The School of Art’s Studio 3 Gallery has just launched a new exhibition entitled ‘Hair: Textures of Belonging’.

The exhibition was awarded an Arts Council grant for £14,000 and has been co-curated by Dr Eleen Deprez, curator of the Studio 3 Gallery, and Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin, Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Kent.

‘Hair: Textures of Belonging’ reflects on the social, political and aesthetic significance of hair. With its different textures, grooming practices, interpretations, and symbolic values, hair provides a unique and timely entry point to understanding racialised and gendered belonging among different communities. Artists have long used hair as a material in art practice. Here, they explore hair as a material with affective potential and as a signifier of identity. The impact of the exhibition will be amplified by a day of performance and workshops at the Gulbenkian Theatre on campus.

The exhibition features Marina Abramović, Zhu Tian, Sonia Boyce, Yuni Kim Lang, Jayoung Yoon, and Sonya Clark.

Studio 3 Gallery is open 10am – 5pm, Monday to Friday, and the exhibition will run until Saturday 4 April 2020.

Visit Studio 3 Gallery, for more details of all upcoming exhibitions.

For more details on Arts Council funding, please see the page here.

There is a Facebook gallery from the opening night of the exhibition.

Dr Lisa Lin, Lecturer in Media Studies, has just co-produced an exclusive report for Channel 4 News exploring the outbreak of Coronavirus in Wuhan.

The report features footage from the epicentre of the outbreak, the metropolis of Wuhan, focusing on the doctors and nurses on the frontline.

The feature is a short sample for a forthcoming documentary titled Frontline Diaries with Wuhan Medics: The Battle against Covid-19 from Ground Zero, which will be released later in the year.

Lisa produced the documentary with her production team in the UK and China.

To view the feature, please visit Channel’s 4 website.

In recognition of International Women’s Day on 8 March 2020, members of staff have been sharing who their most inspirational woman is and what makes them so special:

Jacinta Ardern (PM of New Zealand) – ‘Compassionate leadership in a male dominated world. The youngest female head of government, and only the second elected head of government to have a baby and take maternity leave while in office.’ (Laura Pheils, L&OD Advisor)

Dame Julie Andrews – ‘Her incredible talent and how she coped with having to use this to support her family as a young child; not letting her childhood put her off her dreams. I admire her grace, charity work, her love of family, her strength after losing her voice and as the only person I’ve ever seen to get a standing ovation just walking into a room. ‘ (Helen Oliver, L&OD Coordinator)

Barbara Castle – ‘for introducing the Equal Pay Act.’  (Maddy Withers, Reward Assistant)

Aphra Behn – ‘A playwright, poet and spy was a remarkable and talented woman who made her voice heard and took risks for the things she believed in. Virginia Woolf wrote of her: “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn… for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”‘ (Alison Ross Green, Director of Human Resources and Organisational Development)

‘Mary Lacy’ – ‘She was determined to succeed and did so in spades. Born and bred in Ash, Kent she ran away to sea and also became an accomplished shipwright: she was arguably the first women ever to train as shipwright (albeit disguised as a man) and was also the first woman (this time not in disguise) to gain a pension from the Admiralty. She published her fascinating, candid memoirs – The Female Shipwright – in 1773.’  (Simon Kirchin, Director of the Division of Arts, Culture and Design)

Isabel Myers Briggs – ‘No-one has to be good at everything, By developing individual strengths, guarding against known weaknesses and appreciating the strengths of others, life will be more amusing, more interesting and more of a daily adventure than it could possibly be if everyone were alike.’ (Anne-Marie Baker,  Project Manager Athena SWAN)

Mother Teresa – ‘Despite all her encounters with adversity and distress, she maintained an iconic symbol of hope, peace and compassion.’ (Jena Dady, L&OD Advisor)

Emmy Noether – ‘As a woman in a patriarchal scientific community and a Jew in a brutally anti-Semitic society, she was unquestionably an outsider. Yet she discovered mathematics of great power and reach: her theorems on symmetries underpin our understanding of physics, and her exceptionally clear teaching has formed the heart of algebra for the last century.’ (Peter Hydon, Professor of Mathematics and Director of Division)

The abolitionist Sojourner Truth – ‘Born into slavery and at one point sold with a flock of sheep. She fought for the right to have all that comes with the freedom of personhood and equality.’ (Christina Hughes,  Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education and Student Experience)

The Development Office is looking for support for Congregations in July.

Graduations are an important University occasion supporting students in a crucial part of their journey at Kent. Ceremony dates and times are available here.

Various roles are available during graduations. Full training will be available for your designated role, with a member of staff on hand to support you at all times. Staff working two or more consecutive ceremonies will be provided with lunch/hot dinner in between their two shifts as well as allocated breaks throughout the day.

Please complete the form here with your availability. Once you have committed to these hours, please block them out in your calendar as we may not contact you with your role until nearer the time.

Where possible, we will try to allocate you your preferred role. Each role has varying start and finish times so we advise that you are available for two hours before and after the ceremony time you select.

Some of the graduation shifts may involve working outside of your contracted working hours.  Please get permission from your line manager prior to agreeing to work outside of your contracted hours, as they make the decision whether to permit you time off in lieu.

