As we enjoy the lead up to Christmas, our Music department is delighting us with a festive two weeks filled with concerts and cheer.

ALL concerts this autumn term is by ticket only (free for the Lunchtime Concerts) and tickets must be booked in advance. Here’s a few highlights of the events that we can look forward to:

University String Sinfonia – Tuesday 7 December

Directed by Florian Peycelon, the String Sinfonia in an hour-long programme including works by Rutter, Elgar and Kalinnikov. Join us at 19.00.  

Chorus/Orchestra Christmas Concert – Saturday 11 December 

University Chorus and Orchestra, Simon Thorpe (bass) in a seasonal programme with works by Tchaikovsky and Vaughn Williams.  

Carols Around the tree – Monday 13 December 

Open to all staff, students and alumni, come along to the communal carols with the Brass Group on the Registry lawn at 16.50.

Big Band Christmas Swingalong! – Wednesday 15 December 

Get into the swing of things and come along to the annual cracker of a gig with the Big Band conducted by Ian Swatman at 17.15. 

The University was very sorry to hear of the death of Keith Dimond.

Former colleague, Mohamed Sobhy writes:

‘It is with sadness that I report that my friend and colleague Keith Dimond has passed away. Keith joined the University in 1971 as lecturer in the Electronics Laboratories (now the School of Engineering). Prior to joining, Keith worked at GCHQ in Cheltenham. I remember in his interview at Kent, Keith could not give the panel some details of his work, as it was classified. Nevertheless, the panel was so impressed by Keith’s personality and knowledge and had no hesitation in offering him the post.

‘Subsequently, Keith made a vital contribution to developing the teaching and research in the department, especially on the digital side and was promoted to a Senior Lectureship in recognition of his work. Keith also made a significant contribution to the administration of The Electronics Laboratories. For 10 years, during my term as director, Keith was deputy director and his help and support were vital to the smooth running of the department. I remember in particular, his help in preparing the application to the Institution of Electrical Engineers (now IET) for accrediting the new courses. Before his retirement, Keith became Master of Keynes College again using his personality and diplomacy to run the College smoothly and effectively.

‘Throughout my knowledge of Keith, I admired his manner of dealing with people in a diplomatic and kind manner that made him respected and loved by all his colleagues and students. Keith will be sadly missed by all who knew him.’

We express our condolences to his wife Judith, his two daughters Rachel and Fiona and their families.  

An article by Hannah Brazier, Marketing and Commercial Services Assistant | Kent Hospitality  

It’s nearly that time of the year. Christmas is coming! Gather your friends and colleagues together for a festive feast with all the trimmings.

Here are a few suggestions of where you can enjoy Christmas food and drink on campus…

Rutherford Dining Hall

Christmas Menu (6 – 16 December)

Traditional Christmas Lunch – 2 courses for £8.95 (ex VAT)
Choose from traditional roast turkey or festive nut roast with all the trimmings, followed by Christmas pudding or vegan chocolate orange torte.

To book a table, please call the dining hall on 01227 823500 or email rutherforddining@kent.ac.uk. All pre-booked groups will receive complimentary Christmas crackers.

Dolche Vita

Christmas Menu (1 – 16 December)

Chef’s Special Christmas Lunch – from £6.00
A Christmas dinner with a Dolche Vita twist. No booking required. Includes a complimentary mince pie (whilst stocks last). 

Gingerbread Latte – £2.50
served with a traditional steamed milk top

Mungo’s

Christmas Menu (22 November – 16 December)

The Very Merry Mungo’s Burger – £6.80
Turkey breast topped with cranberry sauce, cheese, streaky bacon, and cheese sauce in a charcoal infused sesame seed brioche bun. Served with skinny fries.

The Christmas Club Sandwich – £6.00
Toasted triple stacked sandwich with turkey breast wrapped in streaky bacon and stuffed with chorizo, sage and paprika. Topped with cheese, tomato, lettuce, and sweet chilli mayo.

Gingerbread Latte – £3.00
served with whipped cream, cinnamon, and a mini gingerbread man

Mince Pie Milkshake – £4.00
topped with whipped cream

Gingerbread Milkshake – £3.50
topped with whipped cream (Vegan version also available)

Gulbenkian Café

Christmas Menu (15 November – 17 December)

Kentish Pigs in Blankets Mac and Cheese – £7.50
Gooey Kentish Mac and Cheese with extra little chunks of sausage wrapped in bacon.

Kentish Brie and Cranberry Croque Monsieur – £6.00
A festive take on a French classic – Brie and cranberry toasted sandwich topped with a mornay sauce and baked.

Handmade Pigs in Blankets Sausage Roll – £2.50
What do you get if you cross pigs in blankets with sausage rolls? Delicious Christmassy sausage-and bacon puff-pastry snacks.

