Castles are Elsewhere is an exhibition that commemorates the life of Roger Cardinal (1940-2019), whose fascination with the extraordinary led him on a wondrous odyssey upon which he encountered creativity in the most unexpected places.

Roger is probably best known for his seminal book titled Outsider Art, published in 1972 – the first of its kind in the UK which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary. It was followed a few years later in 1979, with the ground-breaking Outsiders exhibition at The Hayward Gallery.

Through the treasures in his private art collection, his books, his letters, and a selection of his fascinating diaries, this exhibition will give an insight into Roger’s life, and we hope fitting
memoriam to a man who encouraged us all to look at art and life differently, to see that ‘castles
are elsewhere’.

The exhibition which was curated Jennifer Gilbert & Vivienne Roberts, will be accompanied by a publication where luminaires of the Outsider Art world have been invited.

When:

Wednesday 23 November. 17.30 – 19.30
Opening hours: Wednesday – Sunday (27 November), 10.00 – 17.00
This venue is wheelchair accessible and it’s FREE admission.

Where:

Foyle Rooms, Turner Contemporary, Rendezvous, Margate, CT9 1HG

“Who are the Outsiders? They possess no qualifications as artists. They seem to work on their own, for themselves, for the fun of it. They know nothing of the trends and snobberies of the cultural centre. All prefer the rule of the imagination to the strictures of officialdom. Instinctive and independent, the appear to tackle the business of making art as if it had never existed before they came along. What they make has a primal freshness: it is the product of an authentic impulse to create and is free of conscious artifice.” – Roger Cardinal, 1979

Eastern Arc will be hosting a one day workshop on 10 January 2023 for those working on practice research. It will be led by practitioners from the three EARC universities (UEA, Essex and Kent), and will be a chance to explore the issues and opportunities facing all those whose work involves a significant practice element.

The event is free and open to all. However, it is primarily intended for colleagues at the Eastern Arc universities. Those at other universities, research institutes and organisations are welcome to apply and, if there is capacity, their place will be confirmed by 17 December at the latest.

The draft programme is available on the Eastern Arc webpage. The location will be a short walk from Chelmsford mainline station, the midpoint of the EARC Consortium, and the venue will be confirmed shortly.

To take part, please complete this short form. If you have any queries, email Phil Ward, Director of EARC.

2022 has seen the Centre for Child Protection (CCP) celebrate its 10^th anniversary. To end the celebrations, the CCP introduced an award for child protection professionals engaged in outstanding creative, effective, and collaborative practices across disciplines, with an awards ceremony held on Wednesday 9 November.

Strong collaboration and cooperation is is essential in child safeguarding work to keep children safe. Multidisciplinary collaboration is routinely raised as a concern and is highlighted as a key area for further development and learning. CCP regularly hears good examples of strong practices that should be recognised and celebrated alongside the promotion of learning to promote effective working.

Winner – Vulnerable Adolescent Panel (Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board)

Congratulations to our winners of the Centre for Child Protection Collaboration Award 2022!

The Vulnerable Adolescent Panel was created due to the growing problem of extrafamilial harm, which presents a risk to young people in our communities and creates challenges for professionals. The panel consists of health, police, children’s social care and the youth offending service who have worked together to achieve a shared sense of ownership and responsibility for success.

The panel provides a forum for timely and robust expert guidance, advice to professionals and information sharing between agencies who are working with young people at risk of extrafamilial harm. The time and dedication required to create this show a systemwide commitment to tackling child exploitation.

Highly Commended – Ynys Môn Local Authority

The young carers services deliver specialist support to children and young people ages between 5-18 living in Ynys Môn who have caring responsibilities at home. Ynys Môn local authority prides itself on collaborative working, resulting in greater communication between services, effective information sharing and efficient early intervention. They are also dedicated to offering their services in Welsh and English so they can successfully communicate with all children and young people.

