You can now apply for our European Summer School Scholarships to spend two weeks living and studying in one of Europe’s most important capital cities at our specialist postgraduate centres in Brussels or Paris.

Scholarships are open to 2nd and 3rd year undergraduate students and will cover the cost of tuition, accommodation, lunches, guided visits, local travel around Paris or Brussels and a final dinner.

This is a fantastic opportunity to discover these wonderful cities while gaining skills and intercultural awareness which will be attractive to potential employers.

The deadline for applications for a scholarship is 17.00, 2 March 2018.

Students who then study at our Paris or Brussels centres on full year MA’s after undertaking one of our summer schools will be entitled to a 10% discount on tuition fees.

Find out more about the summer schools and how to apply.

Thank you to everyone who submitted an entry for the Vice-Chancellor’s Photo Competition.

The judges (Professor Karen Cox, Posie Bogan and Dr Jonathan Friday) had a tough job choosing from over 130 entries, but have decided to award the prizes to the following people:

Athens Winner: Marina Watt, Staff

Rome Winner: Katie Van Sanden, Staff

Paris Winner: Alice Helliwell, Student

Brussels Winner: Vanessa Wyns, Student

Medway Winner: Emma Harrington, Staff

Canterbury Winners: Simon Hicks, Staff and Anamika Misra, Student

Honourable mention for Canterbury: Claire Dowling, Student

Those whose photos will also be displayed in the Vice-Chancellor’s Office but were not the winner in their category are: Claire Dowling, Student; Rowena Bicknell, Student; Carole Barron, Staff; Jim Higham, Staff; Riccardo Dembech, Student, Connor Hannagan-Morrissey, Student; Chris Barron, Staff.

The judges commented on the creatively of the winners and their interpretations of the centres, cities and what it means to be the University of Kent in these places.

Congratulations to all our winners and those selected to be displayed in the Vice-Chancellor’s Office.

All the chosen photos will be featured on Flickr shortly.

Brussels

SMFA Lecturer in Fine Art, Andy Conio, has received an Above and Beyond Award from Kent Union.

Students commended him on his passion for the subject, inspirational teaching, support and motivation. His carefully structured, engaging classes create a non judgemental atmosphere, and he also organised critical writing workshops, listened to student concerns and ensured these were reflected in a reorganised timetable, helping students to better manage workloads and planning.

The awards recognise tutors who have exceeded expectations and gone “above and beyond” to enhance the student experience.

Find out more about Andy on his staff profile.

We’re looking for a team of students to help us give you the best experience here on campus. Everything we do is guided by our Full-Time Officer team; here’s a bit more about who they are!

Union President – Heading up the Union is a big job, so we need a strong and inspiring leader to take on the challenge. The Union President leads the Vice-Presidents and guides the direction of the Union. Working with and on behalf of students, the Union President sits on some of the highest decision making bodies at the University, making your voice heard! The President isn’t alone though…

Vice-President (Activities) – The VP (Activities) is Kent Union’s leading officer for campaigning to promote, defend and develop co-curricular activities, from Student Media to Societies and Volunteering.

Vice-President (Education) – The VP (Education) is the officer who works with the University to represent your academic interests and to campaign around educational issues on campus, locally and nationally.

Vice-President (Sports) – Your VP (Sports) campaigns to make sports on campus the best it can be! Team Kent are one of our biggest assets, and the VP (Sports) helps to make that the case, by promoting, defending and developing the range of sports and physical activity available!

Vice-President (Welfare) – With a wide ranging job to do, the VP (Welfare) takes care of everything from mental health provision, to housing and finance! Want to improve the wellbeing of Kent students? This is the position for you!

Nominations close on the 12 Feburary. If you’re interested in running and want to know more, just pop an email over to elections@kent.ac.uk to find out more.

The Centre for English and World Languages (CEWL) is offering Individual Writing Tutorials to give you the opportunity to discuss your academic writing with a member of staff from CEWL. Advice will be given on the structure, coherence and cohesion of your work. Individual sessions last 20-30 minutes each and are free of charge.

Tutorials are available all year. To make an appointment, please email us.

Please note that this is not a proof-reading service.

Kent Sport’s fitness competition is back by popular demand, offering members the chance to be selected for one-to-one fitness mentoring and battle it out in a bid to be crowned Xercise Factor Champion 2018.