After Eight Peppermint Hot Chocolate – £3.50
topped with whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and mini marshmallows

Baileys Hot Chocolate – £4.95
topped with whipped cream and a dusting of cocoa powder

Gingerbread Latte – £3.30
topped with whipped cream and a mini gingerbread man

Create

Christmas Drinks Menu (22 November – 16 December)

Gingerbread Latte – £3.00
topped with whipped cream, cinnamon, and a mini gingerbread man

Mint Hot Chocolate – £3.00
topped with whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and mini marshmallows

K-Bar

Christmas Cocktail Menu (29 November – 17 December)

Gingerbread Martini – £5.00
Baileys, Kaluha, and gingerbread syrup

Hot Apple Pie Cocktail – £5.00
Spiced rum, Licor 43, apple juice, whipped cream, and cinnamon

Bag It

Christmas Signature Sandwiches (6 December – 16 December)

Boxing Day Turkey & Bacon Sub – £3.90
Turkey breast, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise in a soft sub roll

Brie, Chestnut & Cranberry Mayo Doorstop – £3.90
Brie, chestnut, and cranberry mayo between two thick slices of bread

Vegan Christmas Panini – £3.50
Smoked Applewood vegan cheese, vegan bacon, cranberry sauce

And that’s not all! There are plenty more festive offers and promotions across campus to celebrate the season. Keep an eye out for festive drinks, cakes, and street food. Visit your nearest café, bar or restaurant to discover what’s on offer.

Download the Order Up! app and begin your festive order today

An online training session on ‘Getting started with Impact’ is taking place on 8 December from 13.00 – 14.00 . The session targets those of you who might be thinking about developing the impact dimension of your research, but who might also face challenges, including lack of time and resources and competing priorities.

The session will discuss how to start an impact, what impact looks like, how to find time, resources and deal with competing priorities, how to find partners and how to develop meaningful and sustainable partnerships.

The session will start with a panel discussion with Prof. Jennie Batchelor (School of English), Dr Kaitlyn Regehr (School of Arts), and Prof. Henrik Schoenefeldt (School of Architecture and Planning) who will share their experience.

This will be followed by a Q&A session, to discuss further the opportunities and challenges of starting with impact. In this session, impact is understood broadly, as including but as not being limited to impact as defined by the REF.

To join the meeting on 8 December please email the Research Excellence Team.

Take part in our first Winter WonderWalk to help raise money for the Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy!

How to get involved

Join us on Saturday 11 December 2021 at 13.00 for our first Winter WonderWalk. The Parkinson’s Winter WonderWalk, is a 10km sponsored walk around the beautifully historic and iconic city of Canterbury.

Suitable for everyone, the 10km circular route will start at the University of Kent and will take you through scenic routes and past renowned landmarks such as Westgate Towers and Gardens, Dane John Gardens and Mound and Canterbury Cathedral. Take a look at the Walk Guide  and Route Map.

Sign up for the walk

Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy

Together with the charity Parkinson’s Care and Support UK, we’re raising money to establish the Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy. If funding is secured, this centre will be based on the University of Kent’s campus and will provide its services free of charge to those with Parkinson’s disease and their carers. It is hoped that it will open in 2022.

Parkinson’s disease devastates lives and goes far beyond the tremors and rigidity that people commonly associate with the condition. Anyone can get Parkinson’s – young or old. Every hour two more people are diagnosed, which is equivalent to 18,000 people every year. 1 in 37 people alive today will be diagnosed with Parkinson’s in their lifetime and yet there is currently no cure.

A range of non-drug therapies exist which help to deal with the symptoms of this disease, including physiotherapy, exercise classes and speech and language therapy. New forms of self-administered non-invasive brain stimulation (requiring no surgery) are also becoming available including a method, pioneered by a research group here at the University of Kent, which clinical trials have shown can induce profound improvements in intellectual, motor and emotional function.

The Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy will enable all these therapies to be combined into a single, coherent care package tailored to individual need. Allied to this clinical service will be a research programme that explores the inter-dependencies between different treatments in order to allow each to be offered in the best way, as well as research to inform treatment of people with other brain injury, such as stroke and dementia.

Please consider supporting our campaign to help change the lives of those with Parkinson’s. You can also take a look at our charity Christmas cards on sale as another way to offer your support.

We look forward to you joining us on this journey to transform the future of Parkinson’s care.

From Professor Karen Cox | Vice-Chancellor and President

Dear Students and Colleagues, 

An article by Olivia Miller, Press & PR Officer

Today we’re reflecting on the generosity of our donors who enable us to have a greater impact and create opportunities for our students.

Our donors have generously supported:

Kent and Medway Medical School (KMMS)

Kent and Medway Medical School was launched in September 2020 and we are so very grateful to our generous benefactors who have supported us so far.

Highpoints include:

• Giving all first-year medical students an iPad on commencing their 5-year medical programme
• Celebrating the success of the KMMS Scholarship programme, with over 55 first year medical students having now been awarded scholarships worth over £1million thanks to generous benefactors including charitable foundations, corporates, NHS trusts and individuals
• Offering 15 philanthropic prizes for first year students and beyond
• Buying state-of-the-art clinical equipment e.g. Butterfly Ultrasound Probes, a Virtual Microscope
• Construction began on the Pears Building housing the first purpose-built GP Simulation Suite. The building also includes a 100 seater lecture theatre, seminar rooms, IT suite, multi-user rooms, board room, student common space and refreshment areas
• Construction began on the Verena Holmes Building housing Anatomy Learning Centre, collaborative lecture theatre, medical simulation suites, mock hospital wards, fully functioning X-Ray suite, clinical and observation rooms
• Raising over £5M in philanthropic gifts to date from 139 benefactors – helping students to achieve their dreams of becoming the doctors and scientists of tomorrow

Find out more about Giving to KMMS.

