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. 

This year the University Kent is applying for University of Sanctuary status. As part of the City of Sanctuary movement, the Universities of Sanctuary network aims to ‘make Higher Education institutions places of safety, solidarity and empowerment for people seeking sanctuary’.

To help ensure that the University’s application process is properly reflective and self-critical, the Migration and Movement Signature Research Theme is holding a series of seminars throughout the year that address the question ‘What is Sanctuary?’

Speakers from a range of disciplines, career stages and backgrounds will discuss what sanctuary means and entails. Contributions will be a mix of academic talks and reflections on lived experience.

All sessions are online. Everybody is invited to join the conversation.

 Seminars timetable 

What Is Sanctuary 1 – on 9 November – 16.00-17.00

Sheona York, Reader in Law and Clinic Solicitor (Kent Law School)

This paper will present a history of recent sanctuary movements in the US and the UK. It will show that where true sanctuary is offered it is frequently as protection against the State itself and the State’s unjust laws. The paper will conclude by considering what it can mean for a university to offer sanctuary and how the University of Kent can support people whose status in the UK is rendered precarious by current immigration laws.

Dr Julia Hope, Lecturer in Higher Education and Academic Practice (Centre for the Study of Higher Education)

Building on research funded by the Migration and Movement Signature Research Theme, this paper focuses on Syrian academics exiled in Turkey. It considers the form of professional development support that can be offered to communities of displaced academics and the connections and intercultural exchange that arise from such opportunities. The paper thus considers what sanctuary means when working remotely with people who have experienced displacement.

Thomas Tegento, Student on the MA in Physical Theatre (Department of Drama and Theatre)

Thomas has been a student at the University of Kent for 4 years and has recently completed an MA in Physical Theatre. He is a refugee and came to Kent from a care service background. He published his first book, The Seventh Neck, in 2020 and is now doing dance and movement related creative practices with community theatre companies. He is interested in what total arts, physical and movement practices can offer in building the wellbeing of communities. He will speak about the meaning of sanctuary from the perspective of his lived experience.

Click this link to join the zoom meeting

What is Sanctuary 2 on 7 December – 16.00-17.00

Dr Lucy Williams, Senior Visiting Research Fellow (School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research)

This paper will consider sanctuary in a time of ‘crisis’. East Kent, and especially Dover and Manston, are yet again in the eye of the migration storm. In this fevered atmosphere what is the role of ‘sanctuary’? Policy makers rely on closely prescribed (yet flexible) categories to sift the worthy from the unworthy but in forcing people to prove their lives fit into these categories, experience is simplified, and the person is lost. Can encouraging sanctuary in our communities and workplaces be a way to bring attention back to the individual to challenge both policy and public portrayals of migration?

Dr Rachel Gregory Fox, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow (School of English)

This paper will consider the subject of the camp as presented in Yousif M. Qasmiyeh’s Writing the Camp. While refugee camps, in some respects, represent places of apparent safety, community, and shelter, they are also contingent and precarious. The paper will consider how these two aspects of the camp call into question the possibility of its status as a place of sanctuary. Qasmiyeh’s poetry sets institutional oversight and international charitable aid within the camp alongside what Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh identifies as ‘refugee-refugee relations’. The paper considers how Qasmiyeh thus disrupts more centralised views of host-relations, hospitality and sanctuary.

Basma El-Dhouki, GCDC Doctoral Candidate (School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research)

Basma is a Palestinian refugee living and working in Lebanon. For twelve years she has been active in humanitarian and development work with refugees and asylum seekers within UNHCR, UNRWA and international NGOs in Lebanon and Syria. Her work has focused on sexual and gender based violence, child protection and general protection, prevention and response programs. Basma’s PhD focuses on “The role of Refugee-Led Organisations in providing protection and assistance for displaced communities in the Lebanon, Syria and Jordan”. The project explores the nature of refugee-led organisations, the factors conditioning their impact and interventions, and the inclusion of refugees in their own development. Basma’s talk will address the question of sanctuary from the perspective of her professional background.

Click this link to join zoom meeting

For more information on the Migration and Movement Signature Research Theme contact
srt-mm-lead@kent.ac.uk

Growing Kent and Medway (a collaborative research and innovation cluster) has developed special focus topics aiming to pull together the region’s academics and experts to promote innovation and find solutions for the current technical challenges.

Sustainable Packaging is one of the special focus topics, and the first industry forum was held in September. Find out more about how the event went.

On Tuesday 8 November, we are bringing together researchers who have some research interests that could contribute (directly or indirectly) towards developing sustainable packaging solutions.

This research sandpit will focus on Sustainable Packaging, Biorefining, and Biomass, and aims to explore how our organisations can work together and help develop future ideas.

