Jessica Cortes-Allsopp, a graduate of the BA (Hons) in Italian and French, has won a prestigious Translation Challenge and collected her prize money of £250 at the Hay Festival on 28 May.

The Translation Challenge was established by Translators’ House Wales in 2009 to promote and celebrate the crucial contribution translators make to enabling literature to travel across frontiers and to draw attention to literary translation as a creative art. It is organised by Wales PEN Cymru and Wales Literature Exchange and sponsored by Swansea University’s College of Arts and Humanities. This year’s competition was to translate a poem by Mexican Poet Pedro Serrano from Spanish into either English or Welsh. Jessica is this year’s English Language winner.

In his adjudication, Richard Gwyn, writer, academic and world-traveller, praised Jessica’s ‘tight and accurate translation, consistently reproducing the complexities of Serrano’s language better than other entrants, and maintaining a rhythm that measures up against that of the original.’

Jessica graduated in 2015 and is due to start an MA in Translation at UCL in September. She said: ‘It is an honour to have been named the winner of this challenge, it is hugely encouraging considering translation is what I enjoyed most about my undergraduate degree and has also given me great confidence in my decision to pursue it at postgraduate level. I would especially like to thank the French and Italian departments at the University of Kent for their continued support and for helping me to develop my passion for translation and language learning.’

For more details on the Translation Challenge, see the Wales Literature Exchange page.

All University of Kent staff are invited to a lunchtime BBQ hosted by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dame Julia Goodfellow.

The lunchtime BBQs will take place on the Registry Lawn in Canterbury on Wednesday 29 June (12.00 -14.00) and outside No. 1 Bistro in Medway on Thursday 30 June (12.00-14.00).

Please register for your chosen location via the link below and bring your ticket with you on the day.

For Canterbury, register here.

For Medway, register here.

The BBQs are free events for staff and we would hope to see you there.

David Powell,
Head of the Office of the Vice-Chancellor

Wanted – singers and musicians to join the School of Music and Fine Art for a concert in The Royal Dockyard Church.

The University of Kent Choir and Orchestra (Medway) invites staff, students, alumni and the local community to join them to take part in a festive concert in the beautiful Royal Dockyard Church on Wed 14 December, from 19.30-21.00.

Music will include a performance of Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Christmas Carols for Baritone Solo, Chorus and Orchestra.  Rehearsals will be Wednesdays 17.00-19.30 at the Historic Dockyard Chatham, starting 28 September. To take part, please email Dr Ben Curry b.curry@kent.ac.uk  (Orchestral players must be at least grade 6 standard).

Kent academics are invited to attend a conference on migration and refugee law taking place on our Canterbury campus during Refugee Week from Monday 20 June to Friday 24 June.

The Migration and Refugee Law Conference 2016  has been organised by the European Law Student Association (ELSA) Kent with support, and partial funding, from Kent Law School. ELSA Kent is a local group of ELSA, the world’s largest law student and young lawyer network which spans 43 countries and consists of 40,000 members.

The conference aims to contribute to the promotion of a more ‘human’ view of the refugee crisis and includes sessions with local charities Samphire and Migrant Help. Lecture topics to be delivered by staff from Kent Law School and Kent Law Clinic include: ‘From Asylum to Management: a historical genealogy of asylum and refugium’ (by Dr Thanos Zartaloudis); ‘Migration and Human Rights’ (by Sian Lewis-Anthony); and ‘Permanent residence: Permanent Problem?’ (by Graham Tegg).

The penultimate day of the conference (Friday 24 June) coincides with the expected announcement of the result of the Brexit referendum in the UK and there will be a discussion of the impact of the results led by a panel comprised of EU law experts Dr Tobias Kliem and Martin Hedemann-Robinson.

Conference sessions will be held in GLT2 from 10.-00 to 12.00 and from 13.00 to 15.00 daily, with a buffet lunch from 12.00 to 13.00. All are welcome – a full copy of the timetable is available to view at: https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/law-news/files/2016/06/Timetable-of-Migration-and-Refugee-Law-Conference.pdf

Once again the University is celebrating excellent teaching and learning support with the announcement of 2016 University Teaching Prizes. The winners are:

Barbara Morris Prize for Learning Support
Jacqui Double, Ben Watson, Will Wollen, Dr. Sophie Quirk, Dr. Freya Vass-Rhee and Dr. Helen Brooks (School of Arts)
Dr Vinita Joseph (School of English)
Dr Kirsty Horsey, Ben Watson, Callum Borg, Katia Neofytou and Jonjo Brady (Kent Law School Skills Hub)
Jude O’Connor, Jo Harvey, Hattie Peacocke and Dr. Paul Hubert (Kent Law School Student Advice Office)