First 500 Scholarship

Our First 500 Scholarship is funded by the undergraduates who helped found the University in 1965 and we thank them for assisting students to reach their potential.

One scholarship is worth £2,000 per annum (or pro-rata for part-time students) for the duration of the recipient’s degree programme.

Sol Herrera Penido, recipient of a First 500 Scholarship at Kent, explains more in this video…

Kent Opportunity Fund

Our supporters’ kind donations to the Kent Opportunity Fund, have helped us to provide equal opportunities for all students.

The Kent Opportunity Fund was established to provide a firm foundation on which to build Kent’s future. It supports a broad range of scholarships, student projects to enhance extra-curricular activities at Kent, and bursaries to support students working through financial hardship. Committees of Kent staff, alumni and donors allocate the funds raised and ensure that they go to the students who are most in need.

This year we’ve been able to provide over £200,000 among record numbers of students desperately needing support and the gifts they have made will inspire the future.

Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy

We thank those who have so far supported our fundraising efforts to launch a new Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy in 2022. In partnership with Parkinson’s Care and Support UK, the Centre will provide innovative and life changing non-drug therapies to support those with Parkinson’s.

These include the use of ground-breaking new research led by Professor David Wilkinson that focuses on stimulating the balance organs of the inner ear to improve brain health.

An estimated 2,000 people will visit the Centre during its inaugural year, with its integrated approach filling a much-needed gap in the support options currently available.

Our fundraising campaign aims to secure the £600,000 needed to make our vision a reality. The funds will enable free access to the stimulation therapy and to established non-drug therapies that help reduce the disabling symptoms that Parkinson’s drugs struggle to reach.

Find out more about how to support the Parkinson’s Centre for Integrated Therapy. 

Many people give and you could too. Are you interested in giving a gift to support students, research or our local community? There are many ways that are all so appreciated. Find out more about ways to give. 

Are you interested in engaging with a world outside of academia? Would you like to find out how colleagues are using film, festivals and a myriad of other ways to engage with lay audiences or policy makers? Perhaps you’d like to improve your media skills or learn more about different communities and how to reach them. If so then please join us on Wednesday 15 December from 14.00 – 15.30 for a staff webchat focusing on the relaunch of Kent’s Public Engagement Network (KPEN).

To join the webchat, please complete this sign-up form. 

KPEN is an informal space where academics, researchers and professional service staff can come together to discuss engagement in all its various and glorious forms. Offering a central hub for engagement, KPEN is designed to enable us to work together to improve and guide our practice and offer a safe space to support and encourage each other.

At the re-launch we will present our new public & community engagement website together with training opportunities coming up in the New Year and the introduction of weekly advice surgeries. There will be an open forum discussion where you can have your say about the way you’d like KPEN to be shaped and any other ideas or thoughts you might have around the field of engagement.

The session will be led by Kent’s Director of Engagement, Philip Pothen alongside the University’s Public & Community Engagement Officer, Jill Hurst.

It should be an informative and enjoyable session and we encourage as many of you to come along as possible. If you have any questions contact Jill Hurst.

Congratulations to Professor Juliette Pattinson on her appointment as our new Director of the Division for Arts and Humanities.

Juliette, who is a Professor in the School of History, is currently the Deputy Director (People) in the Division and an AdvanceHE Chair for Athena Swan. She replaces Professor Simon Kirchin who will stand down at the end of the year.

Juliette says: ‘I am delighted to have been appointed as the new Divisional Director. I look forward to working with colleagues in championing the arts and humanities and to joining the Executive Group. This provides an exciting opportunity to work collaboratively to shape the future of our University and the Division in the next phase of our development.’

Juliette joined the University in 2013. She was Head of our School of History from 2015-20 and, before that, at the University of Strathclyde (2012-13).

Juliette completed her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees at Lancaster University in History and Women’s Studies and her PhD was a gendered oral history analysis of male and female secret agents in Nazi-occupied France. She is a socio-cultural historian of gender and war and has published on civilian men, uniformed women, partisan warfare, incarceration, national identity, cultural memory and oral history methodology.

Her monograph on the fabulously named FANYs (the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry), which examines the world’s longest established female military organisation as a case study of gender modernity, was published last year. Following a symposium held in Special Collections at Kent, she is completing an edited collection on British humour and the Second World War, which has offered some light relief over the last 21 months.

Outside work, Juliette is a keen cyclist and runner, loves scuba diving and yoga and enjoyed flying a Cessna recently. She is somewhat less enthusiastic about an upcoming skydive – something she has felt compelled to do since 1999 when she interviewed secret agents who parachuted behind enemy lines.