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Testing out a theory

Kent Sport’s Design Our Space competition winner

At the end of the academic year 2018/19, Kent Sport revamped a squash court turning it into a multi-use sports facility perfect for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, MMA, Cheerleading and beyond. After all the new equipment was laid out, there was something that was missing – inspiration.

Collaborating with Creative Campus, Kent Sport put on a competition to all budding artists to ‘Design Our Space’. The brief was straight forward – submit something that will inspire others. It was a challenge that was met. We are pleased to announce our winner: Billy Radford. Billy ran with the idea to create a space that not only inspires, but provides the perfect landscape for motivation.

“The Design Our Space competition was the perfect opportunity to bring some vibrancy, life and colour to a previously unloved corner of The Sports Centre. The space is now bright, fresh and bold and it is my hope that the sportsmen and women who will be using the space, enjoy their new surroundings,” said Billy, Sports Development Officer at the University of Kent.

“It was quite the feat to find the right balance between art and sport. I believe Billy did a great job to help us transform this space into the fantastic training arena for Kent Sport members. We hope that this area will help pave the way for athletes to develop the skills to help them achieve their goals,” said Christopher Monteiro-Sharratt, Head of Operations at Kent Sport.

Kent Sport continues to provide excellent facilities for its members and recently undertook upgrading the Hall 2 balcony to be more purpose built for those wanting to expand their skills in and out of the boxing ring.

Interested in training in our facility? Become a Kent Sport member now and check out all that we offer.

For Kent Sport news, events and special offers, Like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram and Twitter @UniKentSports.

Sustainability in the curriculum: NUS Responsible Futures scheme

The University and Kent Union, in partnership, are participating in the Responsible Futures scheme – an NUS framework to facilitate institution change in embedding sustainability throughout all parts of the student learning experience. Responsible Futures acts on the Vice-Chancellor’s commitment to ‘Embed Sustainability through building the UN Sustainable Development Goals into our research, education, leadership, operations, administration and engagement.’

The world our graduates will be working in is vastly different from that of a generation ago and they will face a spectrum of social, economic and environmental global challenges when entering the workplace and wider society. Kent graduates need to be ‘global citizens’ equipped to tackle these challenges and inequalities.

Responsible Futures looks to ensure every student – from architecture to business, and chemistry to digital arts – is prepared with the knowledge and understanding of sustainability, and possess the sustainability skills and attributes, and the desire and willingness to deal with these issues.

Institutions promoting sustainability skills are much more likely to produce employable graduates according to the Global University Employability Ranking (EAUC, 2018).

NUS surveys have also found that students want education in sustainable development and to gain sustainability skills (NUS, 2018). According to 2017/18 survey: 76% of HE students agree that “universities and colleges should be obliged to develop students’ social and environmental skills as part of the courses they offer”

The University of Kent and Kent Union partnership will coordinating work on embedding sustainability into the formal and informal curriculum and will be seeking to engage with academic staff and students across the organisation.

If you are interested in getting involved, exploring how you can embed sustainability into your or your school’s teaching, or for more information, please contact: sustainability@kent.ac.uk or visit www.kent.ac.uk/estates/sustainability/esd/index.html

Interested in PhD study? Find out more about funding

Are you thinking about doing a PhD in 2020? The Graduate School is running a series of sessions for anyone thinking about applying for funding from SeNSS (ESRC) and CHASE (AHRC).

Sessions include:

8 November – general funding

13 and 19 November – SeNSS funding

20 November – CHASE proposals

27 November – SeNSS proposals

Find out more and book a place on the Events section of the Graduate School website.

You can also learn more about postgraduate study opportunities at our next Postgraduate Information Event on Thursday 5 December from 17.00-19.00 in Darwin College.

Cases of suspected mumps

We have been advised by Public Health England South East (PHESE) that there has been an increase in cases of suspected mumps associated with our Canterbury campus.

Please read the PHESE letter to staff and students or read on to find out more.

If you think you have mumps or would like to enquire about being vaccinated, please contact your GP. The University Medical Centre can be contacted by phone on 01227 469333.

Out of hours you can call NHS 111 and the University Nursing Service on 01227 823503 or ext 3503. The service is available to all students and staff at the University of Kent (Canterbury Campus) and is staffed by registered nurses 24 hours a day during term time.

