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 1 September, from 11.00-13:30 (BST), with the theme ‘How can we best engage our students in 2021/22’.

Please find the agenda for the event below:

11:00 – 11:05 – Phil Anthony (University of Kent): Introduction.

11:05 – 11:20 – Phil Anthony (University of Kent): Looking Back to Move Forward: Student Reflections on 2020/21

11:20 – 11:35 – Krishna Upadhayaya (Kathmandu University, Nepal): Online Project Based Teaching Learning in ELT

11:35 – 11:50 – Nina Joustra, Dani Bocmaru & Meiki Zeidler (students at Maastricht University School of Business): Online and Offline Learning – How to get the best out of both?

11:50 – 12:05 – Oliver Bills (University of Southampton): Taking the university community virtual with Discord: A Success Story

12:05 – 12:15 – BREAK

12:15 – 12:30 – Miranda Melcher (King’s College London): Teaching inclusively to improve student engagement and accessibility

12:30 – 12:45 – Dustin Hosseini (University of Glasgow): Podcasts as a medium for teaching and learning

12:45 – 13:00 – Jay Fulgencio (Roosevelt University, US): Engaging Students in the Netflix Era

13:00 – 13:15 – Eliana Elkhoury (Assistant Professor, Athabasca University, Canada): Maybe we need to think differently about academic integrity

13:15 – 13:30 – Dustin Blakkie (California State University): Fostering Student Engagement in Your Courses

If you would like to join the webinar series, please express your interest here if you haven’t already. We will add you the Microsoft Team linked to the series. Colleagues from outside the University of Kent are very welcome to join and so feel free to circulate.

If you would like to present at a future event, please complete this form and Phil Anthony will be in touch.

Our official Employee Assistance Programme provider, Care first offers a numbers of services and provide useful advice and support, including weekly webinars.

This week’s (Monday 16 August –  Friday 20 August) webinars are as follows:

Monday 16 August 2021 – ‘How Care first can support you’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Tuesday 17 August 2021 – ‘How the pandemic has affected our behaviour’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Wednesday 18 August 2021 -‘Travelling safely’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Thursday 19 August 2021 – Switching off and resting effectively on leave’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

Friday 20 August 2021 -‘‘The impact of positivity and celebrations on our mental health’
Time: 12.00-12.30 – to register please click on this Go to webinar link

The Careers and Employability Service is pleased to announce Jobshop, the vacancy portal run by Kent Union, has moved to TargetConnect. TargetConnect is the vacancy platform used by the Careers and Employability Service for advertising vacancies. Going forward, all part-time, temporary and seasonal roles will now also be advertised on TargetConnect, meaning students can access graduate schemes and jobs, internships, volunteering and now part-time vacancies in one place!

Students will still access the Jobshop website, however, they will now be directed to TargetConnect, to browse jobs and apply. Students will need to log in with their Kent credentials to access the jobs portal. Over the next few weeks, part-time roles will begin to be added to TargetConnect.

Employers can still advertise a part-time vacancy for free, by emailing Jobshop: jobshop@kent.ac.uk or by visiting their website: https://kentunion.co.uk/jobshop/employers.

The Careers and Employability Service and Jobshop look forward to this new partnership!

Did you know Kent staff members get a discount on tickets at Gulbenkian Arts Centre?

Staff Members can save up to £2 off films* at Gulbenkian Arts Centre.

Throughout August, Gulbenkian Arts Centre’s cinema is open screening a range of summer blockbusters, independent flicks and also lots of family friendly films feature in our August programme!

Summer film season includes Off The Rails, Freaky, Nowhere Special, The World To Come, Deerskin, Limbo and more!

Tickets are available to book online through the Gulbenkian Arts Centre.

Proof of University of Kent Staff ID may be required when attending the event.

Also don’t forget to register to attend the University of Kent Staff Day at bOing! Kent’s Family Arts Festival on Fri 27 August 2021.

Organised as a big thank you from the University to all Kent staff in recognition for the tremendous effort put in by all throughout the year, the Staff Family Day at bOing! is FREE for Kent staff and their families to attend. Find out more and register.

*The offer applies to University of Kent staff member only and selected events. Does not include Family Film Screenings or one-off events. Not available for friends and family of staff member.

From Jane Higham, Chief Financial Officer

As we head into the summer after an especially challenging year, I wanted to give everyone an update on the work to embed the new structures put in place over the last 12 months. It’s been a challenging year for everyone and we really do hear what many of you are saying about the impact the changes have had on many people’s workload and wellbeing. As Chair of the Project Strategic Group overseeing implementation, I fully appreciate there is a lot still to do to get this right. In particular, our processes and ways of working are making it hard to realise the benefits of the new structures, and both these and the initial challenges with KentVision are vital issues for us to address to help make things easier.  

Actions are much more important than words with this and we are prioritising a number of immediate changes to start alleviating workload pressure as we head into next year. This is on top of accompanying work to clarify academic governance structures and to identify opportunities for short-term support where its impact would be most felt.