Highly Commended – Joint Agency Group Supervision (JAGS) (Norfolk Safeguarding Children Partnership)

JAGS was initiated in response to learning which identified a need for ringfenced time to reflect on challenges and barriers to intervention in complex cases. JAGS provides a reflective space for joint analysis to learn together and understand the family’s lived experiences. JAGS works across children’s social care, health, education, and police and has supported collaborators to move from feeling ‘helpless’ and ‘frustrated’, to feeling ‘confident’ and ‘enthusiastic’. This has led to strong multi-agency working, understanding of different roles, improved communication, and advocacy for children.

Yesterday the University & College Union announced national strike action at 150 universities across the country. This will take the form of strikes on the 24, 25 and 30 November, along with ‘Action Short of a Strike’ until further notice. At this stage this does not include a marking and assessment boycott. 

The strikes are part of a national dispute over pay, pensions and working conditions across the university sector. As an individual institution, we don’t have a major influence over the negotiations which take place at national level between UCU and both Universities UK and UCEA. Our hope is that through discussion all parties can come to an agreement that works for everyone – all of us want to work in a sector where staff are well rewarded for their hard work, but the same cost of living squeeze felt by people across the country also has an impact on the finances of universities too. 

Our priority initially will also be ensuring we minimise any impact on students as far as we can. We will shortly be sending an update to students which will set out our principles in responding to industrial action, including that we will do all we can to limit the impact on their studies and that we will never devalue their degree or coursework.  

Alongside this we will shortly publish student and staff information which will be regularly updated throughout. This will include the background to the strikes, what we have been doing at Kent to address the issues being discussed, what happens on strike days, plus links to wider support. These will be regularly updated throughout.  

Working groups are also meeting this week to manage our response to strikes across the University, while there will be a number of opportunities for students to have their say, including via the Strike Forums organised by Kent Union. 

It’s International Stress Awareness Week this week. The theme for this year is ‘Working Together to Build Resilience and Reduce Stress.’

Stress is not new. The stress hormone cortisol has even been found in the hair of ancient Peruvians who were alive between 550-1532 CE/AD. Defined as a state of mental or emotional strain caused by adverse circumstances, stress is a physical and emotional reaction experienced by all of us, with symptoms such as headaches, a pounding heart, sweating, and more. Experiencing long-term stress can lead to the development of health problems such as high blood pressure and mental health problems, as well as a physiological and psychological condition known as ‘burn-out’.

People can experience stress due to many circumstances in their lives. With the current cost of living crisis, many people are struggling with the basic demands of living. Work can also cause stress, with studies suggesting that costs to businesses from poor employee mental health have increased by 25% since the pandemic.

At Kent, we have measures in place to help you. For example, our Employee Assistance Programme can be accessed 24 hours a day and you can reach out to them if you are struggling, feeling overwhelmed or just at your wit’s end! Details on how to contact them and other support available can be found on the University’s Mental Health Support webpages. There’s also the Staff Wellbeing Reading List, a useful Staff Wellbeing Toolkit, and the opportunity to use the Roberston-Cooper i-resilience tool.

Using the available resources and having a toolkit of tips such as working out how to look after your wellbeing, building a support network and finding out how to organise your time effectively can help you manage stress and build your resilience. Although it’s impossible to make all the stress in your life disappear, the help available could make it easier to get through stressful situations.

Building an inclusive postgraduate community is an important priority for the University and one of our specific goals is to reduce the gap between proportions of white and black students undertaking PhDs.

To support this work, the Graduate and Researcher College is hosting two online workshops for staff led by Leading Routes on increasing the representation of black students in doctoral training and creating more inclusive research cultures. Leading Routes are leading contributors to this work and their report, The Broken Pipeline, is playing a key role in shaping national policy debates.

Workshops

Both workshops are open to all Academic, Research and Professional Services staff.

The first workshop, ‘The Pipline: Challenging Meritocracy and Acknowledging Structural Barriers for Black Students’ will run on Monday 14 November.

