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

The latest issue (14 November 2018) includes a summary of discussions held at the latest Senior Leadership Forum including the University’s ‘Cyber Essentials’ certification, the Wellbeing Zone app which staff can now sign up to, and the return of Pint of Science next year.

There is also an update on Executive Group meetings, including KentVision, a continued focus on recruitment and a discussion around the impact of Europe and Brexit on staff, students and University business. The “long read” by Deputy Vice-Chancellor – Education, Professor April McMahon, focuses on the next steps for TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework).

The Bulletin is distributed fortnightly to all members of the 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.

Find out more about the Leadership Bulletin and see previous issues on the OVC webpages.

We would like to invite members of staff at the University to participate in a six-week Hatha Yoga course starting in January 2019.

The yoga course is intended to improve wellbeing among members of staff who feel anxious and/or stressed or burnt out. The classes are suitable for beginners and we would like to recruit staff who have not attended a regular yoga class or practised yoga regularly in the last six months.

During the study, participants will attend a one-hour yoga lunchtime class each week at the Canterbury Campus.

Two different groups will receive slightly different interventions. This will allow us to compare improvements to wellbeing under each approach. We are hoping to recruit 40 members of staff in total and participants will be randomly allocated to each group. There will be about ten members of staff in each yoga class.

To evaluate the yoga course, we will measure participants’ wellbeing at the start of the course, at the end of the six-week course, and at a follow-up three months after the start of the course.  Information will also be collected when you register for the study to check that you are eligible to join the study and fit to practise yoga.

The weekly one-hour yoga classes will take place on Monday and Tuesday lunchtimes between 14 January 2019 and 5 March 2019 (excluding half-term week).

To register interest and to join this study, or for more information, email: Whysper@kent.ac.uk.

If you have any questions contact: Tracy Pellatt-Higgins, Centre for Health Services Studies, telephone 01227 827963.

This year’s Stirling Lecture will be delivered by renowned American psychologist and anthropologist, Professor Tanya Marie Luhrmann from Stanford University.  Her talk: ‘The Way We Think About Thinking Matters’.

Tanya Luhrmann’s work focuses on the edge of experience: on voices, visions, the supernatural and the world of psychosis. Drawing on ethnographic research with evangelical Christians, Zoroastrians, and people who practice magic she considers how persons experience psychosis in the US, Accra and Chennai.  In this lecture she argues that how we think about our minds matters, and that different cultures and theologies experience mind and mental process in distinctive ways.

This event is free and open to all.  Please register your interest here.

Event details:

Tuesday 4th December 2018, 18:00 – 20:00, Keynes Lecture Theatre 1, University of Kent, Canterbury

Further information can be found on the School of Anthropology and Conservation news and events page.

A new pilot phase of the government’s Settled Status scheme is now open to EU citizens at Kent.

What is the EU Settlement Scheme?

In advance of the UK’s exit from the EU on 29 March 2019, the UK government has committed to protect the rights of EU citizens and their family members currently living in the UK. To retain these rights after 31 December 2020, EU citizens must apply for UK immigration status under the EU Settlement Scheme. Further detail on the Settlement Scheme can be found on GOV.UK.

What is the pilot?

The Home Office is testing the Scheme through a series of pilots ahead of the public launch. This second phase of the pilot runs until 21 December 2018 and covers employees in the higher education and health and social care sectors.

Participation in this pilot allows EU citizens to apply early and gives the Home Office an opportunity to test the application process. Successful applicants will not need to apply again for the same status once the scheme opens fully next year.

Making an application during this pilot phase is entirely voluntary and there will be no change to the current rights under EU law until the end of the planned implementation period on 31 December 2020. For those who choose not to apply during this phase, the scheme is fully open by 30 March 2019 and at any time up until 30 June 2021.

Irish citizens enjoy a right of residence in the UK that is not reliant on the UK’s membership of the EU. They will not be required to apply for status under the EU Settlement Scheme, but may do so if they wish.

Further information on the Scheme can be found on the HR EU Referendum webpages or enquires can be sent to staffEUqueries@kent.ac.uk

You are warmly invited to attend the Centre for English and World Languages’ Language Exchange evening on Monday 19th November from 18:00-19:00 in the Chipperfield Atrium.

The event is open to native speakers and learners of Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic and Japanese and will be an opportunity for students and staff to practice their language skills in a friendly environment.

Please click here to book your place. Alternatively, you are more than welcome to turn up on the night.

If you would like more information about the evening, please feel free to contact us.

A copy of the ‘Encyclopedia of Buddhist Art’ by Fo Guang Shan’s Monastery has been donated to the Templeman Library. To celebrate, the nuns will be running an open workshop to help you use the resource! You can book a place for free.

The event will be taking place on Wednesday 21st of November at 16:00 in D|G|01 (D Block, Ground Floor). It will be run by members of the Fo Guang Shan London study group and will cover:

• the role of art and culture in the propagation of Buddhism
• the ways in which Buddhist practices can be integrated into everyday life
• how art and culture can aid communication between people of all walks of life, different nationalities and backgrounds

Fo Guang Shan is an international Buddhist organisation based in Taiwan but with branch temples around the world, including London and Manchester. It has strong links to the University of Kent and has collaborated on research and education activities with the School of Anthropology and Conservation and the Religious Studies Department. As part of its commitment to the promotion and preservation of culture, including the visual arts, the organisation has spent years compiling a twenty-volume encyclopaedia of Buddhist art, and has donated a copy to the University of Kent.

Don’t miss out on the last Alumni Pub Night of the year in Canterbury!

A great chance to meet people studying at the University as well as those who have left and moved on to a range of different careers. November’s pub night will be a chance to meet our current Alumni Postgraduate Scholars who are supported by the University’s charity, the Kent Opportunity Fund.

Speak to the scholars about their research, what it’s like to study a PhD or ask them anything you would like to know! There will be one free drink per attendee and a light buffet will be served. To receive your free drink please register here.

We will be at the Miller’s Arms pub in Canterbury from 18.00 – 20.00 on Tuesday 27 November. We look forward to seeing you there!

If you have any questions or would like to register via person please call 01227 816055 or email N.Fleet@kent.ac.uk.

Colleagues are invited to the CSHE Seminar taking place on Thursday 22 November, from 13.00-14.00 in the UELT Seminar Room, Canterbury.

The seminar, on using multidimensional methods in higher education research: The case for critical discourse analysis, will be presented by Dr Karen Smith, School of Education, University of Hertfordshire.

In this seminar, Dr Karen Smith will share her experiences of using critical discourse analysis (CDA) in higher education research. She will discuss her initial work, which focused on the textual analysis of policy documents. She will then go on to talk through how she developed her work following a literature review exploring how CDA was being used more broadly in higher education research. Karen will use research, published in HERD, which combined textual analysis of a policy text with in-depth interviews with policy-makers and policy users as an example to talk through the methodological choices she made. Karen will finish by sharing her ongoing collaborative research that combines methods from corpus linguistics with focus groups and interviews, reflecting on the challenges Karen and her co-author have faced in the writing up of this kind of research.

Please see abstract.

To confirm your attendance please complete the online booking form.