An update for all staff, including latest information on academic progression, working on campus and rent reductions for our students.

Academic progression 2020-21

As you will be aware, we have currently suspended face-to-face teaching for most of our study programmes. This means that a large proportion of our students are being taught via online methods and the vast majority of them are studying from their permanent homes. We are planning for the lockdown restrictions to last until 1 March 2021; however, this date is provisional and linked to whether rates of infection start to decline across our country.

Understandably, many students are questioning how the coronavirus pandemic will affect their academic progression and ultimate degree classification. Staff are working incredibly hard to ensure no students are disadvantaged because of the pandemic and that academic standards can be maintained across the University.

We are currently updating our no detriment policy for the 2020-21 academic year. This includes offering greater flexibility for mitigation applications and making processes easier for students to follow. We will also be extending deadlines where feasible, including offering an additional week’s extension for deadlines due between now and the end of the second week of term (29 January).

It’s hard to believe that it is just over a week since the University reopened after the Christmas vacation. During this time, lockdown has meant that, once again, we have had to change how we work, and a tremendous amount of work continues to take place across University to enable us to comply with Government legislation, as well as delivering our day-to-day activities.

I am grateful for all that you continue to do and know that many of you are facing increasing workloads. I would like to reassure you that this is something the Executive Group is taking seriously, and we are looking at how we might reduce the pressure and seeking to provide additional support at this time.

As we begin 2021, I wanted to say a word about our finances. As you know, thanks to the efforts of all staff, considerable progress has been made towards our underlying savings targets. We have also now reached a further long-term agreement with our lenders, which provides us with a platform to complete our Financial Improvement Programme and return our finances to a sustainable footing. Covid, however, continues to present short-term challenges, which we will have to continue to address in the face of ongoing uncertainty. We are now having to manage the impact of the six-week rent refund we have given to students unable to access their campus accommodation. We need to continue to limit expenditure to essential spend only so that we can protect the critical spend needed on income generation through, for example, supporting student recruitment and our research and innovation activities. Given the ongoing national situation we are also conscious that the return to campus remains very unclear and we are going to have to plan for further income losses.

I am pleased, however, to say that last week’s virtual open day attracted nearly 3,000 visitors, including prospective students from more than 100 countries as well as from the UK. While applications across the sector are lower than normal at this point, predominantly as a result of Covid, and we still have a lot of work to do to increase student numbers at this time, this response was really heartening.

Despite the challenges we face, we continue to make a major contribution to our communities and the region. Kent Business School’s fourth business summit on Friday will bring together business leaders, politicians, local government representatives and academics with the aim of developing an economic recovery roadmap for the region. At the same, through our Knowledge Exchange and Innovation department, we have launched a Recovery Innovation Fund which aims to support businesses to innovate and grow following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Kent and Medway Medical School has got off to a great start with over 108 students and continues to receive unwavering support from across the region, not just from healthcare professionals but from the general public. You can read more about its achievements in the Leadership Blog by Professor Chris Holland, the Dean of KMMS.

I was also delighted to learn of Professor Stephen Peckham’s appointment to a new expert panel as a policy advisor by the House of Commons’ cross-party Health and Social Care Select Committee. Stephen, who is Director of the Centre for Health Services Studies, is one of the country’s leading experts in this field.

Finally, at 15.30 today, we will be holding the first of our weekly staff web chats. Chaired by Professor Richard Reece, Deputy Vice-Chancellor – Education and Student Experience, who is leading on our Covid response, these meetings will give all staff the chance to get the latest updates and to ask questions of the senior management team. If you have yet to sign-up, please do so and I look forward to seeing many of you at today’s meeting.

