Due to current circumstances we are updating our 2nd Digital Accessibility Conference and inviting you to attend virtually wherever you are.

Last year, two of the Kent Connects partner organisations, University of Kent & Kent County Council, hosted the first Kent Digital Accessibility Conference to inform Public Sector organisations about digital accessibility and inclusion and the impact of the regulations.

Join us for the next virtual version Kent Digital Accessibility conference in June – there will be 2 morning sessions and 2 afternoon sessions each day for three days;

When:

Tuesday 9 June

Wednesday 10 June

Thursday 11 June.

Times:

10.00 – 11.00

11.30 – 12.30

14.00 – 15.00

15.30 – 16.30

With three months left before the regulations deadline, we have even more expert speakers and workshops to help you prepare, including the UK government, big name suppliers, NHS experts and a European perspective showing how other countries are handling new regulations. We will also have a brand new reveal on the work we are doing towards Kent’s accessible student experience, and a host of engaging practical workshops to help attendees grow the specialist skills required to deliver accessible services.

Please register your interest in attending virtually – full details of speakers and a meeting link will be confirmed to booked attendees nearer the time.

Book your free place now on the Eventbrite website

Everyone is welcome, please do share with colleagues in your networks who might find this of interest.

For any queries, please email AccessibilityEvents@kent.ac.uk 

Easter may be over, but with many of us at home thinking of ways to entertain ourselves, what better way than to put our baking skills to the test?

Chocolate may be a traditional treat for Easter, but let’s face it, this delectable confectionery is great for any time of the year! So we’ve selected mouth-watering recipes for you to indulge in chocolate in 10 delicious ways…

1. Chocolate hazelnut ice cream cheesecake

Using only four ingredients this delectable dessert is easy and simple to make. Take a look at BBC Good Food for the recipe.

2. Double-layer custard and chocolate mousse

Creamy custard and dark chocolate provide a great combination for this recipe from Delicious Magazine.

3. Delia’s Chocolate bread and butter pudding

From a woman who knows a thing or two about desserts, this Delia Smith recipe is wonderful both hot and cold!

4. Chocolate and marshmallow mini egg traybake

This Easter-inspired treat from Delicious Magazine  is a great one for sharing – that’s if you want to!

5. Vegan chocolate truffles

Rich and luxurious, this dessert from Loving it Vegan is perfect for all occasions…

6. Easy chocolate chip cookies

A great one to try with kids, this easy recipe from Good to know can be baked in under 30 minutes…

7. Chocolate, pear and hazelnut frangipane tart

With fruit and nut complimenting the chocolate in this Food Magazine recipe, there’s triple the tastiness!

8. Chocolate fudge brownies

These classic, yet tasty treats are perfect for enjoying with a nice cup of tea! Recipe from Food and Wine.

9. Chocolate tiramisu

Made with layers of mascarpone, chocolate ganache and ladyfingers dipped in hot chocolate this Pretty Simple Sweet recipe is perfect for chocolate-lovers!

And finally, …

10. Crème egg brownie cake

This scrumptious dessert from Olive Magazine is perfect to try for an Easter treat…or any time of the year!

Feel inspired? Please share your top 10 ideas with us at stories@kent.ac.uk

The University is now offering guided mindfulness sessions online to staff and students to help get through this stressful time. Staff from Student Support and Wellbeing and the Student Learning Advisory Service are working in collaboration to provide 4 sessions of mindfulness practice a week.

This will go on throughout the Easter vacation until the end of summer term. Lorraine Millard (SSW) who is leading the sessions said, “I run regular mindfulness sessions at university, so when social distancing and working from home was imposed I wanted to find a way to continue to provide support to students and colleagues.” So far, the team have hosted 3 mindfulness sessions online; in total 23 students located in 6 different countries have logged-in.

The sessions are 40 minutes long and there is a focus on dealing with anxiety and strategies for remaining focused. This is particularly important for students and staff at the university who are isolated from each other, but are having to continue to study and work. Louise Frith commented that she and her colleagues in SLAS are finding that, “at a time of heightened personal and social stress, many students are understandably worried about their ability to focus and perform well in exams, dissertations and coursework.”

The sessions are live and run using Zoom. Anyone can join at any time by following the links:

For students:

Starting from Wednesday 01 April

• Mindfulness on Wednesdays 1.00-2.00
• Mindfulness on Wednesdays 17.00-18.00

Starting from Friday 17 April

• Mindfulness on Fridays 12.00-1.00

For staff

Starting from Thursday 02 April

• Mindfulness on Thursdays 1.00-2.00 

Dr Paul March-Russell, lecturer in the Department of Comparative Literature, has won the ‘Outstanding Reviewer Award’ from the online journal Humanities.