If you would like to attend, please email Dr Lori Fisher l.fisher@kent.ac.uk, who can register your details.

We return to the Cathedrals of Canterbury and Rochester next month for our winter graduation ceremonies and we invite you all to get involved to help make these special occasions for our graduands.

There is one ceremony in Rochester on Wednesday 23 November and three in Canterbury on Friday 25 November.

You can sign up here.

There are a range of roles to take on and they all give you the opportunity to share in the celebrations and pass on your congratulations. They include:

• Ticket Collection: You will be responsible for helping graduands and guests exchange their ‘E-Receipts’ for graduation tickets.
• Graduand Registration: This role assists with checking in each graduand as they arrive and giving them a number to line them up in processional order around the precinct. You will have an alphabetised list of names to check.
• Ushering: As an usher, you will be responsible for making sure the guests are seated promptly and safely in the Cathedral prior to, during and post ceremony
• Certificate Table: Based inside the Cathedral, this role is responsible for ensuring that all graduates receive their certificate.

Why should you get involved?

• Share in the celebrations of our graduands as they become our graduates and experience the joy of graduation ceremonies.
• Spend time working in the wonderful locations of Canterbury and Rochester Cathedral.
• Get free refreshments (including one or more meals) if you work for two or more consecutive ceremonies.

We will be delighted to have you for any times you are available. We will send you the briefing closer to the ceremonies that confirms your start times and who to report to on the day.

If you have any questions in the meantime, please do not hesitate to get in touch or if you are all set to help you can sign up here.

This November the BFI London Film Festival comes to campus at the Gulbenkian, with a season of screenings of films making waves at the film festival. These include Oscar tipped The Banchees of Inisherin, My Policeman starring Harry Styles, and Bros, the LGBTQ+ rom-com getting rave reviews.

The Banshees of Inisherin

Fri 11, Sat 12 and Thu 17 Nov, 19.00

Set on a remote island off the west coast of Ireland, ‘The Banshees Of Inisherin’ follows lifelong friends Padraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson), who find themselves at an impasse when Colm unexpectedly puts an end to their friendship.

Book for The Banshees of Inisherin

Decision to Leave

Sat 19, Wed 23 and Thu 24 Nov, 19.00

A man falls from a mountain peak to his death. The detective in charge of the investigation, Hae-joon (Park Hae-il), comes to meet the dead man’s wife Seo-rae (Tang Wei). When she becomes a suspect, Hae-joon finds himself slowly developing an interest in her.

Book for Decision to Leave

My Policeman

Sun 20 & Mon 21 Nov, 19.00

A beautifully crafted story of forbidden love and changing social conventions, My Policeman follows three young people – policeman Tom (Harry Styles), teacher Marion, and museum curator Patrick as they embark on an emotional journey in 1950s Britain.

Book for My Policeman

Triangle of Sadness

Sat 26, Sun 27 Nov & Thu 1 Dec, 19.00

Two-time Palme d’Or winner Ruben Ostlund cements his position as contemporary cinema’s leading satirist with this savagely funny tale of class clashes and role reversals.

Book for Triangle of Sadness

Bros

Fri 25 & Tue 29 Nov, 19.00

Universal Pictures proudly presents the first romantic comedy from a major studio about two gay men maybe, possibly, probably stumbling towards love. Maybe. They’re both very busy.

Book for Bros

Call Jane

Mon 28 & Wed 30 Nov, 19.00

A housewife is overjoyed with the news of her pregnancy – until she learns it poses a threat to her own life. She has nowhere to turn until she meets an underground group of women who risk everything to provide people like her with a choice.

Book for Call Jane

Staff discounts at the Gulbenkian

New for this year, Gulbenkian have introduced a Kent Staff Membership. For only £10 you get:

• 4 free cinema tickets
• 20% off all films for 12 months
• plus 40% of selected theatre for 12 months
• and 10% off in the Gulbenkian Café………for 12 months
• AND your discount can be applied for up to 6 tickets per event!

Visit the Gulbenkian site to buy you £10 membership.

Join our Staff Tennis Club each Tuesday between 12pm to 1.30pm with our LTA level 5 coach and Tennis Development Manager Nick Skelton. Drop in during your lunch break for an informal game of tennis with Nick and other members of staff.

You can arrive late or leave early to fit in with your lunch break and Nick will organise all the players on the day into games with others of a similar level. So come along whether you’re new to tennis, haven’t played for a long time, would like to find new players to play with, or just want to get some exercise and let off some steam!

To book on any Kent Sport All Active session please visit kent.ac.uk/sports/all-active

All Active sessions are free for Kent Sport Premium Plus members. Premium, Plus, and Pay to Play members pay £2 per session.