Want to get active and have some fun too? Enter a team for this year’s Vice-Chancellor’s Cup, a light-hearted competition for staff across Kent, regardless of ability.

Once a month, departments compete activities ranging from rounders and volleyball to ultimate Frisbee, pub games and more! Most activities take place during the lunch hour (12.00-13.00 or 13.00-14.00) and span the academic year, starting with ‘It’s A Knockout’ on Tuesday 2 November 2021 and culminating in The Quiz event on Monday 12 September 2022. The Quiz event will be followed by a closing ceremony, usually held in the Pavilion Café Bar with a buffet for all attendees to enjoy food and drinks in between quiz rounds and crowning event winners.

Charlie Dast, Sports Development Officer, says: ‘Not only is the VC’s Cup a great opportunity to get up, move around and break up your work day, but it’s also a fantastic opportunity to meet staff you may have never encountered in different departments across the University.’

Charlie, together with his colleagues Karen, Billy and Amy, will be on hand throughout the contest to look after participants. To date, 15 teams/departments have signed up, including: Research Innovation Services, Kent Business School, HR, Estates, Natural Sciences, Campus Security, Human and Social Sciences, Kent & Medway Medical School. But there’s still time to enter your own team! Deadline for entries is Friday 15 October 2021 at 17.00 – get your entry in now by emailing sportsdevelopment@kent.ac.uk.

You can find out more about the Vice-Chancellor’s Cup, what’s happening and when, on the VC’s Cup webpages.

The Sports Development Team looks forward to hearing from you!

On Wednesday 15 September the inaugural KMMS Prize-Giving event took place. For the first time, KMMS celebrated the academic success of many of its students and the hard work and excellence of its staff.

Many of the generous benefactors who donated prizes joined the event in the Lecture Theatre of KMMS’s new Pears building at the University of Kent.  Prizes were awarded in three different categories: student prizes, achievement awards and five awards given by MedSoc, the medical student society.

The MedSoc prize for “Making a Difference to Student Experience” went to the KMMS Librarian Manfred Gschwandtner.

The Vice-President of MedSoc introduced the prize:

“The first prize is for making a difference to student experience. This prize was awarded to the member of staff that students feel made the biggest positive difference to their experience at KMMS this year.

There were 8 nominees for this year, but one, in particular, shone through. This person was always on hand to problem solve and does so with willingness and passion. He does a lot of work behind the scenes and in the teaching sessions he has delivered, his passion shines through. Not only this, but he also secured revision resource ‘Osmosis’ for students which they say has made a huge difference to their learning.”

Manfred explains:

“This prize is a collaborative achievement for my library colleagues at University of Kent, Canterbury Christ Church University and the Drill Hall Library, Medway campus who have worked tirelessly to provide excellent support to KMMS students. It comes after an intensive two-year set up period for the KMMS library and the first year of providing library services across different campuses.

We made sure that our first year students had access to the library resources they needed for their studies including textbooks, journals and innovative new learning resources such as RX Bricks, Osmosis and Complete Anatomy, an up-to-date anatomy app  as part of our ‘digital first’ strategy which aimed to provide all core resources in a digital format. Joined up reading lists and a dedicated KMMS LibrarySearch catalogue were developed that allow students to search for library resources easily across the two universities’ libraries.

KMMS academics helped students to develop the necessary skills to best utilise the library resources by embedding information and digital literacy teaching in the curriculum. There has also been extensive support from the institutions’ front line services, ensuring a streamlined student experience including the introduction of a courier service between universities so students can return their books at either library”.

Caption: Manfred Gschwandtner is presented his award by Mimoza Osmani, Vice-President and Mary McDonald, President, MedSoc.

Experts from the University of Kent’s Centre for Child Protection are sharing research expertise on Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and parent-infant interventions in a series of two, free thought-provoking webinars.

The webinars offer professionals concerned with child protection and the safeguarding of children an opportunity to update their knowledge and gain insights that will help inform their practice in the field.

Tackling the challenges to investigating and prosecuting crimes of child sexual exploitation in England – What works?

Wednesday 20 October, 10:00 – 11:00

Presenter: Dr Aravinda Kosaraju, Lecturer in Child Protection at the Centre for Child Protection (CCP) and Acting Director of Studies for the MA in Advanced Child Protection Programme

What will it cover? Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) has become popularly recognised as a complex crime and as a ‘national threat’ within policy discourses in England. Yet, prosecutions of these crimes are not proportionate to the number of cases reported.

This webinar briefly explores the challenges to investigating and prosecuting crimes of CSE.  Dr Kosaraju will highlight what works in tackling the challenges experienced in providing effective criminal justice responses to crimes of CSE and will draw from her PhD research analysing data from policy texts as well as interviews and focus group discussions with practitioners working to tackle CSE in England.