With my very best wishes to you and your family,

Karen

Professor Karen Cox | Vice-Chancellor and President

From Brenda Brunsdon, Occupational Health and Wellbeing Team Manager

One of the biggest pressures arising out of the lockdown phases is that on parents to organise home schooling for their children. This is even greater where one or both parents are working from home. It is a difficult balancing act, giving your offspring the time they need with school work assistance and fulfilling your own work commitments. There is additional pressure from sharing the internet for computer usage and for Teams/Zoom meetings. On top of that there is a need to undertake preparation, for example, printing off work sheets, and producing feedback to the school on the work your child/children have completed.

Colleagues and friends have voiced how they are finding this element of the lockdown experience very difficult. Below is information on what is available to help, and articles by experts advocating different tips and approaches in relation to this area.

A lot of the influencers recommend building a structure to the home-schooling day. This is because it provides the children with an expectation of what is going to happen and that is supposed to help. However, there is an opposite viewpoint, perhaps rooted in an approach called ‘unschooling’. This recommends a more grassroots way of doing things. The belief is that children will gain the knowledge that they need from any activity; instructional, creative, or leisure.

However, there is a general consensus that parents who are home-schooling need to cut themselves some slack. ‘Be patient and don’t be too hard on yourself’. Perhaps read the article by Jan Barton Packer, below; her experiences will resonate with many: ‘I felt wretched, like a failure in every role I was meant to be doing.’ Her resolution for Lockdown 3 is to do it differently: ‘More detrimental than missing out on some worksheets would be for my kids to see their mother, anxious and irritable, at the end of her tether, unable to be there to support them through a very stressful time. ‘

Resources are available to support home-schooling. Many experts recommend utilising the BBC resources available for Learning at Home. Many recommend the benefits of getting your children to watch other TV based material like documentaries or crafts-based programmes. The Joe Wicks PE classes have been reinstated. The Employee Assistance Programme has a webinar scheduled for Friday, 22 January: ‘Tips for Home Schooling & Keeping Children Occupied at Home’; 12:00-12:30; follow the link to register to attend. If you can’t attend on the day, the webinars are available later on the Care first website and on the University’s Staff Health and Wellbeing webpages.

If you are finding the conflicting pressures of home working and home schooling becoming too much, do speak to your manager to discuss any adjustments that can be put in place. This is what the University’s COPE framework for staff support is for. If the stress of juggling the various responsibilities in your life becomes overwhelming, contact the Employee Assistance Programme, freephone telephone 0808 168 2143; someone is there to speak to you any time of the day or night.

‘Supporting your child’s education through coronavirus (Covid 19)’: guidance on gov.uk

How to balance working from home with childcare’ on Benenden Health website

’11 Essential Home Schooling Tips’: on mumsnet.com

‘Parents and teachers share their top tips for home schooling’ by Charlotte Dobson on Manchester Evening News website

’ Home school help: How to keep children focussed and stress down during lockdown 3’ by Liam Doyle on the Express online

‘How to Reduce the Stress of Homeschooling on Everyone’ by school psychologist Rebecca Branstetter on the Greater Good Magazine online, part of Berkeley Educational Science

‘Home schooling expert urges parents to ignore ‘outdated advice after classrooms shut across country’ by Ian Hughes on Stoke Sentinel website, (expert is Dr Harriet Pattison of Liverpool Hope University)

‘I’ve nothing left to give’: parents on home schooling in lockdown’ by Molly Blackall on the Guardian online

‘Why I won’t be homeschooling my kids this lockdown’ by Jen Barton Packer on Metro online

‘What is unschooling?’ on theschoolrun.com

‘Coronavirus and homeschooling in Great Britain: April to June 2020’: Office for National Statistics website

One of the University’s very first employees, Cynthia Hawes, died in the Kent and Canterbury Hospital just before Christmas, having suffered a stroke at her care home in Wye. Many Former Staff Association (FSA) colleagues will remember her as a diminutive but feisty lady, who was always kind and encouraging while letting people know exactly what she thought about… anything.

