Are you interested in learning and development?
Would you like to be the first to know about new and exciting opportunities?
Could you help us spread the word to your colleagues and friends?
We are keen to engage Champions from areas across the organisation who have a passion for development and would like to help launch and embed these new development activities within their teams, departments and across the organisation.
If that sounds like you, please read our blog for more information
A new crowdfunding project at Kent has just been launched to create a play accessible for people who are deaf/hard of hearing or visually impaired and take it to Edinburgh.
Kasia Senyszyn who is supported by the Alumni Postgraduate Research Scholarship funded by alumni donations, is researching how to make theatre more accessible for people with hearing or sight loss, and is using her research to embed captioning and audio description techniques into a show.
The project, ‘Talk on Tour’, includes adapting the script with the playwright and working with access practitioners and deaf/hard of hearing and visually impaired members of the local community to develop the accessible strategies. Kasia and her team will then produce and rehearse the show and take it to Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2019.
Kasia comments: ‘By taking the show to Edinburgh, we can hopefully inspire other theatre makers and theatre lovers to think more creatively about access. It doesn’t have to be a last-minute add-on that disrupts the experience of the show – techniques can be integrated into the performance so that everyone can have an equal opportunity to enjoy it.’
There are 11 million people in the UK that have hearing or sight loss. Studies have shown that 80% suffer from anxiety, isolation or depression due to exclusion from social or cultural activities. This project aims to change that by producing an accessible production and presenting it at one of the biggest theatrical festivals in the world, in the hopes that accessibility will become more mainstream
You can support the project by donating via the crowdfunding platform, or following Kasia’s theatre company social media to find out about upcoming events; there will be a public quiz and raffle on Tuesday 5 March at the Parrot pub in Canterbury from 20.00.
Research by Dr Shaun May, Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre in the School of Arts, was recently used fed into a podcast series entitled 1800 Seconds on Autism.
1800 Seconds on Autism is hosted by Robyn Steward and Jamie Knight, and covers subjects such as home, family, humour and ‘geekiness’. The episode features stand-up comedian and poet Kate Fox, and begins with: ‘There’s this rumour going around that autistic people don’t laugh, don’t get comedy, and don’t have a sense of humour’. The hosts then dissect well-known jokes such as ‘why did the chicken cross the road?’
The programme references Shaun mid-way through, with presenter Robyn Stewart quoting him: ‘Autistic people find slapstick humour and word play enjoyable in terms of humour’, and using this as a starting point for discussion.
Shaun was also interviewed on the same topic by BBC News, in an article entitled ‘Do Autistic People ‘Get’ Jokes?’ You can read the article on the BBC website.
Shaun is also organising the Autism Arts Festival which will take place at the University of Kent from Friday 26 April to Sunday 28 April 2019.
The 1800 Seconds on Autism podcast can be heard on the BBC website.
Dr Oliver Double, Reader in Drama, along with two graduates from the School of Arts, will be launching a new regular comedy night, Funny Rabbit, at Gulbenkian this month, with the first show on Friday 8 February 2019.
Funny Rabbit is a new kind of comedy club – radical and exciting, but also warm and snuggly as a bunny rabbit. The format of the show will be a line-up of two professional comedians, with two students from the School of Arts, compered by Olly. Whether you’ve never seen live comedy before or you’ve been watching it for decades, Funny Rabbit is for you.
The opening night will feature Bobby Mair and Drama alumnus Tiernan Douieb. Bobby Mair is a regular face from TV featuring in such shows as Comedy Central, 8 out of 10 Cats (C4), Never Mind the Buzzcocks (BBC2), Virtually Famous (E4), Sweat the Small Stuff (BBC3), World of Weird(C4) and Safe Word (ITV). Tiernan Douieb is the writer and star of hit podcast Partly Political Broadcast, the man behind Comedy Club 4 Kids, and has appeared in Channel 4’s Fresh Meat. He completed a BA (Hon) in Drama at Kent in 2003.
Also performing will be Alf White and Lauren Carroll, both on the BA (Hons) in Drama and Theatre.
The show is co-organised by Thomas Blake who completed a BA (Hons) in Drama and Theatre and an MA in Creative Producing, and Matt Hoss, who completed a BA (Hons) degree in Classical & Archaeological Studies and Drama and an MA in Stand-Up Comedy.
The show starts at 19.30 and tickets cost £5/£8. For more information, please see Gulbenkian webpages.
The University’s corporate membership of the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, means that staff can access some great discounted deals for shows this spring and summer.
Special members’ offers include:
Full details of Member Discounts are available here.
The Marlowe also offers a number of special Members’ Evenings, including a discounted top ticket and post-show drink with cast members.
For 2019/20, these include:
Full details of upcoming Members Evenings are available here.
To obtain your discounted tickets, you no longer need to use a special booking code. Instead, the first time you book using the new system, visit the Marlowe website and:
You will automatically be registered as a Business Membership staff member and every time you log into the website to book tickets, your discount will be applied in the basket.
Enjoy the shows!
Is there a core set of experiences all undergraduate students should have in an increasingly diverse university? If so, what would those be?
Those were the central questions that prompted the development of a Framework for Powerful Student Experiences at the University of Kent.
An extensive consultation, with input from more than 1,770 students and over 60 staff, has resulted in a framework of six principles outlining what all undergraduate students should experience during their learning journey at Kent:
The full report provides suggestions for action for each principle addressing both curricular and co-curricular experiences. The 2018 Learning and Teaching Conference featured examples of these principles in action, as will the 2019 Learning and Teaching Conference.
Commenting on the report, Professor April McMahon, Deputy Vice-Chancellor – Education said: ‘I urge colleagues at Kent to engage with this ground-breaking research, which helps us understand the improvements we can all make to help students value their university experience.’
