Stephanie Astro, from Physical Sciences, is taking to the skies for a good cause.

Stephanie, Employability Officer & Employer Engagement Officer, is taking part in a sponsored sky dive, in aid of the National Autistic Society.

She says: ‘Autism is a condition that affects many people, but is still not really understood. In a university setting, it can make the everyday challenges of study much harder. So, it’s really important that we raise awareness of the difficulties some face because of autism.’

She adds: ‘I myself was diagnosed with autism two years ago so the work of the National Autistic Society is very close to my heart. I’m terrified of heights so this will be very scary for me but for autistic people everyday things like answering the telephone can be scary.  I think it’s really important to share this message and, if I can raise some money as well, so much the better!’

Stephanie’s sky dive will take place in Swindon on 19 March – just before Autism Awareness Week. She is hoping to raise at least £400 for the National Autistic Society. You can support her fundraising via her doitforcharity.com charity page.

To find out more about the National Autistic Society, see its webpages.

Advice on helping students with autism can be found on our Student Support webpages.

Information on the University of Kent’s Staff Disability Network is available on the HR Equality and Diversity webpages

Opportunities for training in Autism at the University can be found on the Tizard Centre webpages.

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The University’s Annual Review/Financial Statements 2016 is now available online, within our Finance webpages.

A limited number of hard copies is also available – email Corporate Communications if you would like one: communications@kent.ac.uk

A summary of the University’s finances showing where our income comes from and how we spend it, together with a link to the Annual Review – can also be found on our Student Experience webpages.

Are you considering postgraduate study either for career progression or personal interest?  If so, come to Kent’s postgraduate Open Event on Tuesday 7 March,  from 17.00-19.00, in Darwin to find out more.

We will have the latest information about the £10,280 loans for Master’s and you may also be eligible for a staff discount on your fees.

Most of Kent’s programmes are available part-time and there are also some taught online and at weekends, all Kent’s UK and EU locations will be represented.

Find out more on our Open Day webpages.

In response to recent statistics that guests on Radio 4’s long-running Desert Island Discs who choose Classical Music are now in the minority, SMFA Lecturer Dr Ben Curry was interviewed by Radio Kent’s Julia George on his reaction.

A fascinating discussion followed, which touched on ways of listening, memory and identity in relation to how we choose and perceive music.

You can hear the interview on Radio Kent’s Best of the Week (29 January 2017) – Ben’s contribution is at 1:15.

You may have already seen the University’s new mobile catering unit situated on the Jarman Plaza.

The Street Kitchen is street food at its best – serving fresh, home-made dishes quickly and at great prices. With dishes costing £4, the menu changes every week to keep things interesting and to offer something that everyone will love. We accept the KentOne card as well as cash and debit/credit cards. Students with a catering package can use their credits too.

The Street Kitchen is open from 10.00, check out our blackboards to find out what’s on this week. We’re open to ideas, so if you’d like to see us serving a favourite dish or national cuisine, come and let the catering team know at catering@kent.ac.uk

Kent colleagues and doctoral students are invited to submit a paper, panel or roundtable proposal for the Second Annual Tartu Conference on Russian and East European Studies, taking place in Tartu, Estonia, from 4 – 6 June 2017.

The deadline for proposals is 20 February, 2017. The Programme Committee welcomes proposals addressing the conference theme (the Russian revolution and its legacies) as well as any other issues relevant to the development of Russia, the rest of the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe from any disciplinary angle. Paper, panel or roundtable proposals can be submitted here.

The Tartu Conference is a convention-type event that is organised each year around a particular theme, while also serving as a venue for a broad academic discussion of the fundamental cultural, social, economic and political trends affecting all aspects of people’s life in Russia and Eastern Europe. It is organised jointly by the Centre for EU-Russia Studies at the University of Tartu, the Global Europe Centre at the University of Kent, and the Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University. The conference will be supported by the European Commission under a Horizon 2020 Twinning project entitled “Building Research Excellence in Russian and East European Studies at the Universities of Tartu, Uppsala and Kent” (UPTAKE).

Please share this information with PhD students within your School.
We look forward to seeing you in Tartu in June!

The Programme Committee:
Viacheslav Morozov, University of Tartu
Stefan Hedlund, Uppsala University
Elena Korosteleva, University of Kent

A thanksgiving service will take place for Sir John Swire in Canterbury Cathedral, on Monday 20 February from 12 noon.

Sir John was Deputy Pro-Chancellor at Kent from 1993-2000 and a generous supporter of the scholarships fund and the Hong Kong Scholarship.  He is also an honorary graduate of the University.

Staff are warmly invited to join the Thanksgiving Service. If you are planning to attend, please register by emailing: johnswirethanksgiving@jssldn.co.uk

From 31 January, the links in the top right of our web pages (mainly ‘Quick links’ and ‘Information for me’ menus) will no longer be there. They’re being removed and replaced with a Kent bar containing links to Students, Staff, Alumni and Departments.

The new Kent bar will be at the top of all standard University web pages.

Documentaries by Dr David Redmon, emerging from a two-year Leverhulme Trust research grant award to his project titled ‘Donkey’, have been chosen to premiere at film festivals this year.

Do Donkeys Act?, narrated by Willem Dafoe, will premiere at CPH: DOX in Copenhagen in March 2017, whereas Sanctuary will premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) this month.

The IFFR is one of the largest audience and industry-driven film festivals in the world. It offers a high quality line-up of carefully selected feature films. The film Sanctuary evokes a safe haven for abandoned and abused donkeys. The camera seeks to establish direct contact with the animals in an interplay of trust, curiosity, and vulnerability.

Do Donkeys Act?, which explores inter-species relationships in our surrounding wider ecology, has been selected to premiere in competition for the DOX: AWARD (one of only 16 films) at The Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX), the third biggest documentary film festival in the world. Each year, the festival fills Copenhagen’s cinemas with a selection of more than 200 films from around the world.

Dr Redmon is a Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. His research interests include ethnographically recording experiential encounters and rendering expressivity with audiovisual and written mediums.

As the UK’s European university, we are proud to be celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Erasmus Programme in 2017 – a milestone for Europe!

Widely recognised as the most successful EU programme, Erasmus+ provides us with a concrete example of the positive impact of European integration and international outreach, having enriched the lives of nearly two million people from Europe and beyond between 2014 and 2016 alone! The University has been part of the European Commission’s Erasmus programme since its inception in 1987; an engagement that has facilitated the University’s collaboration with a large number of prestigious Higher Education Institutions in mainland Europe.

Erasmus+ has opportunities for people of all ages and background, helping them develop and share knowledge and experience at institutions and organisations in different countries. Erasmus+ experiences help people enhance their skills and intercultural awareness and it enables them to become engaged citizens.This platform for European and international mobility and cooperation brings people from different backgrounds together. It provides them with the competences needed to lead independent, fulfilling lives and helps them find their place in our societies and develop a sense of a European identity – an identity that complements our national, regional, local identities.

Key to the University’s Internationalisation Strategy is the objective to champion and extend the University’s unique position as the UK’s European university. As we mark the start of the 2017 celebrations of this anniversary, we look forward to many more years of strong bilateral links with institutions across Europe, established through student and staff mobility agreements, continued opportunities for inter-institutional cooperation and exchange of best practice, capacity building and joint initiatives covering both research and teaching.

Happy 30th anniversary Erasmus+!