Cynthia’s first contact with the University was in April 1963 when she was interviewed for the post of secretary to the first Vice-Chancellor, Geoffrey Templeman, at Westgate House in St Dunstan’s Street, which was all there was of the University at that time. Having worked for the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (as it then was), Cynthia was ideally qualified for the post, and she was duly appointed. As the Vice-Chancellor’s secretary, Cynthia was based first in Westgate House and then at Beverley Farm before moving to the Registry building when it was completed in 1970. After Geoffrey Templeman retired in 1980, Cynthia continued to work for the new Vice-Chancellor, David Ingram, until transferring to the Graduate Studies Office as an Assistant Registrar. She spent the early years of her retirement caring for her widowed father, who lived near to her in Harkness Drive.

Away from her professional duties, Cynthia was a keen rock climber in her youth and later a dedicated hill walker until arthritis curtailed these activities. She was a long-serving singer in the University Choir and the Canterbury Choral Society and a regular and devoted worshipper at the Cathedral. After retiring, she trained as a volunteer welcomer at the Cathedral and spent her Friday mornings patiently explaining to visitors – often in passable French, though she was not a linguist – what it was they were looking at. She was particularly interested in St Gabriel’s Chapel in the crypt and knew a great deal about the murals there.

Cynthia was born in North London in 1934 and spent the war years as a child in Barnet. She was a pupil at the Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School in Barnet before going to Exeter University where she read history. She never married, but she was very close to her father and brother, and she had a wide circle of friends. She has a richly deserved place in the collective memory of the University as one of its founder members whose job placed her at the very centre of all that was happening in those early years. May she rest in peace.

Contributors: Mary Fox, Jane Millyard, John Butler

Canterbury campus facilities

From 11 January 2021, due to current national restrictions, all catering outlets, except for Rutherford Dining Hall, are closed until further notice.

You can find the opening hours for Rutherford here.

The Library Café is closed until further notice.

All sport and fitness facilities (with the exception of our Physiotherapy Clinic) will be temporarily closed until further notice.

The main Kent Union Plaza Co-op will stay closed until further notice, with the Park Wood Co-op remaining open to serve those still on site. You can see the availability of all the Kent Union services on their website.

Templeman Library opening hours

From Monday 11 January, Templeman Library’s new opening hours will be:

Mon – Fri 10.00 – 16.00
Sat -Sun closed

Please note that you now don’t need to renew or return any books, including document deliveries, till Friday 26 February inclusive.

See library and IT services COVID-19 updates.

Medway campus facilities 

Drill Hall library will be open at the following hours:

Monday to Friday – 9:00 to 19:00
Saturday and Sunday – 9:00 to 17:00

The sports facilities are closed until further notice.

Pilkington is open between 8:00 to 16:00 for food and drink.

Calling all PDRAs, Research Associates and Research Assistants: Apply for the Summer Vacation Research Competition 2021.

The Summer Vacation Research Competition is a fantastic opportunity to develop and/or strengthen non-academic skills such as people, project and financial management, all of which are essential for career progression within or beyond the world of research.

Now open for applications, the competition enables you to apply for funding worth up to £2500 to work with an undergraduate intern for 4-7 weeks on a research project of your choice.

Nine different summer vacation research projects will be funded in 2021, each of which will be associated with a particular Division and/or Signature Research Theme.

The closing date for applications is 15 February 2021.

For more details, please read the competition post, join us at the Q&A session on Thursday, 21 January 2021 from 1300-1400 or email svrc@kent.ac.uk.

Our official Employee Assistance Programme provider, Care first offers a numbers of services and provide useful advice and support, including weekly webinars.

This week’s (Monday 18 January – Friday 22 January) webinars are as follows:

Monday 18 January 2021 – ‘How Care first can support you’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link.

Tuesday 19 January 2021 – ‘Keeping yourself occupied during lockdown’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Wednesday 20 January 2021 – Supporting loved ones who are Key Workers’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Thursday 21 January 2021 – ‘Health Anxiety’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Friday 22 January 2021 – ‘Tips for Home Schooling & Keeping Children Occupied at Home’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link