The framework will also be communicated to students, helping them to make the most of their time at the University.
Thank you to all who gave input during the consultation period.
In the latest episode of the Nostalgia podcast series, Dr Chris Deacy, Reader in Theology and Religious Studies in the Department of Religious Studies, interviews Dr William Price.
William taught Chris when he was an undergraduate at the then-University of Wales, Lampeter – now University of Wales Trinity Saint David – in the early 1990s. In this insightful interview, the pair talk about what attracted William to Lampeter when he started working there in 1970; what it is about Lampeter that is unique; what his earliest memories are; the influences in his youth of piano music; ‘Dan Dare’ and railways; studying History in Oxford at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis; why Austin Farrer is his biggest hero; ‘riding two horses’ in the sense of holding both academic and clerical professions; and why he has no regrets about the choices he has made in his life.
After the announcement today that the UK Government is opening its redress scheme for those sent overseas as part of the UK child migration programmes, Professor Gordon Lynch, Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology in the Department of Religious Studies and an expert on such schemes, comments on the ‘symbolic gesture’, but adds more needs to be done by the voluntary organisations.
‘Following the recommendation of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) to establish such a scheme, in recognition of the Government’s systemic failures to protect children sent overseas through these programmes, payments of £20,000 are to be made to any former child migrant still alive when the Inquiry made this recommendation on 1st March 2018.
‘The redress scheme inevitably raises complex questions about what it means to offer some restitution for historic abuse. The amount of £20,000 is intended as a symbolic gesture of remorse, and is clearly not equivalent to the level of compensation that might be expected for the forms of lasting physical and psychological harm to which many former child migrants were exposed.
‘Some have received other redress payments, depending on the organisations and Australian State to which they were sent, or through individual claims to organisations which sent them. More than two hundred former child migrants sent to the Fairbridge Molong Farm School have also been able, after a long court battle, to win the largest class action in Australian legal history for historic institutional abuse for their treatment at that institution.
‘But financial recompense for former child migrants remains an arbitrary patchwork, in which there are no guarantees that individuals who have experienced significant physical and sexual abuse – or had their lives shaped by the poor education offered by overseas institutions – will be properly compensated.
‘There are doubtless lessons to be learned from our country’s treatment of former child migrants. A substantial body of material relating to the abuse of former child migrants was first presented to the UK Government in 1998 through a report produced by the House of Commons Health Committee.
‘To have waited a further 20 years before these were considered by a fuller public inquiry – by which time many former child migrants had died – must surely encourage us to respond in a more timely way to other such cases in the future. Whilst the IICSA process has led to the establishment of a Government redress scheme, questions remain about the responsibilities of many voluntary organisations involved in this work to also provide some form of restitution.
‘Although some have made individual compensation payments – often of limited amounts – their systemic failures have not led to them either setting up their own redress schemes or apparently contributing to this Government initiative. Too often voluntary organisations – including religious bodies – have offered expressions of regret when the spotlight of a public inquiry is on them, but with little action taken by them after this.
‘Providing restitution for historic abuse is always imperfect, always incomplete. Financial compensation should rightly play a part in this, but should also be part of larger responses including public apologies (which genuinely shape future organisational attitudes), personal support to survivors, and a greater willingness on the past of organisations involved to allow critical scrutiny of their work and to reform their organisational cultures where needed. Whether former British child migrants will be satisfied with today’s announcement about redress, the process of offering restitution for their suffering is on-going.’
Gordon Lynch, Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology in the School of European Culture and Languages, was an advisor to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), and co-authored a report into child sexual abuse in child migration schemes for the Inquiry.
Registration is now open for Teaching Sustainability: Sustainable Teaching, a one-day event taking place on Friday 1 March in Keynes College focused on sustainability in the curriculum.
Hosted by William Rowlandson, Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies for the Department of Modern Languages, and Catherine Morris Environmental Adviser in the Estates Department’s Sustainability Team, the event is open to both staff and students and interested staff from professional services departments are welcome to attend.
The principle objective of the conference is to develop networks among staff and students across the University and in other institutions, in order to provide a common platform for contributing to the embedding of the UN Sustainability Development Goals in the University’s curriculum.
Following the University’s commitment to embed sustainability into all areas of operation, this event will feature speakers from across the sector giving insight into how these issues have been addressed at different universities. The event will cover a wide range of approaches including the creation of stand-alone sustainability modules, incorporating sustainability topics into existing teaching and utilising pedagogy to embed sustainability skills. This will be followed by opportunities for students and staff to look at ways these approaches can be employed at Kent, and to begin the process of co-creation of curriculum content.
The conference is supported by Professor April McMahon, Deputy Vice-Chancellor – Education, through the Teaching Enhancement Small Support Award (TESSA). Further support has been provided by Chloé Gallien, Master of Keynes College, as part of Keynes College’s 50-year anniversary celebrations.
More information and links to registration for the event can be found via this conference blog.
On 29th January 2019, the Employability Points Scheme, Kent Union JobShop and SU Network co-hosted LinkedIn Live, where students gained the chance to meet and hear from industry experts on how to develop their LinkedIn profiles.
With over 100 students in attendance, informative talks were given by Mark Gaisford (Founder & CEO of RedSprout), Becky Simms (CEO of Reflect Digital), Ralph Meyer (Global Senior Customer Success Manager at LinkedIn), Jade Pluck (LinkedIn Trainer & Coach) and Molly Wright (Founder of Molly Moodle Media).
Speakers provided expert guidance on how to write an eye catching CV, how to ensure a LinkedIn profile stands out and how to network effectively through this online platform.
Additionally, students gained the chance to network with employers and have their portrait photos taken for their new profiles.
For further information on future LinkedIn Live events, please join the MeetUp group.