How We Work: Process Improvement

Activity led by the Project Management Office to fast-track process improvement university-wide is pushing ahead, with initial scoping work having identified a number of both quicker wins to work on along with some longer-term change initiatives that need to be prioritised. A number of the more immediate opportunities for improvement are already being addressed, with the PMO supporting teams and process owners to get changes in place quickly – thank you to everyone you sent in suggestions for this via the How We Work pages.

Framework Agreements 

The relationship between Divisions and central Professional Services teams is key to the success of our new structure. Those relationships are defined within framework agreements which cover how the different teams work together, where accountability sits and who leads on which areas of activity. The majority of the frameworks are now in place and are forming the basis of ongoing collaboration between Divisions and central teams – the remainder will be agreed by October at the latest. 

Heads of Profession 

Supporting this will be Heads of Profession who will provide leadership, training and support for colleagues working in their professional areas across the University. It has taken time to develop this role and the expectations for interaction between different areas that come with it – again, these will be in place in line with the final framework agreements by October. 

Ongoing Engagement 

Bringing new communities together while working remotely has been a challenge, and we are currently developing plans for ongoing engagement in different areas to help with this. This is to ensure there are regular opportunities for different key groups to come together, supported by a broader programme of staff engagement activity throughout the year opening with the proposed Staff Conference in September.  

Whilst I can’t promise things will get better quickly, I hope this reassures you that the pressures staff are experiencing are recognised and that actions are being taken to address what we can as quickly as possible. In the meantime, while I know it remains a busy time for many – and particularly those involved in the huge Clearing efforts this week – I hope colleagues can take advantage of reduced email traffic and some time off over the summer and I look forward to continuing to improve how we work together in the year ahead. 

Jane Higham | Chief Financial Officer

The University was very sorry to learn that Philip North died on 4 June, 2021, aged 72.

Dr North obtained his PhD from the University of Kent in 1979, on the topic of Statistical methods in ornithology. He was an active member of an Ecology Research Group, which predated DICE.

In addition through his research, links were established with the British Trust for Ornithology and the Centre d’Ecologie Fontionnelle & Evolutive, CNRS Montpellier, which are continued by the current members of the Statistical Ecology at Kent research group in SMSAS.

He became Director of the Applied Statistical Research Unit at Kent (subsequently ASRU Ltd), which for many years undertook consultancy with a range of pharmaceutical companies.

Words by Byron Morgan, SMSAS

The Income Office are looking for temporary staff (not current UG or PG students) to assist in our call centre. Starting date to be 1 September for 2 x Call Centre staff for 8 weeks and 1 x Admin role until 17 December 2021.

The nature of the work is to answer telephone enquiries from students, parents and sponsors and full training will be provided. The admin role will be to assist with email responses.

If you know of anyone (over 18) who might be interested would you please ask them to apply via this links below.  The deadline date for applications is Friday 13 August 2021.

Please take a look at the job descriptions for more information:

Income Office Call Assistants

Income Office Call Assistant (Admin) 

Kent Hospitality’s Housekeeping Team were delighted to award one of their team members, Hayley Blindell, with a British Association of Cleaning in Higher Education (BACHE) Highly Commended certificate last week.

The BACHE certificate recognised Hayley’s professionalism, hard work and the supportive team role which she fulfils within the university. Hayley has demonstrated this through all her seven years working at Kent, but her nomination pulled examples from the past 12 months. In this period, Hayley has repeatedly gone above and beyond by altering working patterns and being heavily relied upon to support her colleagues with the many changes that have arisen due to the pandemic.

Extracts from Hayley’s successful nomination included customer feedback such as the following:

“Please could you share with your team a massive thank you from KMMS. I understand speaking to a colleague this morning that your team were awesome! And made our Academics feel like everything was taken care of. As you can imagine assessments are a highly stressful time for both staff and students – the housekeeping team in Pears made things so easy that we did not have to fret about it.”

“We know how methodical the team are but to have this support on the day was amazing.”

Many congratulations to Hayley on her well-deserved win.

Congratulations to Professor Keith Somerville on being elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (RHS).

Keith’s current roles at Kent include teaching Propaganda, and Communication and Humanitarianism modules at the Centre for Journalism, and being an active member of the Durrell Institute (DICE); for example, giving lectures on the ivory trade to Master’s students.

The RHS Fellowship recognises Keith’s contribution to historical research, including his history of research and publication (five books and several journal papers) on modern African history. This has culminated in Africa’s Lond Road Since Independence, The Manu Histories of a Continent, and his last three books on the history and current nature of human-wildlife conflict in Africa, dealing with the ivory trade, human-lion conflict and demonisation of the hyena by humans.

Commenting on his Fellowship, Keith said: ‘The RHS is an excellent forum for exchanging ideas and finding out about new research… Being a Fellow will be invaluable as a networking and research tool and is a very welcome recognition of my contribution to historical study.’

Keith is also a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London; a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group; and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London. His book on Ivory won the Marjan-Marsh Conservation Award in 2016.

A full list of the recently conferred RHS Fellowships can be seen on the Society’s webpages.