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.

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.

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 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.

The Gulbenkian are hosting a focus group for University of Kent staff and students to discuss all things cafe at Gulbenkian  and to taste some samples from our new menu on Monday 4 November 12.00-14.00.

Popular topics will be coffee, sandwiches and hot food but we are more than happy to answer any questions or any ideas you have that you would like to see at Gulbenkian.

If you are interested in attending please RSVP by emailing Dan Parsons D.Parsons@kent.ac.uk.