LSSJ Research Festival – 7th and 8th July 2022

The Division for the study of Law, Society and Social Justice (LSSJ) Research Festival will be taking place in July.

When

Thursday 7 July 2022 in Medway from 14.00 – 18.00 in the Rochester Boardroom
Friday 8 July 2022 in Canterbury from 9.15 – 18.00 in Darwin Conference Suite

The content is primarily internally facing but colleagues from across the division and the wider University are warmly invited to join us at either or both campuses. Staff expenses for travel between the Canterbury and Medway campuses will be reimbursed.

You are welcome to join us for all or part of the day. To register please visit the Eventbrite website.

Draft Medway Programme:

Rochester Boardroom, Rochester Building

14.00 – 14.05: Welcome and Introduction, Dawn Lyon, Director of Research and Innovation, LSSJ and Kate Ludlow, Research and Innovation Manager, LSSJ

14.05 – 15.20: Panel: Migration and movement, with Tracee Green / Emma Soutar (CCP), Aravinda Kosaraju (KLS), Rachel Larkin, Bridget Ng’andu (SSPSSR), and Jo Warner (Chair, SSPSSR)

15.20 – 15.40: Tea and Coffee

15.40 – 17.00: Workshop: Body Mapping, led by Tara Young

17.00 – 18.00: Drinks (location TBC)

Draft Canterbury Programme:

Darwin Conference Suite, Darwin College

09.15 – 09.30: Welcome and Introduction, Dawn Lyon, Director of Research and Innovation, LSSJ and Kate Ludlow, Research and Innovation Manager, LSSJ

09.30 – 11.00: Panel: Childhood and Civil Society with Ellie Jupp, Emily Lau and Ali Body (SSPSSR), Melissa Nolas (Goldsmiths)

11.00 – 11.20: Tea and Coffee

11.20 – 12.00: Research Choices and Journeys with Miri Song (SSPSSR), and Lydia Hayes (KLS)

12.00 – 14.00: Lunch with parallel sessions

Research Exchange / Walking and Talking / PGR Speed Dating / PGR Posters / Sound Workshop / Craftivism Workshop / Sensory Research (smell/touch stall!)

14.00 – 15.15: Collaborative research: partnerships and co-production with Chrissie Rogers, Vivi Triantafyllopoulou and Serena Tomlinson (Tizard), Amanda Bates (CHSS), Darren Weir (KLS) Helen Brooks (Arts) and others TBC

15.15 – 15.35: Tea and Coffee

15.35 – 17.15: ECR Spotlights with Asta Zokaityte, Clare Williams, Flora Renz and Ida Petretta (KLS), Kayla Wicks (SSPSSR) and Jolie Keemink (PSSRU)

Meet the Author with Beth Breeze, Heejung Chung, Carolyn Pedwell (SSPSSR), and Erika Rackley, Eleanor Curran, Sheona York (KLS)

17.15 – 18.00: Drinks, Darwin Conference Suite

Postgraduate Innovation Challenge Day: Sustainability and the Margate Soul Festival

All postgraduate students are warmly invited to take part in an Innovation Challenge Day, held in partnership with Olby’s Creative Hub Margate, organisers of the annual Margate Soul Festival.

Thursday 7 July 2022, 9.15 – 17.00.
Cornwallis East Seminar Room 5 (CESR5)

The challenge

All over the world, festivals, both large and small, are growing conscious of their ecological footprint. So far, over 40 U.K. festivals have pledged to form a more sustainable future by halving their emissions and obtaining 50% recycling rates by 2025.

The Margate Soul Festival aims to join this group, by reducing the environmental impact of its annual weekend event which attracts over 20,000 music fans per day over three days in a regenerated Margate town centre.

Working in small, interdisciplinary teams, we challenge you to come up with creative and practical solutions to helping the Margate Soul Festival on its pathway to sustainability.

Increase your problem-solving and team-working skills
Help a local business to solve a real-world challenge
Add the IBM Enterprise Design Thinking Practitioner badge to your CV
Gain 15 Employability Points
Network over a free lunch and refreshments

The day has been organised by Research and Innovation Services, Knowledge Exchange and Innovation Department at the University of Kent

Register online at PG Innovation Challenge Day: Making Margate Soul Festival more Sustainable Tickets, Thursday 7 Jul 2022 at 09.15 | Eventbrite

In Conversation with Lemn Sissay OBE

Kent’s commitment against sexual violence: progress in the last year

A review of our campaigns, actions and pledges to foster a culture of consent and respect that’s University wide and palpable for students, staff and visitors.