Book your place by visiting this webpage.

The second workshop, ‘Changing Cultures: Practical Steps Towards Long-Term Change’, will run on Wednesday 16 November .

Book your place by visiting this webpage.

Professor Shane Weller, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation has welcomed this initiative saying,  “I am delighted that the University of Kent is working with Leading Routes to support the next generation of Black academics. This initiative lies at the heart of our commitment to creating a more diverse and inclusive research culture both at Kent and across the UK.”

The workshops come alongside the announcement of a new set of University scholarships for BAME and ‘First in Family’ Kent graduates who wish to study for a taught postgraduate programme here – each worth £5,000. Further details on these will be available on the University’s scholarships pages soon.

Since my last update our political landscape has shifted once again with yet another Secretary of State for Education in Gillian Keegan – our fifth in just over a year. She is joined by another new lead, with Grant Shapps now heading up Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Like many we hope for a bit more stability in both areas, and look forward to seeing what this means for universities and the Levelling Up agenda in particular. 

Student numbers and Academic Freedom 

At our more local level, Senate met this week where, along with regular updates from the key Boards and Committees that run across the University, there were focussed discussions on the NSS, Teaching Excellence Framework and Admissions. We also had updates on new entrants and continuation, which is looking challenging for the University as it seems that this year we have more students not progressing between years.  

Colleagues are actively following up with students to reduce this gap by ensuring everyone registers that can,  but it is looking like there will be consequences for budgets. We will look to manage this through contingency, holding back on capital and non-essential spend, re-prioritising any strategic investment and controls around staff recruitment. We will keep colleagues updated. 

Elsewhere, Senate considered an important paper on an updated policy on Academic Freedom, which is the result of diligent work from across our community and goes right to the heart of our purpose as a University – more updates on this will follow. 

Executive Group priorities 

At Executive Group, we are receiving regular updates on the external and internal work to resolve the performance issues with KentVision that were observed during the Boards of Examiners meetings in June and again at Clearing in August. Our own review has identified what seems to be the root cause of these issues and fixes have been applied. Georgina Randsley de Moura is also sponsoring a Timetabling Task Team to review and improve our approach to timetabling after recent issues for both students and staff – this will be supported by colleagues across central and divisional teams and will draw on a number of other related projects. 

At national level, many will have seen that the University and College Union has a renewed mandate for industrial action across all universities over pay, pensions and working conditions. We are not the only sector faced with these issues, with cost of living pressures felt across the country. While we await the outcome of UCU discussions this week for confirmation of plans, we will do all we can to support national negotiations in the interest of a settlement that works for all. We are also drawing up plans to mitigate the impact of any action on students as far as we can if it comes to it. 

Update on Arts and Humanities 

I also wanted to update you further on the work to review our Arts and Humanities offer. I don’t underestimate how worrying a time it is for colleagues whenever there is talk of reviews or changes. This is why I’m really pleased that by working together on a redundancy avoidance agreement, we’ve been able to make a commitment in this case that there will be no compulsory redundancies for colleagues affected by the current review in Arts and Humanities. This is an approach we want to embed whenever we consider major changes in the future, ensuring people can know there is a job for them here if they want to stay.  

Staff Recognition Awards 

While it is a difficult environment for the sector, the way our community comes together to welcome students each new academic year is always special. Next week sees our annual Staff Recognition Awards where we will hear inspirational stories from across the University.

Kent Sport’s Vice-Chancellor’s Cup also gets underway shortly for a bit of fun and healthy competition across teams, while our staff webchat series returns later this month with a session on the Cost of Living. Do try to catch up on these activities outside of day-to-day work where you can, and thank you to all you for everything you do for our students, staff and the wider community. 

Building on this year’s Staff Conference in September, our staff webchat programme returns this month with regular sessions planned throughout the year. This is a chance for everyone to come together and hear updates on key areas of activity across the University, while also giving you the change to ask questions and have your say on our wider plans

This year’s first session is on Thursday 17 November at 12.30 – 13.30, which will be focused on the Cost of Living. Senior representatives from HR, Estates & Commercial Services and Finance will talk through work going on to support students and staff with rising costs, plus what this means for us as a University more widely.

