With the European market making up 19% of the Global Information Technology industry’s £3.8 trillion value in 2019, keeping up with the latest technological and innovation-related trends is crucial in developing and maintaining a successful business – and that is exactly what the #DigitalReboot Disruptive Digital Conference was all about!

The #DigitalReboot Disruptive Digital Conference funded by Santander Universities, was a free local event held on 27 February 2019. The aim of the event was to provide students, graduates and local individuals with expert knowledge in the UK’s fast-growing tech industry. Over 80 attendees were present at the event, creating a space for individuals from different academic and business backgrounds to socialise and create potential relationships with another as well as benefiting from listening to a series of expert speakers from different respective fields.

The conference focused on a key number of topics including how to digitalise your future, learning from one of the UK’s fastest growing tech companies, understanding how to keep tech trends diverse & inclusive, exploring the expectations of a modern workforce, reflecting on our engagement with tech and embracing the Cyber Challenge by surviving & thriving in a hostile cyber environment.

After the speakers gave their talks, attendees had the opportunity to ask questions to the speakers themselves as a specific time was allocated to a Q&A panel. Once the event finished, attendees helped themselves to some souvenirs to take home with them as a ‘thank you’ to the participation of the attendees from the organisers of the event.

Alumna Christina Irwin, who graduated with a BA (Hons) in History and Philosophy of Art in 2016, has recently gained a position on the Graffiti Project, part of a Canterbury Journey project funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and based at Canterbury Cathedral, which is currently seeking new volunteers.

The Canterbury Journey aims to engage new, hard to reach and diverse audiences through a volunteer programme that develops and interprets Cathedral collections. The Graffiti Project is an initiative that engages volunteers in recording marks found in the eastern crypt, etchings of lost voices from the medieval world.

‘This is such a valuable project,’ explains Christina, ‘I am acquiring new skills at one of the world’s most significant  heritage sites, learning about historic collection practices and interpretation while meeting new people and sharing a passion with Cathedral professionals, volunteers and the public. It is exciting being part of this project which will become part of the Cathedral archive collections. I feel privileged to be part of this story.’

The graffiti tells us of religious devotion, fear of damnation, of love and of humour. Unlike contemporary graffiti or street art mostly seen as anti-social vandalism, medieval graffiti incised or scratched through vibrantly painted surfaces stood out clearly and would have been easily noticed suggesting that these images were totally accepted, these marks have meaning and function. There are prayers, devotional and votive, memorials, ritual apotropaic marks, compass drawn geometric designs, and five-pointed stars or pentangles, the symbol representing mathematical perfection in Ancient Greece, in abundance. There is relatively little published material about this subject and the imagery of the medieval parishioner is steeped in folklore and superstition, challenging the search for meaning.

The many voluntary opportunities can be found here.

The University of Kent Players would like to invite you to a script reading social on Monday 8 April at 17.30. The script we will be reading is Bothered and Bewildered, which we will be performing in September at the Gulbenkian.

Grimond Seminar room 3 has been booked from 17.00, with the script reading starting at 17.30. This session will be an opportunity for people to sit together reading through the script aloud. Each person will have the opportunity to play a different role, and sometimes several roles. This will be an informal session and there will be some soft drinks and snacks available.

This session is for actors interested in auditioning (or for those who just fancy a chilled out social), decisions on casting will not be made from this session. Information about the production and auditions can be found here.

Directions: Entering the Grimond building turn left down the corridor. The room is at the end of the corridor on the left.

Synopsis of the Play:

Bothered and Bewildered is a comic drama that follows Irene and her two daughters Louise and Beth as they begin a long journey in which the girls lose their mum in spirit but not in body. As her family struggle to come to terms with her Alzheimer’s, Irene’s past passion for romantic fiction blurs with reality. She discusses with her unseen and witty companion Barbara Cartland (Irene’s favourite and now deceased world famous romantic novelist) how best to write her ‘memory book’, disclosing to Barbara long kept family secrets that she would never reveal to anyone else.

We hope to see you there!

The exam period will soon be upon us. Please see below information on what to expect this year.

Please be mindful during this time around venues and support students where possible.

Dates
Tuesday 7 May – Friday 14 June 2019 (weeks 25 – 30)

Venues – Canterbury
Main Hall
Small Hall 2
Small Hall 3
Darwin Conference Suite
Eliot Hall

Adapted Arrangements Venues:
Keynes Seminar Rooms 11-17
KSA 1 – Keynes College (PC Room)
Cornwallis North West Seminar Rooms 1-12
Grimond Seminar Room 1-8

Venues – Medway
Pilkington Building
Dockyard Church / Sail & Colour Loft
Gillingham Building
Medway Building

Adapted Arrangements Venues
Gillingham Building
Medway Building

Times
Morning exams begin at 09.30, afternoon sessions begin at 14.00.

Papers can last one to three hours. Students sat in adapted arrangement venues are entitled to 25%, 33%, 50% or 100% extra time. This means the latest finish could be 20.00.