What is mumps?

Mumps is a contagious viral infection. Swelling of the parotid glands is the most common symptom of mumps. The parotid glands are a pair of glands responsible for producing saliva. They’re located in the side of the face, just below the ears.

Other symptoms of mumps include headaches, joint pains and a high temperature, which may develop a few days before the swelling of the parotid glands.

The symptoms of mumps usually resolve within one or two weeks.

Complications of mumps include swelling of the ovaries (oophoritis), swelling of the testes (orchitis), viral meningitis and deafness.

How the disease spreads

Mumps is spread in the same way as colds and flu – through infected droplets of saliva that can be inhaled or picked up from surfaces and transferred into the mouth or nose.

A person is most contagious a few days before the symptoms develop and for a few days afterwards.

If you have mumps, you can help prevent it spreading by:

regularly washing your hands with soap and water
using and disposing of tissues when you sneeze
avoiding university or work for at least five days after the onset of swelling

When to see your GP

It’s important to contact your GP if you suspect mumps so a diagnosis can be made. Let your GP know in advance if you’re coming to the surgery, so they can take any necessary precautions to prevent the spread of infection.

Protecting against mumps

The MMR vaccine protects against measles, mumps and rubella. Two doses of the MMR vaccine are needed. If you are not sure whether you have had two doses of the MMR vaccine, please check with your GP. If you have not had two doses of MMR vaccine, please make an appointment with your GP to get vaccinated. Staff can also receive MMR vaccine if not previously vaccinated. There is no upper age limit for receiving MMR vaccine.

Further information on mumps is available on the NHS website.

One week left to apply for Housekeeping vacancies

Is someone you know looking for a part-time job?

We may have the answer as we currently have six positions for Domestic Assistants available in the Kent Hospitality Housekeeping department across our Canterbury campus.

All Domestic Assistant opportunities are offered on a permanent contract with part-time hours ranging from eight to 20 hours available. The rate of pay is £16,736 per annum pro-rata.

All applications should be made via the University’s recruitment system with the earliest closing date being Monday 11 November.

You can see all the vacancies available on our Jobs webpages.

If you have any questions about these vacancies, please email hrhospitality@kent.ac.uk

The Global Challenges Doctoral Centre launches ‘GCDC Hangouts’

Are you conducting (or interested in) research that tackles global challenges and benefits developing countries? The Global Challenges Doctoral Centre (GCDC) is delighted to announce the launch of ‘GCDC Hangouts’ – a monthly, interdisciplinary event focusing on research that addresses global challenges.

The Centre’s first GCDC Hangout will take place on Wednesday, 13 November, from 13.00-14.00 in CE329 (third floor of Cornwallis East), and everyone is welcome – whether you are a GCDC-funded PhD, a GCDC affiliate student, a Master’s student, a postdoc, a supervisor or just vaguely interested in research that addresses global challenges, do come along! The session will include a catered lunch and plenty of time for networking and discussion.

The inaugural session will be led by GCDC director, Dr Beth Breeze and is entitled, ‘Philanthropy and the Sustainable Development Goals: what role for private donors?’. Beth will discuss the pros and cons of philanthropic individuals and institutions becoming involved in tackling global challenges and invite you to share your perspectives.

More information about the session and the GCDC is available here and you can book your place by emailing Grace Grussenmeyer at: kentgcdc@kent.ac.uk.

Sexual Assault Responders required for Medway campus

Student Support and Wellbeing are looking to recruit staff to the Sexual Assault Responder (SAR) team at Medway.

The role of the Sexual Assault Responder is to provide immediate support to victims of serious sexual assault or rape at the Canterbury and Medway campuses out of hours (between 17.00 and 09.00) and at weekends. Currently we are only recruiting SARs for the Medway campus.

Full training is provided, and SARs operate on a rota system. The role is to provide advice and guidance to victims of serious sexual assault or rape with regards to aftercare support procedures. The role is NOT a counselling role.

SARs receive a £100 remuneration for joining the team and completing the training, and receive £70 for the first hour of a call out, with time and a half for subsequent hours. Any transport costs are also reimbursed.

