Tag Archives: Campus online

Changes to senior leadership structures

The Vice-Chancellor has made two changes to the senior leadership structures at the University.

Firstly, the Executive Group plus Deans (EG+) will, from 1 March, become the Extended Executive Group (EEG). The membership will now comprise: EG; Director of Human Resources; Dean of the Faculty of Humanities; Dean of the Faculty of Social Science; Dean of the Faculty of Science; Dean of the Graduate School; Dean for Internationalisation; Dean for Medway; Academic Registrar; Director of Estates; Director of Information Services; Director of Commercial Services; and Director of Student Services.

Secondly, Managers’ Forum has been renamed the Senior Leadership Forum. Its membership includes: Executive Group, Deans, Heads of School, Directors of Professional Service Departments, Heads of Centres and Medway representatives.

The Executive Group (EG) itself remains unchanged with its membership comprising: Vice-Chancellor and President; Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost; Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer; Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education); Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation); and the Director of Finance. The Secretary to the Council is in attendance.

Resounding success for the first-ever professional speed-networking event at Kent

The first-ever strictly professional speed-networking event at Kent was a great success, attracting more than 130 colleagues.

The networking events took place on 14 February across both the Medway and Canterbury campuses. The Kent Colleagues Connect organising team was delighted with the take-up and the diversity of participating colleagues, representing schools and central departments, academic and professional services staff.

Here are examples of the extremely positive feedback received immediately following the event:

‘What a really enjoyable as well as extremely useful event”,

“A very welcome event”,

“A great event!”

This new initiative is part to the 2018 Kent Colleagues Connect programme which offers a number of opportunities for colleagues at the University to get to know each other’s roles better through informal meetings.

The next event will be “Coffee with Colleagues”, which will open for registration next month and will allow participants to invite a colleague they do not know very well, or at all, to discuss each other’s roles over a complimentary cup of coffee (or tea!). Watch this space for information about when and how to take advantage of this offer!

Full details of future Kent Colleagues Connect events in 2018 check the programme calendar. If you would like to find out more about the scheme, please contact the programme team at KentColleaguesConnect@kent.ac.uk.

Dr Angelos Lengeris to appear at Speech Science Forum

Dr Angelos Lengeris, Lecturer in Linguistics for the Department of English Language & Linguistics, will present at the Speech Science Forum at University College London (UCL) on Wednesday 21 February 2018.

His talk focuses on how ‘Auditory Training Improves Second-language Pronunciation in Spontaneous Speech’.

Computer-based auditory training has been found to improve the production of second-language vowels and consonants in isolated words, and words in scripted sentences. However, we do not know whether learning transfers to spontaneous speech. In his talk, Angelos will present the results of a study examining the effects of computer-based auditory training on Greek speakers’ production of English vowels in sentences and spontaneous speech.

Vowel production was assessed via an identification test with native English speakers and an acoustic analysis of vowel quality before and after training. Training significantly improved learners’ production of English vowels in sentence materials and in spontaneous speech, which demonstrates the ecological validity of the high-variability paradigm.

The talk will take place at UCL’s Speech Hearing and Phonetic Sciences department in London.

Get on your bike this term

Bicycle hire is available for students and staff from this weekend, 13 and 14 January.

To do your bit for the environment and get a little fitter too, visit the Cycle Hub near the Pavilion at Canterbury campus to hire a bike from 10am to 4pm. The bikes come complete with lights, a lock and a bell and hire is from only £30 per term.

The service is provided by Chris and his team at ByCycle, working with the Transport team within the Estates Department. Bikes are provided by CyclingAge. For more information get in touch with Chris at chris@easybycycle.co.uk.

You can hire a bicycle from Liberty Quays at Medway campus. Simply ask at reception for more information.

Free bicycle checks

Dr Bike will be back at the Canterbury campus during term time to check and adjust your bike. Visit the Cycle Hub on Wednesdays to get your free bicycle health check. The service also returns to Medway from Thursday 18 January and is located outside the Rochester Building.

Check for updates on Twitter @unikent_travel