The Corporate Events team is looking for volunteers to help during congregations for Medway and Canterbury – can you help?

MEDWAY (Rochester Cathedral):
Wednesday 20 November (x2 ceremonies), 10.30, 14.30

CANTERBURY (Canterbury Cathedral):
Friday 22 November (x3 ceremonies), 10.30, 14.30, 19.30

This is a special day for all of our graduating students, and a great opportunity to be involved in an important University event.

We have a variety of roles available for volunteers, so whether you would like to be in the Cathedral for the ceremony, helping the graduands check-in, or managing the guest queue, there is something suitable for everyone.

Things to know:

• Volunteers working two consecutive ceremonies will be provided with lunch or dinner in between their two shifts
• Volunteers can choose any ceremony ‘shifts’ from the above list, and full training will be available for your designated role.
• In any role, there will be a member of the Congregations’ team on hand to support you
• Different roles will have different start and finish times due to the requirements of that role for the ceremony
• It’s a wonderful week and is a great opportunity to see any students that you have supported graduate.

If you would like to get involved in November 2019 Congregations, we would be delighted to have you.

To register your interest or to find out more about the roles available, please email congregations@kent.ac.uk with your preferred ceremony/ies or your query.

The Teaching Enhancement Small Support Awards (TESSAs) are small grants introduced during 2017-18, to support colleagues in enhancing teaching, learning and the student experience.

The TESSAs offer funding of between £500 and £3,000 per award, with up to £5,000 for large, high-impact, collaborative awards operating across Schools and ideally in more than one Faculty, or across Schools and PSDs. During our first two years of operation, we have awarded over £76,000 to 46 successful projects. The total funding available across both rounds in 2019-20 is expected to be up to £50,000.

Applications should be submitted by 12 noon on Tuesday 26 November 2019 for projects to start during the Spring or Summer Terms 2019-20 (with notifications of outcomes by Tuesday 10 December). There will be a second round for projects to start during the summer of 2020 or in the Autumn Term 2020-21 (for comparison and planning, the closing date last year was Tuesday 14 May 2019). Your project should not take more than one year in total.

For more information on how to apply, please visit the UELT TESSA webpage.

Click here to complete the 2019 Staff Survey

Kent’s 2019 staff survey is now live and will be open to everyone for a period of 6 weeks – until 13 November.

Inclusivity and respect are crucial characteristics of our university which should be fostered and sustained more than ever if we are to realise our Kent 2025 ambitions and be true to our values. This is particularly so during this period of organisational change and as the external environment becomes ever more volatile and challenging. Your opinions are really important to us and we want to hear your thoughts.

This survey is an excellent opportunity for you to provide confidential feedback on your perception of Kent as a place to work and help us understand some of the issues that affect your working life – what we do well and what we can do better.  We want to know how we measure up against our values and Kent 2025 ambitions during this time of organisational change.

Making significant change is never easy but the benefits to be gained through Organising for Success are real. As we progress through the different stages of the project it is important for us that you understand the changes, feel supported by your manager, have the opportunity to share your views and still believe Kent to be a good place to work.

• Be open and honest – your feedback is vital in guiding us on how to make changes to enhance your working life.
• The survey is completely anonymous.  We are not able to attribute responses to an individual.
• It is shorter than the previous survey – It should take you no longer than 10 minutes to complete.

For more information, for more information, please see our Staff Survey webpages.

If your question has not been answered here, please speak to your line manager or email: staffsurvey@kent.ac.uk

Our academic staff continue to lead the way in outstanding research and teaching, and this has been recognised in our latest promotions.

Fifty nine academic colleagues are celebrating promotion to professor, reader, senior lecturer or senior research fellow across our Faculties of Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences, with effect from 1 October 2019.

The new professors are:

Professor Vybarr Cregan-Reid, School of English; Professor Sophia Labadi, Professor Axel Stähler and Professor Ellen Swift, School of European Culture and Languages; Professor Karen Jones and Professor Jan Loop, School of History; Professor Scott Wildman, Centre for Higher and Degree Apprenticeships; Professor Dan Mulvihill, School of Biosciences; Professor Patricia Lewis and Professor Jesse O’Hanley, Kent Business School; Professor Bob Smith, School of Anthropology and Conservation; Professor Alastair Bailey, School of Economics; Professor Adrian Pabst, School of Politics and International Relations; and Professor Michelle McCarthy, School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research.

Alison Ross-Green, Director of HR and Organisational Development, said: ‘The University is dependent upon the personal growth and career attainment of its academic staff to refresh, develop and strengthen our organisation for the future. Congratulations to all those promoted in 2019. Your hard work and focus on excellence help to ensure the outstanding student experience, research achievement and funding that is so important to our success going forward.’