Save the date for this session and watch out for the sign up form next week.

Future sessions will follow in December on our new brand, with a full programme to follow throughout 2023.

If you’ve got an idea for a Community Catch Up theme then get in drop us an email at communcations@kent.ac.uk

Catch up on our Staff Conference

If you missed any of our Staff Conference back in September you can catch up on recordings from the main sessions by visiting our Staff Conference pages.

You can also watch recordings from the breakout sessions, including Outreach and widening participation and Making content and learning accessible via this link.

Come join us for a special lunchtime concert on Weds 9 November at 13.10 at the Colyer-Fergusson Hall.

Before they head down to the Marlowe to perform as part of the Glyndebourne Touring Opera production that evening, players from the Touring Orchestra Pit Perfect scheme will present a Lunchtime Concert featuring music by Puccini, Torelli and Schubert.

After the performance, members of the touring orchestra will lead a workshop with students in the University String Sinfonia, which people are also welcome to watch.

For more details please visit the website.

Admission is free, with a suggested donation of £3. The Music Department’s Lunchtime Concert series is generously sponsored by Furley Page Solicitors.

The Office for Students (OfS) is currently consulting on the future of Access and Participation Plans (APPs), which outline the commitments a HE provider is making to support the equality of opportunity for students to access, succeed in and progress from university. 

At Kent we have long recognised the transformational power of an outstanding university experience, and the value that a diverse student body brings to our institution. We also recognise that there are large groups of students who are currently underrepresented within Higher Education (both within Kent, and nationally), due to educational inequalities and structural barriers. It is imperative that we build upon our existing success in widening participation, and continue to provide a higher education experience that is inclusive, supportive and allows students to excel throughout their student journey and beyond. 

Whilst this work is led by the Outreach & Widening Participation team, Student Success and Careers and Employability, it is an institutional-wide commitment with collaboration across all academic divisions and numerous professional service departments. In terms of supporting access, by working in partnership with local schools and colleges, local authorities and other HE providers in Kent and Medway, we are able to support students in a sustained and progressive way to better understand their future options and to make informed choices.  

Our work in this area is wide ranging, innovative and robustly evaluated to ensure we are making demonstrable impact. We regularly contribute to national evaluation evidence, such as a recent research project with TASO (Transforming Outcomes and Student Success) where we welcomed over 130 young people to stay on our campus for the Year 10 and Year 12 Summer Schools. The Outreach work delivered is designed to support the attainment and HE aspirations of learners, ranging from the sponsorship of the University of Kent Academies Trust (UKAT), delivering academic mentoring programmes in local schools, our work with the Care Leaver Progression Partnership, collaborating on the Generation Genome project, innovative divisional outreach activities such as Crime Scene Investigation with LSSJ, to supporting CPD for teachers and advisors.  

Student Ambassadors are vital to all that we do, not only in terms of delivery and to act as inspirational role models to learners who have experienced similar educational journeys, but also in the co-creation of projects, such as the LGBTQ+ mentoring and university insights programme designed for delivered in schools in the local area.  

Anton, a current Student Ambassador who is working on a placement year at UKAT, came to the University from a local partner school. ‘In Sixth Form, my realisation that university was an option for me was in large part a direct result of the fantastic work delivered by Kent at my partner school. The ambassadors inspired me to meet my full potential and equipped me with the tools and information to make it happen. When I joined Kent, I knew instantly that I wanted to get involved in this work and give future generations the same support and opportunities that I was lucky enough to receive’. 

The OfS will be publishing guidance for a new 4-year plan in February 2023, with the commitments to commence in 24/25, and we will be consulting widely with staff and students in due course.  

If you would like further information, please do not hesitate to get in touch.