Saturday exams are scheduled for the first four weeks of the exam period, morning and afternoon.

Bag Room
Students are not permitted to bring bags. Students will need to use the following bag rooms:

Canterbury Campus  –
Keynes Seminar Room 7

Medway Campus  –
Pilkington Building Room 014
Gillingham Building Room 2 – 03
Dockyard Church – Foyer Entrance

Seating Plan
Students will be allocated a seat for each exam, the seating plan will be posted at each venue before the start.

What to bring
KentOne Card
Pens, pencils and writing equipment (in a clear pencil case)
Still water in a clear plastic bottle

What NOT to bring
Mobile Phones / Smart Watches / Headphones
Bags
Food (Unless permission given prior)
Any drink other than water

Exam Timetable
Students can view their timetable on SDS.

Contact Details
Canterbury: exams@kent.ac.uk
Medway: medwayexams@kent.ac.uk

Find out more on our Exams webpages.

Do any of your students commute to the Canterbury Campus? We now have short-stay accommodation in Eliot College available for students living off-campus to book online.

This accommodation package is ideal for anyone worrying about getting to campus and missing an exam because of traffic or other travel delays outside their control, or for students who want more time to concentrate on studying without traveling home late at night. Rooms are £20 a night, with a minimum of a two night stay required to book.

Students will live in a corridor of up to eight other short stay students, all rooms are self-catered singles and have bedding and towels provided. Find out more.

Short-stay accommodation in Eliot College is only available for Kent students, however don’t forget that we also have year-round visitor accommodation available in Beverley Farmhouse next to Canterbury Innovation Centre, ideal for guests who want to stay on campus for the duration of their visit.

If you have any questions please email: holidays@kent.ac.uk

Rebecca Barton-Hagger, MA Linguistics student in the Department of English Language and Linguistics, has been awarded the title of Sportswoman of the Year 2019 at the Team Kent awards.

Rebecca is the squad captain and coach of the University of Kent Karate club (ranked sixth nationally) and a member of the England Karate team. She recently qualified for the EUSA Combat Championships – the European universities championships in karate – taking place in Zagreb, Croatia, in the summer.

At BUCS (British Universities and College Sports) Rebecca won two bronze medals, Senior Female Kata and Female Team Kumite. At the WUKF European Championships, which took place in October 2018, Rebecca won two gold medals, one silver and one bronze, and took the title of Female European Heavyweight Champion 2018.

Rebecca comments on the balance between sporting life and academic life, and describes how her studies in Linguistics help to maintain a balance with her sporting commitments. Rebecca said: ‘Karate provides a good stress relief, and helps give a clear head for my studies. It is good to have a balance; the difference is massive but in a good way.

‘Winning the Team Kent Sportswoman of the Year is a huge honour – I still can’t believe it! It has been a successful year for me, but it certainly did not come without its challenges, so it is also a big confidence boost as I begin my preparations for the European University Combat Games in Croatia this summer. Karate has always been an enormous part of who I am, and being able to continue my training and international competing alongside my degree would not have been possible without the support from both Kent Sport and my academic school.’

The shuttle runs term-time only which means that the last day the shuttle will be running this term will be Friday 5 April 2019.

The shuttle will start running again at the start of the summer term on Tuesday 7 May 2019. Booking will be available a week or so before this date. The Transport Team will tweet when booking becomes available.

For more information visit the Campus Shuttle webpage or follow @CampusShuttle on Twitter.

The Lord Roberts steam engine will be visiting the Medway campus on Tuesday 2 April.

The Lord Roberts was built in the early 1900s and used on the campus when the HMS Pembroke Royal Naval Barracks were being built to bring bricks from the local brickyard to the campus.

The Lord Roberts is making a visit to the Historic Dockyard this week and the owners would like to bring the engine back onto the campus on Tuesday 2 April.

The programme for the visit is:

·         12:30 – outside the Hawke building

·         14:00-14:30 – outside the Student Hub

Please feel free to drop by and see this excellent example of early 20th century engineering.

Following feedback from staff groups, new functionality has been added to Staff Connect and you are now able to record time off in lieu (TOIL) earned and taken in the system. This replaces individual TOIL management systems such as e-Days, spreadsheets or Outlook and provides as consistent way of recording absence across the University.

TOIL balances in Staff Connect are kept separate from annual leave entitlements. For Staff in grades 1-6 TOIL can be earned by the hour. For Staff in grades 7 and above, TOIL should be earned in half day or full day blocks. For all staff TOIL should be taken in half day or full day blocks. More guidance on the use of TOIL can be found in the Overview for Managers and there are employee and manager user guides available.

The introduction of the recording of TOIL in Staff Connect fits with the project’s aim to streamline our HR processes and provide employees and managers with a one-stop-shop for most HR-related activity. It supports the principles of Simplifying Kent in reducing duplication of systems with their associated costs and effort.