Mental Health is a serious subject. Nearly two-thirds of people say that they have experienced mental ill-health and evidence suggests that poor mental health is responsible for almost 13% of all sickness absence days in the UK.

One of the biggest challenges with poor mental health is removing the stigma that surrounds it. Many don’t hesitate to seek help for physical pain or problem, yet so many of us ignore emotional and mental health issues – or we feel too embarrassed, confused or scared to talk about them.

To ensure continued support for all of our staff, L&OD have arranged the following Mental Health Awareness sessions and Resilience, Emotional Intelligence and Wellbeing training sessions.

Resilience, Emotional Intelligence and Wellbeing

27 April 10.30 – 12.30 Canterbury Campus
3 June 10.30 – 12.30 Medway Campus

Mental Health training for Line Managers

24 March 9.30 – 12:30 and 13.30 – 16.30 (2 sessions)
16 June 9.30 – 12.30 and 13.30 – 16.30 (2 sessions)

During Belong and Grow Week

Mental Health training for Line Managers

19 May 9.30 -12.30

Mental Health General Awareness

19 May 13.30 -16.30

All sessions are available for booking via staff connect

Outlines

Mental Health

• This Mental Health Awareness Training discusses mental health the way you would a headache or the flu, and it encourages you to take care of yourself and those around you.
• These courses raise awareness, they explains how to approach mental health and remove stigma; and provides simple tools, tips and ideas for day-to-day wellbeing-management (for yourself and others).

The Resilience, Emotional Intelligence and Wellbeing session aims to strengthen personal resilience and build emotional intelligence

• Have an understanding and awareness of resilience and emotional intelligence
  Recognise and respond appropriately to workplace demands and pressures
• Explore ideas to overcome negative thinking and maintain a positive mind-set
  Build an individual positive projection of resilience and wellbeing in the workplace

The University is committed to protecting the privacy rights of those whose data it processes.

Whether we are processing the personal data of our students, staff, research participants or anyone else who has entrusted us with their personal data, we do so responsibly and in compliance with the law.

If we fail to meet those obligations, we lose the trust of those whose data we process. We also risk reputational damage, enforcement action and potential financial penalty.

To support staff in maintaining high standards around data protection, the Information Compliance Office has launched three new policies:

1.  Data Protection Policy 
2.  Data Breach Policy 
3.  Data Rights Policy 

They can also be viewed here under the Legal Requirements and Governance section .

By following these policies and completing their mandatory training, staff will be better able to ensure the University complies with its legal obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation, the Data Protection Act 2018 and other associated legislation.

We would like to invite you to a buffet lunch as part of Kent’s International Visiting Academics Network (IVAN).

When:

Wednesday 11 March from 12.30 – 13.30

Where:

Gulbenkian Café

The network has been established to give you the opportunity to build on your existing connections at and beyond the University.

To book your place, visit the Eventbrite website.

Please email internationalevents@kent.ac.uk if you have any specific dietary requirements.

We look forward to seeing you there!

International Partnerships

We would like to make you aware of a vacancy that we are currently advertising on the University website within the Financial Reporting team.

This is an exciting role that will provide training as part of an Apprenticeship programme in accordance with the Professional Accounting Technician Standard. The successful applicant will work toward obtaining their full AAT qualification at the end of the Apprenticeship with the support of a mentor in the team.

The role is a full time post at Grade 4 on the apprenticeship scale.

Further details about the job can be found on the career webpages

Is your work digitally inclusive? Every one of us produces digital content in some form and now is the time to make sure it is accessible to everyone.

All our digital content should ‘perceivable, operable, understandable and robust’ in accordance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA accessibility standard.

Why is this important?

Not only is this a great way to make Kent a more accessible place to work and study, but there is a legal deadline too. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations (2018) requires the University to make sure digital content is accessible to everyone by September 2020. So now is the time to start taking action!

What we are doing already:

• Site Editor – the new web template, is designed to be highly accessible. Digital guidelines are being shared with schools and departments to help prepare content for these webpages.

• A plugin in Moodle called Blackboard Ally is used by the majority of academic schools and professional service departments to make content more accessible. If you would like access to, Blackboard please contact opera@kent.ac.uk.

• Accessibility statements for the kent.ac.uk domain as well as Moodle.

Ensuring that all our work compliments the Kent Inclusive Practices (KIPs) that the University has already endorsed.

What you can do:

• Keep your digital content simple and efficient

• Make sure text is accessible to other applications

• Structure text with style sheets/semantic tags

• Ensure text can be personalised and reflows when magnified

• Always add short image descriptions, or alt-tags

• Use descriptive words in links

Check your content with the inbuilt Accessibility Checker in Microsoft Office 365

Find out more…

For more information, see the University’s digital guidelines. You can also find out more about how the University is rolling out the regulations on the digital accessibility e-learning package in Moodle.

Make a date in your diary for Thursday 11 and Friday 12 June 2020 for the Kent Digital Conference on Canterbury campus. For more event details and to book your free place, visit the Eventbrite website.

We want to make sure everyone is ready by September 2020 so look out for further content over the next few months! Any questions, please contact opera@kent.ac.uk 

The Accessibility Team (OPERA)