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Testing out a theory

New Home Office role for cyber security expert

Dr Richard Guest of the School of Engineering and Digital Arts and core member of the Kent Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Cyber Security has been selected to join the UK Home Office’s Biometric and Forensics Ethics Group.

Appointed by the Home Secretary, Richard Guest will join the independent group of leading multidisciplinary experts to provides advice and guidance to ministers and government on issues of biometric and forensic data use and systems implementation, such as the use of facial recognition technology.

Richard Guest’s appointment builds on the success of biometric research at Kent within current projects such as the AMBER Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network, the Hummingbird interdisciplinary project and collaborations with organisations such as the UK National Cyber Security Centre.

bOing! preview for staff

Gulbenkian is inviting University of Kent staff to join them on Friday 23 August for a special preview event before bOing! International Family Festival 2019 on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 August.

From 17.00-18.00 on Friday 23 August, Gulbenkian will be running FREE entry for University of Kent staff to Daedalum Luminarium, located on the field between Eliot and Rutherford, on a first-come first-served basis, subject to availability.

Daedalum is a brand new luminarium, launched this year, with bOing! as one of its first outings. It features 19 egg-shaped domes as a central maze. Passing through the maze the visitor can discover two original features – an incredibly intricate rainbow-coloured tree and a cavernous dome on whose lofty ceiling is inspired by the Pantheon of Rome.

From the Guggenheim in Spain to the Sydney Opera House in Australia, the monumental and interactive walk-in sculptures – Luminariums – of Architects of Air and designer Alan Parkinson have astounded audiences across the globe. Enter a dazzling maze of winding paths and soaring domes where Islamic architecture and Gothic cathedrals meld into an inspiring monument to the beauty of light and colour and where visitors of all ages can happily lose themselves.

For more information about bOing! International Family Festival please visit www.boingfestival.com.

Further alumni at the Edinburgh Fringe

Further to our announcement about our alumni featuring at the Edinburgh Festival, we’re pleased to announce that alumna Invi Brenna, who completed an MA in Theatre Making in 2016, will be performing in Love and Misinformation by theatre company The Improvised Play at the Greenside theatre at the Royal Terrace, from Monday 19 to Saturday 24 August 2019.

Love and Misinformation is a spontaneous play in the style of Caryl Churchill. Connected and heartfelt, revolutionary and irreverent, the The Improvised Play (pictured) will break and remake its format every night. Anything is possible, but they guarantee you’ll be surprised, provoked, and moved. The ensemble have chosen to emulate Caryl Churchill because they are impressed by her honesty, her flexibility, her quiet genius and her revolutionary spirit. They hope her influence will shine through their work.

The performance has already been a focus of a feature in The Stage newspaper.

Tickets cost between £7.00 and £12.00. For more details, please see the Edinburgh Fringe page here.

Moving Memory to perform ‘Love Grows’

Moving Memory Dance Theatre Company, created by Sian Stevenson, Senior Tutor and Lecturer in Drama and Theatre in the School of Arts, will be performing ‘Love Grows’ at The Gulbenkian, the University’s on-campus commercial cinema and theatre, on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 August 2019. The performance is part of the bOing! Family festival 2019.

The show will celebrate love between generations, telling stories of love and friendship which emerged during a series of workshops that have taken place across Kent with four primary schools and four older peoples’ settings. It will feature a combination of dance and a digital installation, bringing together an inter-generational company that will groove its moves promenade style through the festival goers at four points during the day.

‘Love Grows’ will be the second show on an ongoing project, ‘Still Stomping’, developed in partnership with Gulbenkian, Canterbury and Kent County Council, and with funding from the Baring Foundation and Arts Council England’s Celebrating Age scheme.

Moving Memory has built a reputation for creating bespoke projects that offer older people high-quality, creative, movement-led opportunities focusing on animating the stories of the everyday via movement, music, spoken word and digital forms. Their work is targeted primarily at the older generation but from the outset they have worked with younger people as performers, performance assistants, stage managers, digital artists, and filmmakers.

Tickets to the show are free; details of times can be found here.

Further details for the bOing! festival can be found here.

Nostalgia podcast with Fran Beaton

In the latest episode of the Nostalgia podcast series, Dr Chris Deacy, Reader in Theology and Religious Studies in the Department of Religious Studies, speaks to Senior Lecturer in Higher Education Fran Beaton.

We learn that Fran was brought up in East Anglia and that there was a strong Welsh dimension to her childhood. The pair talk about the extent to which childhood memories are composite in form and about the change of culture in 30 years around ‘stranger danger’.