As the conversation on sexual violence gets louder in society, we at the University of Kent have been working hard so that our university campuses stay positive and safe places. Our ongoing commitment to keep the members of our community safe became more visible this past academic year as we launched our new ‘Consent. Get it. Full Stop.‘ campaign to cultivate and strengthen our awareness and understanding of consent and to continue working to prevent harassment and sexual misconduct from taking place within our community. We have also worked on promoting the specialist support we have available in recognition of the difficulties faced by victim-survivors, and made changes to our policies, procedures and guidance documents to address concerns that were voiced to us by students and staff.

Five concepts were at the heart of this year’s work in tackling sexual misconduct and keeping our campuses safe: Transparency, Preventing, Reporting, Responding and Supporting. As the academic year comes to an end, we want to make good on the first of these – transparency – by highlighting some of our top achievements in each of these areas.

Prevention – Everyone at the university matters when it comes to tackling unacceptable behaviours.

We launched a university-wide campaign entitled ‘Consent. Get it. Full stop.’ which has a strong presence on social media and our webpages, with clear and thought-provoking messages about consent and healthy relationships. As part of this campaign we ran a number of initiatives including the ‘Celebrating Consent Day’ event, where we took the opportunity to promote policies, procedures, and support available.
This year we have seen senior leaders make a clearer and more visible commitment to tackle sexual misconduct. In November, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Richard Reece called for community-wide reflection and discussion in the form of an all-student email released on International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls.
A focus group entitled ‘Safety on Campus’ has been created. This groups exists as a collaboration between staff and students including representatives from Respect the No, Women’s Network, BAME Network, Disability Network, LGBTQIA+ Network, and UN Women UK Kent Society, to name a few, as well as individual students. In this forum, students can openly discuss concerns about safety on and off campus, providing a clear line of communication between students and the University. We have discussed all initiatives and campaigns relating to sexual misconduct within this forum, giving students the opportunity to provide feedback and shape our work in this area.

Responding – We want everyone to know what to do and where to go.

We have created and circulated new guidance documents (in accessible formats) to students and staff on what to do if they: 1. have experienced sexual misconduct, 2. are accused of an incident and 3. if, as a member of staff, an incident is disclosed to them. A staff facing page where staff can find more information about how to respond to disclosures, how to take part in the campaign and the training available to them as all so been created and can be found on Staff Guide.
The University has recruited a student intern as a Campaign and Project Assistant which provided a stronger link to our student body, ensuring that student voice and collaboration with students are kept at the forefront of all our work in this area. This role has brought helped bridge gaps between staff working in this area and the student body and will be in place for the next academic year as well to keep this collaboration going.
Sexual misconduct became a permanent feature on the agenda of our Education and Student Experience Board to ensure that continued progress is regularly reviewed.
We have arranged for multiple opportunities for staff training:
- The Specialist Wellbeing Manager provided specific training to Sexual Assault Responders – a cohort of substantive staff that are trained to respond out of hours to students disclosing sexual violence.
- A new e-learning module entitled ‘Responding to Student Disclosures of Sexual Misconduct’ is now available for all staff to complete.
- Front line staff have been provided with the opportunity to attend specialist training from Protection Against Stalking (PAS).
- All Student Conduct and Complaints Officers have been provided with training from Lime Culture in conducting trauma informed investigations.

Reporting – We want our students’ voices to be heard.

We have introduced a new reporting tool, Report and Support. This platform allows for support articles to be made available to students with information on University of Kent procedures and how to access support internally and externally. The data gathered will enable us to identifying potential trends and/or areas of concern, to enable a tailored response. Report and Support will also enable us to increase our commitment to transparency as we plan to publish anonymised data gathered over the year.
A new Student Conduct and Complaints (SCCO) webpage has been created. This page provides information and guidance on how to submit a formal report to the University, and regulation documents for students to look at.
Our non-academic disciplinary regulations have been updated to include a specific appendix focused upon disclosures and investigation of Sexual Misconduct.

Supporting – We are here to support you. We want you to know the support we offer and how you can access it.