Humanities Faculty Teaching Prize
Dr Henrik Schoenefeldt (Kent School of Architecture)
Lawrence Jackson, (School of Arts)
Dr Lavinia Brydon (School of Arts)

Sciences Faculty Teaching Prize
Dr Chris Shepherd (School of Physical Sciences)
Professor John Batchelor, Dr Richard Guest, and Dr Kostas Sirlantzis (School of Electronics and Digital Arts)

Social Sciences Faculty Teaching Prize
Dr Caroline Chatwin, Dr Marian Duggan, Professor Roger Matthews and Dr Camille Stengel (School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research)
Dr Ian Bride (School of Anthropology and Conservation)
Dr Harmonie Toros (School of Politics and International Relations)

You can find further details of the awards at: https://www.kent.ac.uk/teaching/reward/index.html.
The prizes will be presented by the Vice-Chancellor at a lunchtime ceremony on
Wednesday 5 October 2016, from 12.30-14.00 in Darwin Conference Suite.

All colleagues are welcome. Please email cpdbookings@kent.ac.uk if you wish to attend.

I am sure that we have all been shocked and deeply saddened by recent events in Orlando and that the family and friends of the victims are in our thoughts.

To show solidarity with the LGBT community there, and around the world, the rainbow Pride flag will be flying at half-mast today and tomorrow above Rutherford College and I would like to invite all staff and students to have a minute in silent reflection tomorrow, Wednesday 15 June, at 12 noon.

Our colleagues at Canterbury Christ Church University will be hosting a vigil tomorrow at 17.30 to remember the victims and to show support for those still suffering from all hate crimes. Details of the event are on the CCCU website. I will be attending with fellow colleagues and invite you to join us.

If you have been affected by these events, please do seek support from our University Counselling or Chaplaincy services.

Kasia Senyszyn,  Supporter Engagement Officer | EDI Representative | Chair, LGBT Staff Network

Professor Gordon Lynch, Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology in the Department of Religious Studies, featured in the Guardian on Monday 13 June, commenting on the Goddard inquiry which is looking into claims of child sexual abuse in the UK among young people transported to Australia and Canada between 1920 and 1970.

The Goddard inquiry was set up in 2014 to examine the abuse of children in public and private institutions and is urging those men and women transported to Australia and Canada who may have been victims of sexual and physical abuse before being removed from the country to come forward as a priority.

In the Guardian, Gordon commented: ‘It is about historic justice. These people experienced the really horrendous trauma of being removed from the UK as children without proper warning, being sent to Australia and being placed in residential establishments where they experienced physical and sexual abuse. It is an emotional burden, which is still with them today. They are visibly marked by it.’

Gordon recently curated an exhibition at the V&A Museum of Childhood about child migrants based on his research and new book entitled Remembering Child Migration (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016), which looks into the ways in which the humanitarian motivations of child migration schemes in American and Britain were implicated in the suffering that children experienced through them.

One thing Gordon hopes the Goddard inquiry can do is really nail the issues about what went wrong with the post placement supervision of children. ‘Why were organisations in the UK not concerned and not checking up on what was happening to these children and what did the organisations themselves know about what was going on?’

The full article can be found on the Guardian website.

Congratulations to Phil Ward, Deputy Director of Research Services, on recognition for his influence, via social media, across UK higher education.

Phil was presented with the prize for best Technology Innovation and Application at the annual ARMA (Association of Research Managers and Administrators) Awards in Birmingham on 7 June.

Phil has been active in social media in research management and administration for almost ten years, developing the well-regarded Research Fundermentals blog. He has posted over 700 entries on the blog and tweeted, as @frootle, over 13,000 times.

The award judges said: ‘This prolific output has raised the profile of research administration as a profession at the same time as “keeping it real” and seeing the funnier side of our jobs.

‘At the end of last year, he (Phil) was recognised by Jisc as one of the top 50 social media influencers in UK higher education as a whole. He has raised the profile of the profession and shown others how to emulate this success.’

We’re really impressed with the response to our summer membership offer we’ve had over the last week. We’d like to welcome all our new members and hope you’re enjoying the facilities here at Kent Sport. If you’re new to Kent Sport, and you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to come in and have a chat to our friendly staff.

If you’re undecided about whether to take out membership, why not come and chat to our reception staff, pick up a booklet or visit kent.ac.uk/sports/facilities to learn about what’s on offer. Or you can visit kent.ac.uk/sports/events to see all the great activities that are going on.

Summer membership is available to all at 50% of the usual price. You can sign up by visiting the Sports Centre or Pavilion reception. Visit kent.ac.uk/sports/membership for more information.

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