Who is it for? All are welcome to attend but this thought-provoking webinar is likely to be of particular interest to child protection professionals concerned with the safeguarding of children from sexual abuse. It will be particularly beneficial to practitioners from law enforcement, social care, education, health, prosecution, probation, CSE specialist teams and youth services.

Register now on Eventbrite

Influencing factors on the outcomes and experiences of parent-infant interventions within Child Protection. 

Wednesday 10 November, 10.00 – 11.00

Presenter: Dr Alice Loving, Honorary Lecturer at the Centre for Child Protection

What will it cover? This webinar will include a discussion of the key findings from Dr Loving’s doctoral thesis, which focused on influencing factors on the experience and outcomes of parent-infant intervention within child protection.

The interventions that families took part in included parent-infant psychotherapy, and/or residential placements in assessment units or parent-infant foster placements. For the participants who were successful and returned to the community with their children four ‘change facilitator’ themes were identified:

• ‘Acceptance’
• ‘Determination’
• ‘Mentalization’
• and ‘Connection with past trauma’.

For the group whose babies were removed from their care, the key themes from their interviews comprised three ‘change inhibitors’:

• ‘Denial’
• ‘Low Mentalization’
• and ‘Disconnect with past trauma’.

This webinar will include a detailed discussion of both the ‘Change facilitators’ and the ‘Change inhibitors and the importance of using these findings to help strengthen assessments and, most importantly, provide more effective interventions within child protection.

Who is it for? This webinar is likely to be relevant for any professional working in a child protection setting. It offers practitioners important information to consider within their practice.

Register now on Eventbrite

Many congratulations to Kent Emeritus Professor and novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah who has been awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature, “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.” Up until his recent retirement, he had been a Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at Kent, where he focused primarily on writers such as Wole Soyinka, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Salman Rushdie.

The University’s Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Karen Cox was among the first to offer congratulations. She said: ‘On behalf of the entire University I’d like to extend our huge congratulations to Abdulrazak for this tremendous achievement. Abdulrazak is a complete inspiration to all of us – as a teacher, an alumnus of Kent and as such a powerful voice in postcolonial literature. His stories, some of which were first drafted in our very own Templeman Library, have touched millions worldwide and shine a light on human experiences that are so often ignored. We couldn’t be prouder of his success.’

Dr Bashir Abu-Manneh, Head of the University’s School of English, added: ‘Abdulrazak Gurnah’s writing epitomises our contemporary condition of displacement, violence, and belonging. His is the struggle for individual voice, for justice, for feeling at home in an ever-changing world. No one writing today has articulated the pains of exile and the rewards of belonging so well. Canterbury and Kent are both his exile and home.’

Abdulrazak Gurnah’s background

Abdulrazak was born in 1948 and grew up on the island of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean but arrived in England as a refugee in the end of the 1960s. After the peaceful liberation from British colonial rule in December 1963 Zanzibar went through a revolution which led to oppression and persecution of citizens of Arab origin.

Gurnah belonged to the victimised ethnic group and after finishing school was forced to leave his family and flee the country, by then the newly formed Republic of Tanzania at the age of eighteen. Not until 1984 was it possible for him to return to Zanzibar, allowing him to see his father shortly before the father’s death.

Abdulrazak Gurnah’s work

Abdulrazak has published ten novels and several short stories, with the theme of the refugee’s disruption running throughout his work.

His debut novel, ‘Memory of Departure’ (1987), is about a failed uprising and is located on the African continent. In the story, the gifted young protagonist attempts to disengage from the social blight of the coast, hoping to be taken under the wing of a prosperous uncle in Nairobi. Instead he is humiliated and returned to his broken family.

Gurnah often allows his narratives to lead up to a hard-won insight. A good example is his third novel, ‘Dottie’ (1990), which portrays a Black woman of immigrant background growing up in harsh conditions in racially charged 1950s England.

To find out Anders Olsson, Chairman of the Nobel Committee, view’s on Abdulrazak’s work please read his bio on the Nobel Prize 2021 website.

Worldwide media coverage

News about Abdulrazak’s award has already attracted a phenomenal amount of interest from around the world. Within 24 hours of its announcement, there were almost 700 print and online articles mentioning Kent and 300 broadcast pieces. Quotes from either the Vice-Chancellor Karen Cox or Head of English Dr Bashir Abu-Manneh were included in The Times, The New York Times, BBC News and Times Higher among others. Our top-performing social media posts attracted 17k+ reach on Facebook, 22k impressions on LinkedIn and significant engagement on multiple posts on Twitter

Gulbenkian has a fantastic programme of events lined up for Black History Month this year including performances, films screenings and more!

