Colleagues are invited to book a place at the ‘Developing your voice workshop’ taking place on Thursday 18 October 2018, 11.00am-12.30pm in the UELT Seminar Room, Canterbury.

This workshop brings the skills of the stage to the workplace. We aim to allow you to overcome any nervousness of public speaking and become more engaging in the way that you may address a group of people. We will give you the means and confidence to be yourself when in front of any audience. It will feature warm-ups, games and techniques which you can apply to any situation, including the lecture.

Led by Matt Hoss, a Kent Stand-up Comedian (BBC Newcastle Comedy Writer, Co-Host of Miffs Podcast and Eric Barker Award Winner 2015), School of Arts.

If you would like to attend please complete the online booking form

Lily a third-year Sociology with Quantitative Research student at the University of Kent has been working with Kent Television (KTV), the student-run television and film station, to help them be more accessible, for hard of hearing audience members – as she is one.

Eddie Thomas, the Distributions Supervisor explained to Lily why he felt it necessary to do this: ‘KTV grows every day and so does our audience. We understand the importance of making our content accessible to all members of our audience, hence why we are now making closed captioning and subtitling a main policy with our releases.’

Following discussions with Eddie, the distributions supervisor, KTV have agreed to turn closed captions on all of their content, at the point of release, and they are also endeavouring to backlog all their content and ensure that following this, the new procedures include turning captions on at the point of release.

Lily says, ‘I’m thrilled that my concerns were listened to by a student society and would like this to continue and be a university-wide policy: all videos to be captioned all the time. I’ve found that often, procedures to improve accessibility are also beneficial to others. Captions benefit; the deaf and hard of hearing, students for whom English isn’t their first language, and a wide variety of learners. In fact, everyone benefits when access is made easy for the widest group of people because, as the Government Digital Service say, ‘accessible design is good design’.

To find out more about what Lily is doing to make the University more accessible please visit their web page or contact:opera@kent.ac.uk.

In the first of this term’s FilmBites talks Dr Tamar Jeffers McDonald, Head of Film in the School of Arts, talks about Doris Day, her film roles and performances and explores the source of the enduring virgin myth which persists to this day.

Doris Day Confidential: Hollywood Sex and Stardom (2013)

Dr Tamar Jeffers McDonald commented , ‘I’ve been fascinated by the clashes between the way Day is commonly remembered, her star persona, and her actual work in films. When I set out to write this book I wanted to work out why people always say “Doris Day always plays a virgin”. What does it mean to “play a virgin”? What is it in her roles or performances that makes the automatic response? In exploring these questions I found that very little the actor herself did accounted for this myth about her. I discovered instead that the movie magazines – cheap, colourful, numerous publications that swamped American news stands from 1911 to the early 1970s – were responsible for creating and eventually punishing Doris Day for the virgin myth.’

The FilmBites talks will showcase academic book publications by film lecturers at the University of Kent.

The talk will take place in the Templeman Library:

13:00 – 13:20 Thursday 11 October next to the DVD Collection in Block B, Ground Floor.

 Dr Antonio Lázaro-Reboll, Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies for the Department of Modern Languages, has won Leverhulme Trust funding for the visit of Professor Susana de la Sierra from Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha (Toledo, Spain). During her Visiting Professorship in the Autumn Term, Professor de la Sierra will be delivering two Leverhulme Lectures and contributing guest talks to undergraduate modules in the School of European Culture and Languages and in the School of Law, amongst other research activities. Professor de la Sierra was Director-General of the Spanish Institute for Cinema and Audiovisual Arts; the independent body responsible for the promotion of Spanish film, between 2012 and 2014. She is also an internationally recognized expert on comparative law and media-policy making as a method of European integration. Her visit to the inter-school Centre for Film and Media Research would allow her to contribute first-hand knowledge and expertise in the field of film policy to both the School of Arts and the School of European Culture and Languages.

For more about Susana de la Sierra’s upcoming Leverhulme lecture, please see here.