A Sexual Assault Responder must meet the following criteria:

Be a University of Kent member of staff
Be able to access the University of Kent Medway campuses within 45 minutes of receiving a phone call from Campus Security out of hours (considering the accessibility of a staff member’s usual mode of transportation when accessing the University)
Attend a training session
Have the permission of their line manager to register for the role of SAR.

For more information, to request a role description, or to express an interest in becoming a SAR, please email Becky Wyatt in Student Support and Wellbeing.

Excellence award for Kent Digital Inclusion Initiative

Kent Digital Inclusion Initiative has been recognised with an iESE certificate of excellence 2019

The certificate recognises the wide-ranging partnership and collective commitment to accessibility between the University and Kent local authorities.

The certificate follows an award of £20,000 Local Government Association (LGA) funding last month (September) for an Initiative-led project to embed digital accessibility and productivity skills training in the wider community.

The University has been working in partnership with Kent Connects (a partnership of Local Authorities across Kent) and Kent County Council (KCC) for the past year. The aim has been to align key strategies around meeting the requirements of the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations (2018) with a single approach to Accessibility Statements, training, procurement, auditing and use of assistive technologies within both organisations.

The partnership work has been led by George Rhodes and James Church from KCC and Ben Watson from University of Kent Student Support and Wellbeing.

The value of this type of cross-sector working includes sharing and learning from different experiences and skills. Through the shared expertise of the two leading organisations, an initial plan of deliverables was devised focusing on:

Shared resources for improving accessibility made available to all partners
Awareness raising through conferences and training for staff
Engagement with a variety of partners that cover diverse services including Libraries and the NHS
Engagement with central government to represent the concerns of our sectors and to work together to agree common sense approaches to new regulations.

Kent Accessibility Statements

Among results so far have been an accessibility statement published by both KCC and the University – an easier-to-read guide to getting the best from our sites, as well as advice on potential accessibility issues.

The University and KCC were among the first public sector organisations to publish these statements using the new model and our collective statements had over 9,000 hits between June and September 2019. Lessons learnt from publishing the statements were also shared with the Government Digital Service (GDS) which informed the development of their subsequent guidance.

Digital Accessibility Toolkit

All of the Kent Digital Accessibility Initiative’s collective knowledge has now been published in the nationally distributed LexDis Digital Accessibility Toolkit.

Please contact opera@kent.ac.uk if you would like to find out more.

Student Journey game – SECL training session

Staff from the School of European Culture and Languages recently attended a series of training events run by the Student Success Project, where attendees were able to play the Student Journey board game and hear the lived experiences of students of colour.

The event reflected on how unconscious bias might be influencing our behaviour; participants heard about how to be a good ally from Lisa Shoko (from Decolonise University of Kent) and practised decolonising the curriculum with visiting Inspirational Speaker Dr Onyeka Nubia.

Both academic and professional services staff reported feeling inspired by the training events, and came away with lots of ideas about how to make changes to their daily lives to create a more inclusive environment in the School of European Culture and Languages. It is hoped that more events such as this will take place in the future, encouraging colleagues from across the School community to be aware of what they can do to make a difference.

Dr Laura Bailey said: ‘It was great that members of staff made the effort to educate themselves about these important topics. The Kaleidoscope Network ‘principles of respectful listening’ and the student voices we heard were so powerful. The workshops helped us, especially white staff, to understand how deep-rooted the problem of racism is in universities and how we need to be very proactive in addressing inequality.’

Those wishing to know more about the workshops or the project can contact Dr Laura Bailey (SECL Student Success Lecturer) in the Department of English Language and Linguistics.

Nostalgia podcast with Jacqui Double

In the latest episode of the Nostalgia podcast series, Chris Deacy, Head of the Department of Religious Studies, interviews Jacqui Double who works in Student Support in the School of Arts at the University of Kent

We learn about Jacqui’s religious sensibilities as a child and our experiences of growing up in faith environments and the limitations thereby, and move on to speak about different friendship communities that have been built up, and growing up with children who have challenging medical circumstances.

Jacqui also talks about student support; growing up in the Potteries in a Mormon family, how going to university in Sheffield (where she read English Literature) forced her to make choices to live independently, working for a theatre company, why she is a practical person, reading a book a day as a child, meeting one’s heroes; how truthful we can be to ourselves, her grandmother’s spiritualist beliefs, ‘letting things go’, wanting to be a writer, and the paradox of looking forward while also being obsessed with history.