The ‘Humanities Editorial Board and Editorial Team’ give this award in recognition of the ‘the time and energy given by reviewers in checking manuscripts submitted to Humanities. It is due to their efforts that the high quality of the journal and quick turnaround are maintained.’

Paul says: “Peer reviewing is integral to the academic process. Without it, we can’t distinguish academic work, which we can rely on and trust, from other kinds of fake news. This is why I am honoured to be a peer reviewer and to receive this award.”

Kent’s Centre for Critical International Law (CeCIL) has released a recording of this year’s Annual Lecture in which Professor Susan Marks, from the London School of Economics, offers a critical exploration of dignity and its worldliness.

Professor Marks filmed her talk ‘Have you seen dignity?’ at Kent earlier this month (without an audience) after restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic meant the event could not proceed as originally planned.

Speaking also on behalf of Dr Sara Kendall who co-directs CeCIL with him, Dr Luis Eslava said:: ‘Having it recorded for online circulation was our way to express our solidarity with our friends and colleagues across the world who are facing, like communities in general, many challenges posed by the current crisis and who are searching for new ways to make sense of it.’

Professor Marks’s talk (the title of which is inspired by lyrics from the Bob Dylan song “Dignity”) begins by tracking the word dignity as it pops up in everyday life. She goes on to consider dignity within the context of academic writing across the disciplines of philosophy, legal scholarship, health and social care, sociology, and anthropology. Finally, she discusses the politics of dignity, indignity and indignation.

Professor Marks’s research is concerned with international law, human rights and the global political economic order. She is the author of The Riddle of All Constitutions, International Human Rights Lexicon (co-authored with Andrew Chapman) and A False Tree of Liberty. She is the editor of International Law on the Left. Her research seeks to bring insights from critical social theory to the study of international law and human rights.

CeCIL is an innovative research centre at Kent Law School which aims to foster critical approaches to the field of international law.  

Two members of Kent Hospitality staff helped raise the money as part of a six person team that met through a local Beginners to Runners club.

The six friends from Faversham were each supposed to be running in the London Landmarks Half Marathon for charity last weekend on 29 March. However, when the event was cancelled over two weeks ago due to Coronavirus the group took action.

Determined to still run their first ever half marathon for their charities, they instead decided to run a week early on Saturday 21 March by creating a Local Landmarks Half Marathon while maintaining the social distancing measures that were in place at the time to ensure everyone’s safety.

Donning their event themed leggings all six women, including Vanessa Corker and Lyn Scarfe from Kent Hospitality, successfully completed their 13.1 mile route around the lanes outside Faversham in two and a half hours. Between them they collectively raised over £3,500 for their chosen charities including Tommy’s, Age UK, Breast Cancer Now, Demelza Children’s Hospice and MacMillan Cancer Care.

When the half-marathon is officially reorganised all six have confirmed they will do it all over again on the official London Landmarks Half Marathon Route to raise even more money for their charities.

Philosophy and Politics student Alan Gurung has won £1000 in the Business Start-Up Journey pitching finals.

The School of European Culture and Languages would like to congratulate final year student Alan Gurung who has won £1000 with a business proposal for bringing empty high street shops back into use.

A virtual pitching final saw four student start-ups share the prize money in this year’s Business Start-Up Journey. Measures to combat the current Covid-19 pandemic meant the programme’s usual Dragons Den format had to switch to a virtual contest, with students pre-recording their pitches for submission to the judges. The businesses were scored in categories including sustainability, scaleability, innovation and financial viability.

When asked how his philosophy degree helps him with his entrepreneurial activities, Alan said: “In Philosophy, I am constantly contested on my critical analysis skills forcing me to be meticulous in my reasoning for debates, disputes and essays. Therefore, when articulating my entrepreneurial ideas, through force of habit from my degree, I format the ideas in a logical pattern so that I show that I have understood the market, I have validated a need/problem, and I have come up with a solution that I can argue is needed within that market.”

“Alan’s project to convert unused commercial property for multi-purpose hubs is an excellent example of how philosophical thinking can be critical, innovative, and practical,” said Dr Todd Mei, Head of the Department of Philosophy, “It is no easy feat to grasp the reasons why commercial property remains empty in many places and how productive use of such spaces can move beyond motives of money-making, towards practices that are ethically accountable and economically beneficial. A great project for contributory justice!”

In light of the disruption caused by Covid-19 and the measures taken to control its spread, the University has agreed to extend the deadline for applications for the current window of KVSS from 22 April to 24 May. This is to ensure that everyone eligible is able to apply and that no-one misses the opportunity. All other dates for the scheme remain as previously advertised and you can find full details of the scheme here.

More widely, we are continuing to review all projects currently underway to establish what the impact of Covid-19 will be and what we may need to pause or adapt in light of our new circumstances. A full update on what this will mean for Organising for Success will follow next week.