Help! We need your old black and brown shoes for a starring role in The Edelweiss Pirates (11 & 12 Feb) at Gulbenkian.

We can’t return your shoes so suggest only tired, unwanted shoes need apply. If you have any that fit the bill, please drop them in to our Ticket & Information Desk any time in the next couple of weeks.

Oh, and please come and see the performance. It is part of National Theatre Connections project and we have a brilliant group of young people who will create and perform the play, written by AYUB KHAN DIN (East is East). http://tinyurl.com/meeb324

Thank you!

If you’ve been thinking of learning a language, why not start the New Year with a Language Express course at Kent?

Our 10-week courses in French, Japanese, Mandarin or Spanish start on 28 January 2015.

Courses are open to students, staff and members of the public. For more information on classes, times and fees, please visit the Language Express webpages.

Email: languageexpress@kent.ac.uk

Forensic science students will observe fire investigation forensics in action during a visit from Surrey Fire and Rescue Service’s (SFRS) Fire Investigation Search Dogs on Wednesday 17 December.

The visit will demonstrate the skills these dogs have in detecting flammable residues. This information can often provide sufficient evidence to convict arsonists by tracing residues found within a fire scene, on a suspect’s clothing, or by finding hidden evidence which may have been discarded at the crime scene.

The visit will involve two dog handlers from SFRS undertaking a special task to showcase the dogs’ forensic capabilities. Students will be set the same task and the time taken by each group will be recorded and then compared.

Led by the University’s School of Physical Sciences, the visit coincides with collaborative research work between SFRS and Kent’s forensic science department. This research involves using the University’s equipment and expertise to test whether forms of counterfeit tobacco could pose a problem or mislead fire investigations with hotter burn temperatures or longer burn times.

The event takes place on Senate Lawn (in front of Templeman Library) at 1-2pm. Other spectators are welcome.

Image by West Midlands Police. Credit: CC BY

Teams are assembling for the inaugural Canterbury Legal Walk, a 10km sponsored walk around Canterbury to raise money for the Kent Law Campaign.

The Canterbury Legal Walk offers a unique opportunity to explore both the city and Kent’s beautiful hill-top campus in the company of leading members of the legal profession on Saturday 13 June 2015.

Led by the UK’s Justice of The Supreme Court, The Right Hon the Lord Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony, teams of students, staff, solicitors, Barristers and legal practitioners have already begun registering for the walk.

Walking with Lord Clarke, who is also patron of the Kent Law Campaign, will be Professor John Fitzpatrick, Director of Kent Law Clinic, Professor Richard de Friend, Chair of the Kent Law Campaign Board and Richard Honey, Barrister at Francis Taylor Building.

The walk is open to all and friends and families of students, staff and legal professionals are welcome to register either as individuals or teams. The walk will end with a celebration party on Senate Lawn overlooking Canterbury Cathedral.

Registration is free but participants are asked to pledge to raise as much money as possible for the Kent Law Campaign, a £5million fundraising project to build a new home for the Kent Law Clinic and for Kent Law School’s Mooting Programme.

The University of Kent will match each pound raised with another so if you raise £50 and it is eligible for Gift Aid, your gift will become £125.

You told us that you would like more Kent Union volunteering projects. As a result, Tom Abbott, Kent Union’s Volunteer Projects Coordinator, created some ‘Give it a Go’ volunteering sessions for students.

These included a shoebox appeal and knitting for charity.

Over 40 volunteers helped out over two days with our Shoebox Appeal by donating presents, wrapping shoeboxes and knitting scarves. Thanks to the volunteers we were able to send 49 boxes to Smile International for disadvantaged children around the globe.

We have continued to knit scarves for charity in the Media Centre every other week.

Keep an eye out for these and other projects on the Kent Union Volunteering page.

Dr Lubomira Radoilska (Philosophy) and Dr Kelli Rudolph (Classics) are organising a conference entitled ‘The Fact/Value Distinction: Contemporary and Classical Perspectives’ with generous support from the Mind Association, Aristotelian Society, Analysis Trust, Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, Kent Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (KIASH), and Kent’s Centre for Reasoning.