Chris and Fran go on to talk about how Kent has changed over the years; different styles of writing; Benjamin Britten operas; what happens when things on wrong on stage at the theatre; travelling on her year abroad; becoming a teacher educator; the value of doing a PGCHE; the EEC and CND; the role of politics in shaping our lives; and gathering around the JCR to watch ‘Monty Python’. They also unpack some of the baggage around nostalgia and the notion of ‘developing resilience’.

Brush up your language skills or learn British Sign Language

Kent staff are eligible for reduced fees on the eight ‘Language Express’ world language courses run by the Centre for English and World Languages. You can choose from Arabic, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Russian or Spanish at Canterbury, or French and Japanese at Medway.

The fees for staff are £269 for 40 hours of classes during the autumn and spring terms. Courses start in October and most classes take place in the evening.

As a member of staff, you can apply for 50% funding towards the course fees, whether or not the language studied is relevant to your role at the University. You may be awarded 100% funding if the language studied is directly linked to your current role. Please apply for funding via Learning and Organisational Development

CEWL also offers Level One and Level Two British Sign Language courses. The fees are £458 and £680. Please note that the funding does not apply to these two courses.

Find out more and book your place on the CEWL website

Success at TUCO Awards for Kent Hospitality

Congratulations are in order for the catering team at Kent Hospitality as they were awarded the prestigious ‘Member of the Year’ Award at the 2019 TUCO (The University Caterers’ Organisation) Annual Conference earlier this month, held at the University of York.

The award recognises the institution that has made the most significant contribution to the work of TUCO with Kent praised for their support of framework agreements, attendance at events, training courses, tender working parties and other activities. The other two shortlisted Institutions were the University of Manchester and the University of St Andrews.

Head of Trading, Keith Williams said on the win: ‘Our team are delighted to have won this award reflecting the efforts put in to bring a quality service to Kent. We have played an active role in TUCO over the last few decades, recognising it as the perfect platform to benchmark against competitors, train and develop our team and benefit from leading market research and trend data by remaining up to date on industry standards and contributing to the work of TUCO. To have this recognised is a great honour.’

TUCO is the leading professional membership body for in-house caterers operating in the higher, further education and public sector. They are committed to advancing the learning and development of catering and hospitality teams, and work to provide quality standards, advice and information to those working in in-house catering.

Thank you!

Thank you to the hundreds of staff who took the time yesterday to call the Clearing hotline to help with the stress testing needed to ensure that we were fully functional in time for this morning’s Clearing activities.

Although we offer our applicants a web-first approach, we receive calls to the hotline not just from applicants, but from prospective students asking about a wide range of issues ,from grade outcomes to accommodation, and from those wanting reassurance about their offer of a place.

Thanks to the efforts of staff, and those of the specialist teams in EMS, IS and Estates, we opened the hotline at 07.00 today (Thursday 15 August) confident that it would be able to handle the volume of calls we are expecting.

A special thanks also to the hotline operators, a team of 60 students, for all their hard work in testing the hotline.

Japan Festival 14 August

Come and have a go at Japanese crafts and meet students from Kobe, Kogakkan and Musashino at our free event on 14 August.

You will be able to try your hand at a range of traditional Japanese arts and crafts, such as calligraphy and origami. The event takes place at the Centre for English and World Languages in the Chipperfield atrium from 5pm-6:30 pm. Everyone is welcome!

Link to venue on campus map.

Running Workshop 2019

On Saturday 31 August 10am to 1pm, the Kent Sport Physiotherapy Clinic would like to invite members, non-members and local runners to the fifth informative running workshop. In this workshop, we will be looking at strength and conditioning.

The workshop will be split in to two sessions:

First session: We will re-visit running drills as there is always room for improvement.
Second session: We will look at strength training exercises to improve running performance and reduce risk of injury. For those who wish to practise with weights, this will be available too.

Where: The Pavilion, University of Kent, Canterbury campus, CT2 7SR.

Who: Open to members and non-members. All abilities welcome.

Cost: £10 per person with complimentary tea and coffee on arrival and £5 off your next sports massage or physiotherapy session.

Payment: Must be made before the event by visiting reception at the Sports Centre or the Pavilion.

To register: Either email your application form to: physio@kent.ac.uk or mail / drop it off to the Physiotherapy Clinic.

What to bring: Running gear if you would like to complete parkrun first, plus additional running attire that is both comfortable to sit in during the lecture and then straight into the practical elements.

For more information, please visit our Website.