Becky Wyatt, Keynes College Receptionist is the winner of the September 2018 Pride Award. The Personal Responsibility in Delivering Excellence Award recognised Becky’s ‘consistent exceptional customer service throughout the years’ as well as ‘playing a key role in assisting with the processing of all guest feedback for the 2018 conference season.’

 Becky helped compile almost 600 individual items of guest feedback received either verbally, through written feedback forms, or online reviews, into one document where feedback is monitored, analysed and responded to by Kent Hospitality.

 Extracts from Becky’s nomination read:

 ‘To have completed this mammoth task of compiling invaluable guest feedback in addition to all other reception duties, without ever compromising her exceptionally high working standards, proves Becky’s continued commitment to delivering excellence in her role. Becky is a highly valued member of the reception team, she always delivers outstanding customer service professionally, with a smile, and is proud to represent Kent Hospitality. I cannot think of anyone, who with such consistency and attitude, better embodies what the Pride award is designed to recognise and reward.’

 Any Kent Hospitality staff (permanent or casual) may be nominated from Canterbury and Medway campuses. The award is given in March, June, September/October and December with each winner receiving £100 of shopping vouchers, a certificate and a Pride pin badge.

 It’s really easy to nominate a member of the Kent Hospitality team for a Pride Award. Just visit the Pride website and complete our online form or go into your nearest college reception to complete a nomination.

 The closing date for the next Pride Award is Wednesday 5 December 2018 at 12 noon.

Cellular Dynamics – a collaboration between the School of Biosciences and the Music Department – will feature in the Norwich Science Festival, Monday 22 October, at 19.00 in the Norwich Octagon.

Cellular Dynamics merges cutting-edge biological research with live musical performance. It explores fundamental biological processes and concepts – such as cell growth and division, neural development, and synthetic biology – through projection of images and video derived from research undertaken at Kent. Curated and presented by Professor Dan Lloyd from the School of Biosciences, the performance features musical repertoire for piano duo – including Ravel, Debussy, Glass and others – selected and performed in collaboration with Daniel Harding, Deputy Director of Music, and Matthew King (Professor of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama).

Cellular Dynamics has previously featured in the Cheltenham Science Festival, and has been selected for the British Council SPARK Festival in Hong Kong (January 2019). Previous incarnations have included performances in the Canterbury Festival, and with chorus and string orchestra in the Colyer-Fergusson Hall.

International Partnerships will be hosting the following event during Go Abroad Fortnight:

‘Staff can go abroad!’ – Erasmus Opportunities
Friday 19 October, 11.00 – 12.00 – Keynes Seminar Room 4
Learn about the opportunities to undertake staff training at our partner universities across Europe.

For more information, please visit our website.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Kent County Cricket Club is offering University of Kent staff and students a special rate to attend their annual Fireworks Night. Taking place on Monday 5 November 2018, gates to The Spitfire Cricket Ground in Canterbury will open at 17.00. The evening offers a night of entertainment in addition to the fireworks display with live bands and a funfair from 17.30.

Enter the code ‘uni2018’ when buying tickets online in advance to receive the 25% discount making a single adult ticket only £6.

Visit the Kent Cricket website for more information.

International Partnerships will be hosting the following event during Go Abroad Fortnight:

‘Mobility Beyond Medway’ – Erasmus Opportunities
Tuesday 23 October, 14.00 – 15.00 – M1-22, Medway
Learn about the opportunities to undertake staff training at our partner universities across Europe.

For more information, please visit our website.

We look forward to seeing you there!

As you may know, the Programme Approval and Curriculum Design project (formerly part of the Simplifying Kent programme of projects) has been running for the last two years, reviewing current practice and a range of proposals and options relating to the ways in which programmes and modules are approved and reviewed, the structure within which the University’s taught programmes operate, and other areas related to curriculum design.

The project is reaching the end of its current phase, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank all colleagues who have had input into the project, either as members of the Stakeholder Group, or through the meetings, consultation sessions, and focus groups we have held throughout the last two years. We have greatly valued everyone’s contributions and have made many changes in response to people’s feedback and ideas. The University has lots to be proud of, but we also face some problematic issues and it has been good to see so many people engaged in trying to solve them.

We have prepared a final recommendations report, detailing the work we have done, options we have considered, and the recommendations the project team is making to Senate. We would welcome your thoughts and comments on this report before we present it in November.

All members of staff are invited to access the executive summary of our report, and the full report itself, via the project’s Sharepoint site.

All thoughts and comments will be gratefully received via email at skone@kent.ac.uk and/or at one of the consultation sessions we have planned to be held in the latter half of this month. If you would find it useful for Jon to come out to meet with you and/or your team to discuss any of the recommendations in more detail, please get in touch via skone@kent.ac.uk

We will be holding consultation sessions open to any and all interested colleagues at the Canterbury and Medway campuses on the following dates and times:

Canterbury

• 11.00-13.00, Friday 19 October – Cornwallis East Seminar Room 1
• 14.00-16.00, Friday 19 October – Cornwallis East Seminar Room 1
• 12.00-14.00, Monday 22 October – Cornwallis North West Seminar Room 7

Medway

• 11.00-13.00, Thursday 25 October – PK127, Pilkington Building

Jon Beer – Project Manager and Simon Kirchin – Project Lead

Scholars from across faculties at Kent are welcome to attend a two-day interdisciplinary workshop exploring Roman Law across the ages.

‘Recollecting Roman Law: Ancient perspectives on the contemporary’ is the first event of the year for the Kent Centre for Critical Thought (CCT) and its affiliated Law and History Research Group, Clio.

The workshop has been organised by Kent Law School Professor Maria Drakopoulou and Professor Alain Pottage (London School of Economics).

Professor Drakopoulou, Co-Director of CCT, said: ‘The theme of the workshop is the exploration of Roman Law with reference to contemporary legal studies. We take “Roman Law” to refer, not only to classical Roman Law, but to its various “incarnations” during medieval and early modern times.’

Together with Professor Drakopoulou and Professor Pottage, participants include:

Dr Jose Bellido (Kent Law School)

Julia Chryssostalis (University of Westminster)

Professor Peter Goodrich (Cardozo Law School)

Professor Martti Koskeniemmi (University of Helsinki)

Marta Madero (Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento and L’Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales)

Dr Edward Mussawir (Griffith Law School)

Professor Paolo Napoli (L’Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales)

Dr Connal Parsley (Kent Law School)

The workshop programme, hosted in Darwin Board Room (Darwin College), comprises:

Friday 19 October

15.00 – 17.00

• ‘In vitam humanum: Comedy, Office, Law’ (Peter Goodrich)
• ‘Several bees or a full swarm? The case thinks the law’ (Ed Mussawir)

17.30 – 19.30

• ‘The influence of Roman law on theology: the case of the Epistles to Timothy and Titus (end 1st century AD)’ (Paolo Napoli)
• ‘The hermaphrodite’ (Marta Madero)

Saturday 20 October

09.30 – 11.30

• ‘Jus gentium. The power of a middle concept’ (Martti Koskenniemi)
• ‘Mauss and the anthropology of nexum‘ (Alain Pottage)

12.00 – 14.00

• ‘Nature, Bodies, Blood and the question of personhood in Roman law’ (Maria Drakopoulou)
• Panel discussion

The Centre for English and World Languages (CEWL) is offering Individual Writing Tutorials to give you the opportunity to discuss your academic writing with a member of staff from CEWL. Advice will be given on the structure, coherence and cohesion of your work. Individual sessions last 30 minutes each and are free of charge.

Tutorials are available all year. To make an appointment, please email us at cewl@kent.ac.uk.