The Universities at Medway have been awarded a further significant donation to The Medway Student Support Bursary.  This donation will provide bursaries to home (UK/EU) students from Canterbury Christ Church University, University of Greenwich and the University of Kent each year.  This is an excellent opportunity to apply for additional funding and the selected recipients will receive a bursary of £1,250 (Spring applications).

Applying for this bursary is easy. Check the eligibility criteria below, if you meet the requirements, all you need to do is complete the attached application form and return it along with the required evidence by the deadline. The Selection Criteria and Important Notes below will provide guidance on this.

The deadline to apply by is 12 noon on 8 February 2019 (Spring Term applications)

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA OF THE MEDWAY STUDENT SUPPORT BURSARY
In order to be eligible to apply for The Medway Student Support Bursary you must:

• be a home student (UK/EU)
• be currently registered full or part-time on an undergraduate degree programme based at the Medway Campus
• demonstrate a household income of £42,875 or less

SELECTION CRITERIA OF THE MEDWAY STUDENT SUPPORT BURSARY
Your application will be considered on the basis of your fulfilment of the eligibility criteria and the 350-500 word statement sections demonstrating:

• why you are in need of financial support and what has changed in your financial circumstances since embarking on the programme
• what the award will be used for (See important note below)
• information about you and your aims and aspirations for the future
• You may want to include additional information relating to volunteering or ambassadorial work that you have done or are planning to do within the local community e.g. voluntary work, paid work, sports contributions, community activity organisations such as the Scouts etc.)

Important notes:

• awards will not fund general (exceptional travel may be considered) programme travelling expenses or new equipment such as laptops or phones
• awards are intended for the student‘s use only and not for family support
• The first payment will only be made upon submission of a thank you letter to the donors outlining how the Bursary will be used to support the Bursary recipient.
• The second payment will only be made upon submission of a report outlining how the Bursary has supported the Bursary recipient and how this support has impacted on their academic studies.
• successful recipients will be able to hold other awards whilst in receipt of the Medway Student Support Bursary such as the NSP and may reapply for a further bursary in subsequent years
• successful recipients will be required to sign a Bursary Agreement which sets out the conditions of the bursary award
• payment of the bursary will be suspended immediately, and any payments may be required to be returned, if an awardee:

(i)            ceases to hold an offer of a place at any of the Universities,

(ii)           ceases to be a registered student at any of the Universities,

(iii)          becomes a debtor to any of the three Universities,

(iv)          is found to have made a misrepresentation or misleading or fraudulent statement in connection with his/her application

• recipients are expected to remain in satisfactory academic standing
• students out on a placement year are not eligible for that year, but may apply once academic studies are resumed
• successful recipients will be required to write a report to the board detailing how the bursary has supported them and how this support has impacted on their academic studies.  The deadline for submission of the report by the Medway Student Support Bursary recipients is 24 May 2019 (Spring applications).
• All applications confirmed as meeting the eligibility criteria will be taken forward. The bursary recipient(s) will be chosen by the Medway Student Support Bursary Board which will meet in early March (Spring applications) and all applicants will be advised of the outcome shortly afterwards.

The Medway Student Support Bursary application form is available for download as a Word document here.

Your completed application along with all required evidence can be scanned and emailed to us at medwaymastersoffice@kent.ac.uk or a paper application can be submitted to M2-13 (Medway Building 2nd Floor).

We look forward to receiving your application and remember, the deadline is 12 noon on the 8 February 2019 (Spring applications).

Acting in accordance with the Higher Education Code of Governance and the Office for Students Audit requirements, the University Council has established a Register of Interests for members of Council and for all staff.  It is at the discretion of individual members of staff what, if any, interests they declare.  It should be noted, however, that declaration provides a protection for the University and individuals against any possible allegations of impropriety.

For the purposes of the Register an interest is defined to be any financial or other personal interest an individual may have in any relationship or proposed relationship between the University and an external body.  This would include consultancy, employment, directorship or other activity within a commercial concern, shareholding, or membership of statutory and public authorities.  Other education establishments and companies with which the University has an actual or potential business relationship should also be included, as should any interest that a family member might have that could give the appearance of a conflict, even where no actual conflict exists.