We have continued to promote the support available to students from within the university. This includes support from the Specialist Wellbeing Manager and Sexual Assault Responders (SARs) who provide round the clock practical and emotional support to student disclosing sexual misconduct.
We have done substantial work to increase transparency in relation to our processes. This includes the creation of a number of accessible visual guides relating to seeking support and reporting processes.
Throughout the year we have placed strong emphasis on the promotion of the support available to students. We have done this through our consent campaign, social media, posters around campus, podcast episodes, and blog articles.
With the introduction of Report and Support we ensure that students are able to access support in a timely manner. Students who choose to report anonymously still receive signposting information to enable them to access external support, should they prefer.

After such an eventful year, we at Kent can proudly say that as a community we have made substantial progress in a short time, surpassing in many aspects the Office for Students (OfS) statement of expectations. Still, we recognise that there is a long way to go and make meaningful, positive and long-lasting change in our community; as a University, we are committed on continuing this work with the help of both staff and students, to aim for a safe, respectful and supportive place for us to study, work and socialise.

Stay up-to-date as Kent walks the walk on this issue by following #ConsentGetIt on social media, and check out other articles on Consent.

Written by Student Services, 20.06.22

If you’d like to comment on or contribute to a podcast or article for Student Services, email us at StudentServicesWeb@kent.ac.uk.

Digitally Enhanced Education webinar – 13 July 2022

The E-Learning Team are pleased to announce that the next event in our series of ‘Digitally Enhanced Education webinars’ will take place on Wednesday 13 July from 14:00 – 16:30 (GMT), with the theme ‘Pedagogy and Practice when Teaching and Learning Online’

Agenda:

14:00 – 14:05 – Dr Phil Anthony (University of Kent): Introduction
14:05 – 14:20 – Dr Martin Compton (UCL): Ungrading: More possibilities than some might think
14:20 – 14:35 – Dr James Wood (Associate Teaching Professor at SNU): Enabling feedback-seeking, agency and uptake, through dialogic peer and teacher screencast feedback
14:35 – 14:50 – David White (University of the Arts London & President of ALT): Design-Research: 15 experiments in online creative education
14:50 – 15:05 – Dr Ellie Davison (University of Lincoln): Top Ten Tips for producing accessible, engaging video microlectures
15:05 – 15:15 – Break
15:15 – 15:30 – Dr Emma Hargreaves (University of Kent): Cocreation in curriculum design – a blended approach
15:30 – 15:45 – Molly Edwards (Student from UCL): Partnerships between students and staff in Higher Education
15:45 – 16:00 – Maria Méndez (Southbank International school): Happy students = Happy learners or Embedding wellbeing activities in our lessons (both online and presencial)
16:00 – 16:15 – Allison Wolfreys (Open University): Creating an audio drama for undergraduate legal education
16:15 – 16:30 – Assistant Professor Eliana Elkhoury (Athabasca University, Canada): A summary of the “Champions of reimagined assessment” campaign

Please share

Colleagues are very welcome to join this community and so feel free to circulate. Please ask anyone wishing to join tocomplete the Digitally Enhanced Education registration form if they haven’t already. We add them to the mailing list linked to the series, and they will receive the joining link via email on Tuesday 12 July.

If you would like to present at a future event, please submit a short synopsis and Phil Anthony will be in touch.

Roe v Wade: Personal Concerns and Queries

The legal reversal of the Roe v Wade decision in the USA has been sending shockwaves across the world.

If you have questions about this or feel emotionally affected by what has happened or its potential ramifications, please do contact the Staff Employee Assistance Programme. You can get in touch with them by phone or via their website any time of the day or night. You can be transferred to a counsellor if you wish to discuss an emotional concern. If you want advice of a more informative nature, there are Information Specialists available for you to talk with. In connection with Roe v Wade, this could be related to issues such as human rights, abortion or infertility. You simply call the usual number (0808 168 2143), ask to speak to one of the Information specialists and you will be put through. It is worth noting that the Information Specialists are available Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 20:00.

Reminder of basic COVID guidance

Increasing levels of COVID are leading to an increase in the number of queries about what people with symptoms or who test positive should do. Here is the Government public health guidance summarised in a University context:

Stay home if you are unwell. If you have symptoms of a respiratory illness and either a high temperature or do not feel well enough to be at work/study, you should stay at home. You can return to on-campus work/study once your fever has gone or you feel better, even if a cough persists.
If you have taken a private COVID-19 test and the result is positive you should self-isolate for 5 days from the date of the test whether you have symptoms or not. If you are symptom-free, work/study from home if you can. You can return to on-campus work/study after the 5 days. If you have symptoms and they last for more than 5 days, you can return to on-campus work/study once you feel better, even if a cough persists.
If you live with or stayed overnight with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 you can continue to work and study, but you should try to limit your close contact with others, consider wearing a face covering when around other people, and wash your hands more frequently than normal.