Applications are now open and we are looking for students, staff and members of the public who think they have the Xercise Factor and want to commit to getting fit and changing their lifestyle for the better. It is a complete overhaul of exercise and lifestyle habits and the promotion requires full commitment from the contestants to complete the challenge.

If you are successful in your application you will join other contestants for the Xercise Factor boot camp in February where a member of the fitness team will mentor you for two weeks. Only the committed will make it to the second phase and compete for the honour of becoming the Xercise Factor Champion.

Reigning Xercise Factor Champion 2017, student Hana Sofia Baakza, said

‘My six weeks flew by and I am really sad it has come to an end, and in all honesty I have never noticed such a change in my body in this six weeks than I have in my six months at the gym.  I know I will continue lifting and going to the gym even after this challenge is over. I have learnt so many new skills and feel truly proud of myself’.

Pick up your application form from the fitness suite reception at the Sports Centre or download it here. Post your form in the fitness suite ‘X’ box or email it to o.prior@kent.ac.uk by Friday 26 January and get ready for the challenge!

Visit the Xercise Factor webpage to keep up to date with the latest news and don’t miss anything!

Not yet a member of Kent Sport? See our membership details.

Colombian PhD legal scholar Diego Peña is the first to benefit from a new international exchange agreement between Kent Law School and the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá DC.

The reciprocal agreement enables up to three doctoral research students from each institution to study at the partner institution for a period of six to 12 months. It was instigated by Kent Law School Senior Lecturer Dr Luis Eslava with support from the Law School’s Co-Director of Postgraduate Research Professor Donatella Alessandrini, Director of International Programmes Lisa Dickson and Law Lecturer Dr Rose Sydney Parfitt.

Both Kent and Los Andes also share a commitment to promote academic staff mobility opportunities and the development and consolidation of research networks with a view to developing collaborative teaching, joint research projects and joint conferences and seminars.

Diego was keen to take advantage of the opportunity to engage with Kent Law School’s distinctive critical approach to socio-legal research and arrived in September to work under the supervision of Dr Eslava. His thesis is a study of the relationship between urban policy and public law in three Latin American cities: São Paulo, Santiago de Chile and Bogotá.

Diego said: ‘Kent was very attractive to me because I was trying to introduce a critical approach to my thesis. Additionally, I had read a book by Dr Eslava that was very stimulating and useful. He studies the links between local urban development and international law in developing countries that takes Bogotá as an example.’

This latest international exchange agreement is the second to be made available to PhD scholars at Kent Law School; the first agreement signed in May between Kent Law School and the University of Melbourne was also the first PhD student exchange agreement to be made available at Kent.

For the next two weeks Kent Hospitality are offering 15 £5 deals across their catering outlets to welcome in 2018.

This means that from now until Sunday 28 January you can drop into Rutherford Dining Hall for their daily carvery, grab a fajita from Origins for lunch, or pick up a 12” pizza in Hut 8 each for just £5.

This offer is open to both staff and students with Mungos, K Bar and Dolche Vita also having £5 offers in place. Plus if you are using your KentOne card to pay you can save an additional 5%.

The full list of available deals can be found at the UniKentFood blog.

All offers are valid from 15/01/18 – 28/01/18 inclusive whilst stocks last.

For any enquiries contact catering@kent.ac.uk

Missed out on the Arriva discounted bus ticket at the start of the year? You have another opportunity to purchase the discounted bus ticket which is valid until 31 December 2018.

The ticket allows travel on any Arriva bus all over Medway, Kent and East Sussex. This includes the 191 service which operates to and from Liberty Quays- Campus- Chatham- Isle of Grain, and stops on Pembroke campus and at Western Avenue and Dock Road for access to the Historic Dockyard Chatham.

The student annual ticket is £140 which works out at around 39p per day. The staff annual ticket is £280 which works out at around 78p per day. To get access to these huge discounts you will need to enter the relevant promotional code found at www.kent.ac.uk/transport/promotion . Once you have entered the code, the price will drop down from £940 to £140 or £280 accordingly.

Arriva are attending the Refresher’s Fair at the Student Hub Tuesday 17 January 2018 if you want to find out more information about tickets and timetables.

The Centre for English and World Languages will be launching Cambridge English and IELTS exam preparation courses in January 2018.

The FREE taster sessions will take place on 16 January for the Cambridge course and 17 January for the IELTS course.

For more information on our IELTS course please see our web pages, and for more information on our Cambridge English course please click here.