Screening in our cinema, Respect is the new film from Liesl Tommy following the remarkable true story of Aretha franklin’s career from a child singing in a church choir to international superstardom. Starring Jennifer Hudson, Forest Whitaker, Marlon Wayans, Audra McDonald, and Mary J. Blige, this is one musical sensation not to miss! Screening from Friday 8th October at Gulbenkian Arts Centre. Tickets £8.95 / University of Kent Staff £6.95 / Student £6 / Other Concessions are available.

Babylon

See British cult classic Babylon is a film that captures the trials and tribulations of young black youths in 80s London with vivid cinematography, a powerful message and an incredible soundtrack . See it on Friday 29th October. The film screening will be followed by a Q&A with film cast member Beverley Woodhams, and a DJ set in the café from 9.30pm. Tickets £8.95 / University of Kent Staff £6.95 / Student £6 / Other Concessions are available.

Candyman

In 2017, Jordan Peele’s Get Out was a watershed moment to horror subverting the genre’s long record of offensive racial tropes, and four years on its legacy can be seen across film and tv. Catch the update of the classic 1990s film that has become the latest black horror hit, Candyman on Tuesday 2nd November. This new take, produced by Jordon Peele and directed by rising star Nia DaCosta, gives the franchise a significant overhaul making Candyman is a brilliant horror that addresses issues such as racial injustice and gentrification. Tickets £8.95 / University of Kent Staff £6.95 / Student £6 / Other Concessions are available.  This film screening is also a 2ForTuesday screening, where Students and Under 25s can get 2 tickets for the price of 1.

For more information and tickets please visit www.thegulbenkian.co.uk.

An article by Brenda Brunsdon, Occupational Health and Wellbeing Manager 

All the major health focused organisations, especially those whose principal aim is to support people with mental health problems, are promoting initiatives for World Mental Health Day on 10 October. Initially promoted by the World Federation for Mental Health, their chosen theme for this year is ‘Mental Health in an Unequal World’. The World Health Organisation has worked with this and has a theme of ‘Mental health care for all: let’s make it a reality’.

The day is promoted in the UK by Mental Health UK and their chosen theme is ‘Forward Together for Mental Health’; the aim is to focus on inequality of mental health support provision and to encourage people to learn about how big a problem this is and to work to change things. MIND’s theme is ‘If we can do one thing, we can change everything’; it emphasises that small changes made by enough people can work to make a difference in mental health inequality provision.

The NHS is struggling to provide services after the acute strains of the pandemic with the ‘aftershocks’ of that event continuing. We have entered what appears to be a chronic phase of lesser numbers of infections but with debilitating disease still affecting some people who contract Covid 19. Most people know how difficult it is to get an appointment at a GP surgery or subsequent referrals for investigations for any health problem. Waiting lists for treatment are very long.

Traditionally, NHS care and treatment provision for mental ill health has been a difficult area, where demand for service has overwhelmingly outstripped supply; the pandemic has made this situation worse. Mental ill health presents a major problem in our post-pandemic society. Many people have been adversely affected by the strains of the pandemic and developed mental ill health. Many people who had pre-existing mental health problems have seen their symptoms worsen.

There is general inequality of service for mental healthcare provision in the UK and across the world. If you access the webpages of the various organisations below, you will find lots of information on this. Living with a system of inequality is something that most of us struggle with. Inequality of mental health support provision applies equally in workplaces. I believe it is therefore important that people take advantage of good support when they have it available. The University has a strong offering of mental health support for its staff, superior or at least equal to that of many organisations, including higher educational establishments. There is a dedicated area of the University intranet which brings together information on all the support available: Mental Health Support at Kent One Stop Shop Information at this site includes:

• How to access the Employee Assistance Programme
• How to access support through OH, especially Management Referrals for adjustments at work to help with significant levels of mental ill health or rehabilitation back to full working following absence due to mental ill health
• Training courses and modules available on mental health and wellbeing. This includes how to become a Mental Health Ally
• Support Network groups and societies available including the University Health & Wellbeing Yammer Community
• Books and resources available from the library: the Staff Wellbeing Reading List
• An online i-resilience tool formulated by one the experts in wellbeing and resilience at work in the UK, Robertson-Cooper, who are linked to the University of Manchester
• Accessing exercise facilities: Kent Sport; Campus Walks and the Vice-Chancellor’s Cup. Exercise is known to help with positive mental health and wellbeing:

The reason I am revisiting this in this blog post is that it is relevant to the MIND theme: ‘If we can do one thing, we can change everything’. Maybe the one thing you could do, as a staff member, is to go and read the information on the University’s  Mental Health Support at Kent One Stop Shop. This is so you can have the information ready to help a colleague who might be facing mental health problems; it would be invaluable to be able to quickly signpost them to somewhere they can access help and resources. This is doubly so if you are a manager at the University, so that you can help members of your team.

