcast series, Chris Deacy, Head of the Department of Religious Studies, interviews Jacqui Double who works in Student Support in the School of Arts at the University of Kent

We learn about Jacqui’s religious sensibilities as a child and our experiences of growing up in faith environments and the limitations thereby, and move on to speak about different friendship communities that have been built up, and growing up with children who have challenging medical circumstances.

Jacqui also talks about student support; growing up in the Potteries in a Mormon family, how going to university in Sheffield (where she read English Literature) forced her to make choices to live independently, working for a theatre company, why she is a practical person, reading a book a day as a child, meeting one’s heroes; how truthful we can be to ourselves, her grandmother’s spiritualist beliefs, ‘letting things go’, wanting to be a writer, and the paradox of looking forward while also being obsessed with history.

Kent Professor appointed to AHRC Advisory Board

Kent Law School Professor Diamond Ashiagbor has been appointed to the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Advisory Board for a three-year term.

The AHRC funds world-class, independent researchers in a wide range of subjects including history, archaeology, law, digital content, philosophy, languages, design, heritage, area studies, the creative and performing arts. Its 15-member AHRC board is made up of senior academics from across the arts and humanities together with leaders from the ‘GLAM’ sector – representing galleries, libraries, archives and museums.

The Board advises the AHRC Council on developing strategies and programmes to support and fund research, to respond to the challenges facing arts and humanities research, and to articulate the value of arts and humanities research to a range of audiences. This financial year the AHRC will spend approximately £98 million to fund research and postgraduate training, in collaboration with a number of partners.

Other members of the Advisory Board include leaders from Opera North and the Science Museum, and academic experts in performance, dance and technology; literature; classics; and social history.

Professor Ashiagbor’s research seeks to bridge social science-influenced legal scholarship (on labour, markets and economic governance) and humanities-inflected legal scholarship (on history, development and the post-colonial). Her most recent book, Re-Imagining Labour Law for Development: Informal Work in the Global North and South (Hart Publishing, 2019) was published in July.