You can see a full list of Academic Promotions 2019 here.

Picture shows: Professor Jan Loop, School of History.

We have been making improvements to our internal communications channels.

The changes, as highlighted in the Vice-Chancellor’s August Update blog, are based on feedback you have given during, for example, focus groups for the Simplifying Kent Internal Communications Project. Your wish list included a clear source of University information, improvements across our key communication channels and a more visible senior management team.

Our internal communication channels now include:

Monthly Vice-Chancellor Update
A new all-staff email on the second Tuesday of every month, covering the strategic direction of the University, key upcoming decisions/changes, highlights from Karen’s diary etc. The first update, on 10 September, is available on the OVC webpages – watch out for the next update on Tuesday 8 October.

Kent Staff Weekly
From Wednesday 2 October, we will be mailing a weekly, rather than fortnightly, all-staff e-newsletter with a round-up of latest University news and events likely to be of interest to colleagues. If you’d like your news featured, email the editor, Wendy Raeside in Corporate Communications.

Staff Guide
Launched in January 2019 and following extensive consultation with colleagues, this new guide covers everything you need to know about working at Kent, from getting started to facilities on campus. If you wish to add new information/update existing information, email communications@kent.ac.uk

Staff News
The home of latest staff news and events based on stories sent in by colleagues to share with others across the University. Tell us your latest news via this Send Us Your Story link.

Leadership Blog
This is a new channel for senior leaders across the University to update us on key strategic projects. Corporate Communications is working with senior leaders to develop a schedule for these blogs – if you have an idea for a topic that should be included, please let Tim Davies or Wendy Raeside know (email links below).

Kent-staff emails
All-staff emails are for business critical or urgent messages only. If your message meets our essential criteria, you can email your request to the Corporate Communications team.

Social media
We are currently exploring options to provide a social media channel for staff to enable colleagues, wherever they’re based, to share their news and interests. In the meantime, you can find useful updates from teams across the University via @unikentstaff on Twitter.

We’ll keep you posted as and when other changes in our staff communications are happening. Meanwhile, we welcome ideas about how we can continue to improve how we communicate – just get in touch.

Wendy Raeside and Tim Davies
Corporate Communications

You are cordially invited to attend The TEF and Student Engagement Conference scheduled for Friday 8 November 2019 in Woolf Lecture Theatre on Canterbury campus.

The conference is open to all staff at the University. Further details and booking are available on our Teaching webpages.

The final programme and exact timings will be published as soon as possible. I do hope as many of you can attend as possible and encourage colleagues in your school/centres to sign up too. You would be able to dip in and out if you need to.

A special note of thanks to Louise Naylor and Debbie Hayward from UELT for supporting the arrangements too.

Melissa Mulhall
Assistant Director, Student Engagement and Experience

Colleagues will be aware that we reached an important milestone in the development of the new KentVision student records system at the end of June. The project has now been taken ‘in-house’, we have established a new governance structure and the development team has been relocated.

The governance structure includes the KentVision Strategic Group and the KentVision Operational Group; they comprise stakeholders and practitioners who are both close to the business and highly committed to its delivery. The team’s relocation from the Innovation Centre to Cornwallis is intended to facilitate better connection with student data system users and will improve communication.

Both the KentVision Strategic and Operational Groups will meet regularly. The Strategic Group which has been established to receive the initial system development, complete the build and plan and deliver the implementation phase of the project, is committed to keeping the University abreast of latest developments and this is a brief first update.

Much has been achieved during the first development phase and University teams are currently reviewing the system that has been delivered in order to assess the completeness of the build and determine what further work need to be progressed in order to facilitate a smooth transition from SDS.

The first development phase of the project has been lengthy, during which time the University has continued to adapt and change. Accommodating University and external changes is important, but it has added complexity to the project and the Strategic Group is considering how best to launch the system using an incremental approach.

We consider such an approach to be important as it will allow for a clear and orderly migration from SDS that is timely and does not put important University processes at risk.  In order to achieve such a migration, we will prioritise functionality for the initial launch (minimal viable product) and consider the best time during the spring and summer to introduce the new system.

The KentVision Strategic Group has met once and is planning to meet regularly from now on. We are currently overseeing the initial piece of work that will help determine the necessary components for a minimum viable product and from this we will develop an implementation plan and launch timetable.

We expect this initial assessment to complete later this month and we will issue further updates regularly via Campus Online/Kent Staff Online newsletter to ensure that University colleagues are kept informed of progress and can prepare for future changes.

Mary P. Hughes
Academic Registrar and Chair of the KentVision Steering Group