Make it your one thing to do; perhaps, one day, it will change everything for one person you have contact with, or even yourself.

World Federation for Mental Health website – WMH 2021

World Health Organisation website – WMH 2021

Mental Health UK website – WMH 2021

 MIND website – WMH 2021

One year after winning a £100k Philip Leverhulme Prize in Law, Kent Law School Professor Emily Grabham has received her award at an event in London.

Delayed by the Coronavirus pandemic, the prizes for 2020 recipients were presented by Sir Keith Thomas CH FBA, at the Philip Leverhulme Prize Gala Dinner held in Plaisterer’s Hall on 21 September.

Philip Leverhulme Prizes are awarded to researchers whose work has had international impact and whose future research career is exceptionally promising.

Professor Grabham has achieved international recognition for her research over the last ten years, attracting numerous competitive grants, and gaining multiple national prizes. Her work champions an influential emerging field of scholarship on the relationship between law and time. She argues that paying attention to how people think about, and experience, time is crucial to understanding how equality laws work.

Since completing her work on the Future of Legal Gender, an ambitious project on the legal regulation of sex and gender in England & Wales, Professor Grabham is working on A Day at a Time, a project which explores the everyday experience of time in the Coronavirus pandemic.

It’s one of two ambitious empirical studies that the Leverhulme prize money has enabled Professor Grabham to undertake and which she hopes will reach a wide public audience.

The second, on ‘Legislative Drafting’, builds on her work on the Future of Legal Gender project. For this, Professor Grabham will conduct a multi-sited ethnographic study applying insights from legislative drafting to key debates in legal theory.

Last week, Professor Grabham’s most recent book, Women, Precarious Work and Care: The Failure of Family-friendly Rights, was published by Bristol University Press. Drawing on interviews with women in precarious work, the book exposes the everyday problems faced by workers balancing work and care.

Don’t forget to keep a space in your diaries for Climate Action Week at the end of October!

Working in conjunction with a Canterbury-wide climate action week, organised by Canterbury Climate Action Partnership (CCAP) and involving Canterbury BID, councils and others, we have got a great week planned from Monday 25 – Friday 29 October.

Taking place in the run-up to COP26 (the 26th UN Climate Change Conference), we will be holding a series of events focused on sustainability at Kent and celebrating the launch of the University’s Sustainability Strategy.

To see the plan for the week, please visit our Climate Action Webpage, which we’ll continue to update as content for some of the events is finalised.

Among events taking place are:

Launch of the University of Kent’s Sustainability Strategy – Tuesday 26 October – 12.00-13.00

Introduced by Professor Richard Reece, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education and Student Experience, this free online event will include a presentation given by Catherine Morris, Environmental Adviser, of the four major themes running through the strategy and a panel discussion. Please register in advance – details on how to do so will be updated to the webpage.

COP26@Kent: Co-Create your campus of the future – Thursday 28 October – 12.00-14.00

The Sustainability Team is inviting everyone to take part in a special event hosted in the Gulbenkian to co-create the campus of the future. They’ll be showcasing key areas of sustainability activity at the University and asking students, staff and community members to have their say and share their ideas of how we might transform these areas into truly sustainable and innovative good practice exemplars.

For more details on events taking place from 26-29 October, please visit the Climate Action Week webpage.

One of our first Signature Research Themes, Migration and Movement has unveiled an exciting programme of research and public engagement events this Autumn.

Designed to showcase outstanding work across the theme and to stimulate new interdisciplinary conversations, the events are open to all Kent colleagues, as well as members of the public.

Dates for your diary include:

Wednesday 13 October – Launch: Countering Hostile Environments’
From 15.00-17.00, School of Arts, Jarman 1, followed by a drinks reception from 17.00-18.00 in Jarman Foyer – 13 October.

To launch the Migration and Movement SRT, and in preparation for the visit of The Walk, Dr Rachel Gregory Fox, Dr Bahriye Kemal, and Dr Jonathan Rock Rokem will discuss their current research projects, each of which considers hostile asylum and immigration regimes and how they can be countered. Chaired by Professor David Herd, this session will address the implications of the new Nationality and Borders Bill and how a politics of expulsion can be resisted through research.