The facts-value distinction animates significant debates about the nature and scope of inquiry in contemporary analytic philosophy and in the social, natural, and medical sciences. In addition, it clarifies the ultimate ambitions of a theory by asking whether it is an explanatory or a normative project.

This conference addresses the extent to which explanatory and normative objectives should be conceived as mutually exclusive, as the initial question implies or, alternatively, as intimately and helpfully intertwined.

Classical approaches to the scope and nature of inquiry conceive of the relationship between facts and values in a related but distinctive way, thus providing a fresh perspective on contemporary debates.

By employing complementary systematic and historical approaches to this central issue, the conference will offer a new framework for constructive dialogue and exploration of the fact-value distinction across disciplines.

Read more.

Email: secl@kent.ac.uk

In our 50th anniversary year, we aim to celebrate the achievements of our students and inspire them to excel both personally and academically. The Student Projects Grant Scheme provides the stepping stone to achieve this goal.

The Grant Scheme is funded by the Kent Opportunity Fund, which supports students by providing scholarships and bursaries to those experiencing financial hardship, and projects to enhance personal and professional skills. The Grant Scheme encourages individuals to bid for funds to run projects that will enhance the student experience and employability of Kent students.

The total amount available to fund student projects in the 2014/15 academic year is £65,000, with grants of up to a maximum of £5,000. Applications are welcome from student groups in Kent Union, departments, faculties and schools across the University, including our campuses at Canterbury and Medway, our centre in Tonbridge and our European centres in Brussels, Paris, Athens and Rome.

The Student Projects Grant Scheme will be open for applications on 6 October 2014, and all submissions must be made by the deadline of 19 December 2014. To find out more, see the Kent Opportunity Fund webpages.

More than 60 people gathered at Woolf College at the University of Kent last weekend for the Kent Connects Transformed by you Innovation Day to find the final winner of this year’s challenge.

There was a strong field of competition and very innovative ideas so the judges had a tough decision to make.

The winning idea is an app called MyCycle and the winning team had three Computer Science students, Max Harris, Matthew Boakes and Jamie Pont, assisting with the development.

The MyCycle app aims to connect less confident cyclists with experienced riders in their community and pair up novice cyclists looking to set out on bike rides around Canterbury and Kent with similarly intrepid locals.

Whether for fun or as a means to speed up commuting and running errands in town, everyone would be able to use MyCycle-Kent to build up their expertise and confidence with the help of a more proficient rider, enjoying a safer and more relaxing time.

People will use the app to discover local cycling buddies, find the safest routes to their destination and track their progress over time in comparison with other new cyclists.

Plans for future development include a school-cycle section to organise ‘cycle to school’ groups, which are safety checked and responsibly co-ordinated.

The MyCycle team came together on the day, and worked brilliantly together to develop and present their final idea.

Team members are local resident Frederica Lowndes, Simon Langton Grammar School student Sam Gooch and his mum Sarah who came along with the idea for developing a cycling app and Pedro Romano. They were supported by University of Kent students Max Harris, Matthew Boakes and Jamie Pont who started work to develop the app.

The MyCycle team has won a package of support, worth £20,000, to help make the product idea reality. Support is provided by organisers Kent Connects and sponsors Cisco, Barclays Bank, Kent IT Consultancy, Canterbury Christ Church University and the University of Kent Makerspace (The Shed). The team will benefit from development, business and marketing advice over the coming year.

The day was hosted by the University of Kent who sponsored the challenge as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations and it day included a visit to The Shed, a MakerSpace which is part of the School of Computing. The space is equipped with a wide variety of machines (eg 3D printers and laser cutters) and development equipment (eg the Oculus Rift and Raspberry Pi to support new kinds of innovative teaching and learning by taking advantage of the increasing accessibility of electronics and engineering with a rapid prototyping capability. It was great to see 3D printing and digital laser cutting in action.