Go Blue for Meso – Action Mesothelioma Day

Action Mesothelioma Day takes place on Friday 1 July this year and is designed to commemorate those who have succumbed to asbestos related diseases, and to highlight the continuing issues that exist concerning asbestos. This year, the theme is Go Blue for Meso and buildings are being lit up in blue around the UK to help raise awareness. Around 2,500 people in the UK die each year from mesothelioma, and a further similar number are believed to die from other diseases related to asbestos exposure.

To commemorate this day, the lawns and buildings around the Registry will be lit up in blue at 21:15, courtesy of the team at the Gulbenkian.

Find out more about #GoBlueforMeso and come along this Friday at 21:15 to help put a spotlight on Mesothelioma.

Staff Conference 2022 – We want your ideas!

Following the success of last year’s virtual event, we are excited to announce that preparations are well underway for this year’s Staff Conference. We have already received some wonderful contributions, so thank you to everyone who has already submitted their ideas.

The Conference allows us to mark the start of the academic year together, providing opportunities to learn about each other’s work and giving us a chance to reflect on how we all – whether academic, professional services, technical staff, or otherwise – contribute to achieving the University’s ambitions.

The Conference will take place on campus from 15-16 September 2022 with the theme ‘Building our University Community’. On the Friday afternoon, the event will close with an all-staff barbecue, and we hope it will top off two days spent celebrating our learning and enhancing our connections with one another.

We want you to get involved!

Over the two days, we are planning numerous activities, both informative and informal, that you can choose to join in with or even run yourself. These might include:

Seminars about projects, initiatives and activities across the University
Talks on what it is like to work in your role at Kent
Discussions and workshops on important topics such as wellbeing and support
Informal events which you can take part in, either individually or as a team
Demonstrations or tours of facilities

However, these are just suggestions – we want to make sure the Staff Conference is all about you. Whether you have been looking for a platform to share something you have been working on or want to run a workshop related to your role at Kent, we want to hear from you.

Please send an outline of your proposed sessions in 300 words or less to our Staff Conference team at communications@kent.ac.uk by Friday 8 July. We particularly want to hear how you plan to engage and interact with your audience.

We look forward to hearing your ideas soon

Apply for funding to support unpaid work, training or a networking event

Are you planning to undertake some unpaid work experience this summer? Or, are you looking to complete a training course or attend a networking event? You could be entitled to funding to support the costs of your experience!

The Careers and Employability Service are able to provide funding to current students of at least £150, towards the cost of travel, training fees and work attire for opportunities that will support your employability.

This is open to current students, who’ll be returning to their studies for at least one term, after the opportunity has taken place. You can claim the funding against costs incurred in the first 3 weeks (or 120 hours) of your opportunity, which will be reimbursed after the experience has taken place.

Many students have already taken advantage of this; helping them to take part in valuable experiences, to develop their employability. Here are just a couple of the experiences students have undertaken with the help of the funding:

“The University of Kent Work Experience Bursary has allowed me to advance my experience, technical knowledge and professional skill-set, in the Heritage and Estate Management sectors. I benefitted from the Work Experience Bursary during a two-week period of professional-level work experience at Chiddingstone Castle in West Kent. My time at Chiddingstone Castle has significantly improved my professional skill-set and I believe will enhance my opportunities for employment in the future.”

“Thanks to the University of Kent Work Experience Bursary, I was able to afford travel to and from my unpaid extended work experience placement, along with appropriate work attire. I have had the opportunity to meet and work with established artists from varying backgrounds, see first-hand how seasoned curators organise an exhibition, while learning crucial knowledge about sales, the relationship between a gallery and its artists, how to interact with potential clients, how artwork is displayed within the gallery and on social media.”

“The University of Kent Work Experience Bursary has enabled me to continue on a two-month legal internship at Whitestone Chambers in London, a highly specialised commercial set of Chambers. Attending hearings made me realise that commercial litigation goes far beyond my assumption of big businesses bringing cases against each other, but in fact it is far more personal, and is now an area of the law I will consider for my own career more seriously than prior to my internship.”

To apply, you just need to complete a simple online application form. Requests for reimbursement need to be received by mid-July 2022.

Access the form and read the full terms and conditions see the Work Opportunities Fund webpage.

We look forward to receiving your application!