The following documents can be accessed on the Council Secretariat website.

1. Policy on Disclosure of Interest
2. Declaration Form for University Staff

The University’s Policy on Personal Benefit can be found online too.

All staff are invited to submit new or updated declarations for incorporation in the 2018/2019 Register. Council Secretariat will be pleased to provide confidential advice to any member of staff on this matter.

The latest issue of the Leadership Bulletin, designed to give an overview of key developments at Kent, is now available.

The latest issue (23 January 2019) includes congratulations from our Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Karen Cox, to all involved in the award of £4.3m from the Cultural Development Fund and in bringing together leaders from business, local government and academia for the Kent Business Summit in our Sibson Building.

There is also an update on Executive Group and Extended Executive Group (Executive Group plus Deans) meetings, including discussions on University innovation and on postgraduate students..

The ‘Long Read’ focuses on International Kent and is written by Professor Karen Cox and Anthony Manning, Dean for Internationalisation.

The Bulletin is distributed fortnightly to all members of the Senior Leadership Forum to cascade to staff in schools and professional service departments. If you haven’t received your copy yet, you can read the bulletin online.

Location: Royal Dockyard Church, Chatham Dockyard

Date and time: Wed 27 Feb, 19.30

The Chineke! Foundation was established in 2015 to provide career opportunities to young Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) classical musicians in the UK and Europe. The Chineke! Ensemble will be performing in Chatham this February, with tickets free for all students and staff (£10 for public).

Strauss (arranged Franz Hasenoehrl) Till Eulenspiegel einmal anders! (8 mins)

Florence Price String Quartet in G (1929) European premiere (13 mins)

Beethoven Septet in E flat Op 20 (42 mins)

Chineke!’s motto is: ‘Championing change and celebrating diversity in classical music’. The Chineke! Ensemble is comprised of exceptional musicians from across the continent brought together multiple times per year.

The event has been organised by University of Kent Arts&Culture, and tickets can be booked online.

Dr Lavinia Brydon, Lecturer in Film and Media in the School of Arts, has won a place on a British Academy and Academy of Science South Africa collaborative workshop. Taking place in Gauteng on Thursday 21 – Saturday 23 February, the workshop will explore the theme ‘Urban Lives’.

More than half of the world’s population currently lives in cities, and this is projected to increase to almost five billion by 2030, with the majority of the urban growth concentrated in Africa and Asia.

The challenges and opportunities of living in an urban environment need responded to in a number of ways, drawing together academic, aesthetic, artistic, literary and policy perspectives and thought.

This workshop aims to bring together early career researchers based in the UK and South Africa who are able to contribute multiple disciplinary and cross-regional insights from the humanities and the social sciences to our understanding of urban life.

Lavinia’s research interests extend from the representation of place on screen to location filming, screen media tourism, DIY arts practices (including pop-up cinemas) and the construction of leisure spaces. She is looking forward to growing these interests within the ‘urban lives’ theme and with researchers who can offer different disciplinary perspectives and take her beyond the British context that she usually works within.

To read the full details about the workshop, please see the British Academy page.

Dr Frances Guerin, Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts, has just been interviewed for the podcast series This Is Not A Pipe Podcast.

This Is Not A Pipe Podcast explores critical theory, cultural studies and philosophy. It takes its name from the title of the painting by René Magritte.

In the episode, Frances discusses her book The Truth is Always Grey: A History of Modernist Painting (University of Minnesota Press, 2018).

In particular, Frances considers the question of what grey is: ‘It’s such an interesting question. The way that it is spelt even – is it grey or gray – how do we even write grey, and what is it? There’s this big question mark that sits over the colour grey’, she explains, ‘I think a lot of that is because we don’t pay much attention to grey.’

‘There’s this assumption that grey is all about reflecting depression; and the metaphor I always give is  the London sky, which is depressing and its gloomy, and we think of grey as describing the approach of death. And when painters and critics talk about grey, they talk about it as not a colour – they’ll say it’s colourless, or a non-colour, or somehow the same as black and white.’ And yet, in the episode, Frances goes on to explain why this is not the case and argues for the richness and vibrancy of the colour.

To find out why, you can listen to the episode on the This Is Not A Pipe Podcast page.