Following the panel, Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin will lead an open discussion on the question: ‘What does Migration Mean to You?’ designed to help SRT members start shaping the Theme’s work.

The event is free but please book your place via Eventbrite. It will be live-streamed for those unable to make it in person.

Thursday 21 October – The Walk: Welcoming Amal to the University of Kent
Procession from Canterbury Cathedral to our campus from 12–14.00 and Refugee Tales welcome event from 19.00-20.30 in Gulbenkian Theatre.

In collaboration with Refugee Tales and the Institute for Cultural and Creative Industries, the Migration and Movement SRT is delighted to welcome Amal and The Walk (see image below) to the University of Kent. Find out more about joining the procession and/or our evening welcome event in our Staff News story.

Book your tickets now for our Refugee Tales Welcomes Amal event on the Gulbenkian webpages.

 Various dates in October – Just An Other Crossing

You may have noticed a sea container outside Gulbenkian this week – this is a new instillation by Local Foreigner. In this immersive installation you find yourself on a boat travelling the channel through virtual reality film and the live amplification of your heart beat.

Its free! You can just turn up on specific dates in October – details can be found on the Gulbenkian website.

Friday 12 November – Suppliant Women by The Foreign Office
Pre-show drinks from 18.00-19.30 in Gulbenkian Café and post-show talk from 21.15 in Gulbenkian Theatre.

Centring on a community chorus of women fleeing Egypt and seeking refuge in Argos to escape forced marriage, Suppliant Women is one of the oldest surviving Greek plays. This captivating production by The Foreign Office revives a remarkably contemporary tragedy about migration and the ethical dilemma of hospitality, blending music, dance and drama in a distinctive stage language that will strike audiences as both strange and familiar. It is an opportunity to engage with themes of migration in ancient Greece and its present-day resonances. Book your tickets now on the Gulbenkian webpages.

Wednesday 17 November – Head2Head: Migration and the non-human: Thinking about symbiotic assemblages of movement
From 15.00-17.00 online.

Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin chairs this dynamic session, which steps away from traditional academic presentation formats and embraces the “Head2Head” approach highlighting the importance of rapid fire, synergies-in-action discussion. Being truly inter-disciplinary can be difficult and using H2H enables blue sky thinking by decoupling ideas from disciplinary confines. Migration has often been linked to human movement, but what about non-human agents such as migration of blood and tissue, knowledge systems and curating of migrant spaces?

Using Joanne Latimer’s concept of post-human assemblages, we pay attention to the migration of objects, bodily and fleshy parts, memories and curated objects, as a way of making sense of the political assemblage of migrant subjectivities. Speakers will include: Dr Matt Whittle (School of English) Dr Jill Shepherd (School of Biosciences) and Dr Sukvinder Bhamra (Medway School of Pharmacy). A registration link will be circulated nearer the time.

Wednesday 8 December – ‘Migration and Creative Practice’
From 15.00-17.00 in the Dockyard Church at Medway campus.

This final Migration and Movement SRT event of the Autumn term explores different ways in which notions of cultural intimacy, hybridity and appropriation are perceived in the fields of poetry, theatre and music. Three practice-based researchers – Minna Jeffery, Drama by Practice as Research PhD candidate in the School of Arts; Winsome Monica Minott, a poet and Creative Practice PHD candidate in the School of English; and Richard Lightman, record producer, composer, musician and Head of the Centre for Music and Audio Technology at Kent – will present and discuss their ongoing creative projects. A booking link will be circulated nearer the time and the event will be live-streamed.

SHARE YOUR VIEWS

We look forward to you joining us to help shape the work of the Migration and Movement SRT. Please feel free to get in touch with us at: srt-mm-lead@kent.ac.uk.

Professor David Herd (School of English), Dr Margherita Laera (School of Arts, Drama), Dr Tom Parkinson (Centre for the Study of Higher Education) and Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin (School of Social Policy Sociology and Social Research)

We are currently putting together our schedule for Staff Webchats over the Autumn term, ensuring everyone has a chance to hear directly from those working on the University’s key initiatives and can put their questions across. 

Topics planned so far include: 

• USS pensions – reflecting on recent changes and open to all but targeted towards colleagues who are members of the scheme. This webchat will take place on Wednesday 13 October, 12.00-13.00. Find out more and register to join the session on Teams. 
• Sustainability – highlighting events around Climate Action Week, COP26 and the launch of the University Sustainability Strategy in late October. 
• KentVision – updating on latest developments and upcoming changes based on staff and student feedback. 
• University finances – talking through our annual accounts when they are published later in the year 

Got an idea for other topics you’d like to know more about and/or have your say on? Let us know by emailing the Communications team and help us shape the schedule through the year!