 Find out more about the Leverhulme Research Fellowship.

Fred Birkbeck, a 2018 graduate in Classical and Archaeological studies, will be revealing the results of his award winning dissertation consisting of a geophysical survey of the landscape surrounding the church of St Cosmus and St Damian in Blean.

Fred used geophysical survey techniques to confirm the existence of settlement activity in the seemingly empty fields to the east of the church whilst confirming the presence of a large long-forgotten medieval manor house and possible Roman villa in the adjacent field all land which is owned by the University of Kent.

Fred will be telling all during a fully illustrated public lecture at St Cosmus and St Damian Church, Tyler Hill Road, Blean, CT29HU on 5 October.  Entrance is free to all and refreshments will be provided.

The Corporate Events team is looking for volunteers to help during congregations for Medway and Canterbury – can you help?

 MEDWAY (Rochester Cathedral):

Wednesday 21 November (x2 ceremonies), 10.30, 14.30

 CANTERBURY (Canterbury Cathedral):

Friday 23 November (x3 ceremonies) 10.30, 14.30, 19.30

 This is a special day for all of our graduating students, and a great opportunity to be involved in a feel-good University event.

 We have a variety of roles available for volunteers, so whether you would like to be in the Cathedral for the ceremony, helping the graduands check-in, or managing the guest queue, there is something suitable for everyone.

 Things to know:

– Volunteers working two consecutive ceremonies will be provided with lunch or dinner in between their two shifts

– Volunteers can choose any ceremony ‘shifts’ from the above list, and full training will be available for your designated role.

– In any role, there will be a member of the congregations’ team on hand to support you

– Different roles will have different start and finish times due to the requirements of that role for the ceremony

– It’s a wonderful week and is a great opportunity to see any students that you have supported graduate.

 If you would like to get involved in November 2018 Congregations, we would be delighted to have you!

 To register your interest or to find out more about the roles available, please email congregations@kent.ac.uk with your preferred ceremony/ies or your query.

From Tuesday 9 October, the estateshelpdesk@kent.ac.uk inbox will no longer be in use; emails sent to this address after this date will not be forwarded.

Please address all enquiries to the Estates Customer Services team at estatescustomerservices@kent.ac.uk or ext 16666.

Estates Department

If you are considering an application for an individual National Teaching Fellowship or a team Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence please come along to a briefing session being held on Thursday 18 October 2018, 13:00 – 13:45, in the UELT Seminar Room, Canterbury.  The session will be presented by Fran Beaton, UELT, Academic Practice Team.

Every UK university can nominate up to three individuals annually for a National Teaching Fellowship Award, a process administered through the UK Higher Education Academy.  The aim of National Teaching Fellowship (NTF) awards is to recognise individual excellence in teaching and/or supporting higher education learning.  The HEA also recently developed an award to recognise the increasing importance of programme teams in teaching and student learning support: The Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE). While both NTFS and CATE are very competitive (55 NTF and 6 CATE awards are made nationally), University staff have enjoyed success, most recently in the 2017 and 2018 rounds.

This briefing is an opportunity to find out about the criteria, the application process, timescale and available support and hear about the experiences of previous NTFS and CATE winners.

Please email cpdbookings@kent.ac.uk to book a place.

As part of Kent’s Employability Festival 2018 the School of Engineering and Digital Arts are delighted to offer the following lecture:

Building Confidence, Developing Networks and Facilitating Career Progression on Wednesday 3 October from 1-2pm in Sibson Building (SIBLT2).

Key learning objectives:

• What recruiters are looking for in your soft-skills
• How to handle nerves and coping mechanisms for interviews
• Top tips for building self-confidence and understanding your personal brand
• Learning how to grow connections for benefitting your future career

The lecture will be delivered by guest speaker Vivienne Aiyela, Non Executive Director, The London Football Association, Senior Diversity & Inclusion Professional, Catalyst for Change.

The lecture is open to all students, book your space via Eventbrite.