We know many of you will have missed playing tennis over the last year, particularly with the current situation limiting options for staying active. That’s why we are absolutely delighted to announce that the brand-new Indoor Tennis and Events Arena will be open for bookings from Monday 12 October! This enhanced facility provides the University of Kent with four high-quality indoor acrylic tennis and netball* courts, easier facility access and will provide an exceptional conference and events space in the future.

Tennis is open to book for all members – simply login to your online account and book ‘tennis’ under ‘Activity’. You don’t have to be a tennis pro or even know all the rules, our courts are open for everyone to enjoy. And with social distancing measures in place, we are Covid-secure. Booking for all Kent Sport sessions, including tennis, is essential and can be done on the Kent Sport Horizons webpage .

For more information on booking and procedures for this new facility, see our Indoor Tennis and Events Arena news item.

We’re really excited to be able to offer indoor tennis again, and we hope to see you all very soon.

*Netball courts will be available at a later date. Details to be announced.

For Kent Sport facility updates and developments, follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter or visit our website

Eighty-five academic colleagues are celebrating their promotion to professor, reader, senior lecturer or senior research fellow in the 2019-20 academic year.

The new professors are:

Division of Arts and Humanities

Julie Anderson (History), Juliette Pattinson (History), Henrik Schoenefeldt (Architecture and Planning), Anna Schaffner (Comparative Literature)

Professor Anna Schaffner

Division of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences

Richard Guest (Engineering and Digital Arts), Rachel McCrea (Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science)

Professor Rachel McCrea

Education Directorate

Kathleen Quinlan

Division of Human and Social Sciences

Markus Bindemann, (Psychology), Matthew Skinner (Anthropology and Conservation)

Professor Matthew Skinner (with Professor Tracy Kivell)

Kent Business School

Joseph Amankwah-Amoah

Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice

Lindsay Forbes (Centre for Health Services Studies), Karen Jones (PSSRU)

Division of Natural Sciences

John Dickinson (pictured – Sport and Exercise Sciences), James Hopker (Sport and Exercise Sciences)

Professor John Dickinson

Alison Ross-Green, Director of HR and Organisational Development, said:

‘The University is dependent upon the personal growth and career attainment of its academic staff to refresh, develop and strengthen our organisation for the future. Congratulations to all those promoted in 2019-20. Your hard work and focus on excellence help to ensure the outstanding student experience, research achievement and funding that is so important to our success going forward.’

You can see the full list of Academic Promotions 2019-20 here.

NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Kent, Surrey and Sussex (ARC KSS) will be holding a series of webinars during October and November to engage stakeholders on its first year achievements and discuss future plans.

The five webinars will include presentations from four ARC KSS themes (social care, dementia and healthy ageing, starting well children and young people’s mental health and primary and community care) in conjunction with ARC KSS’s four cross-cutting themes (health and social care economics, public health, digital and co-production) to showcase the impact ARC KSS is making in meeting local needs, engaging the public, and improving research capacity.

The ARC KSS Academy team will also be holding a separate event to discuss their plans to support researchers across health and social care applied research through learning, development and mentorship opportunities.

ARC KSS brings together NHS Trusts, local authorities, universities, KSS AHSN, communities and other partners to support applied research to improve health and social care for patients and families in Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

The collaboration, hosted by Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and led by ARC KSS Director, Professor Stephen Peckham, is designed to ensure the learning from research is implemented more rapidly and systematically to improve the health care of patients and the public.

Full details on all of the events, including how to sign up, can be found on ARC KSS’s Eventbrite page 

Organising for Success brings together work to ensure we are equipped to deliver our Kent 2025 strategy, driven by our six new academic Divisions which will launch on 1 November 2020.

Following the recent consultation on proposed professional services structures across the University, recruitment and appointment to roles is ongoing, with a full organisational structure due to be shared later in the month. We will also share a series of guides to the new university structure alongside this, ahead of ongoing work throughout the year to introduce new teams and focus on how we work together as the new Divisions take shape. 

Divisional Leadership Roles 

Appointments continue to be made to academic leadership roles within Divisions, with a latest list available on the Organising for Success staff webpages. New mailing lists have also been set up to bring together role holders in the different portfolio areas, including: 

• research-directors@kent.ac.uk 
• education-directors@kent.ac.uk 
• postgraduate-directors@kent.ac.uk  

Heads of Profession 

Work is ongoing to finalise the full list of Heads of Profession, who will be matched with the new structure to ensure all professional service staff in Divisions have a clear alignment with their wider professional service area. New role holders include Paul Sinnock, following his recent appointment as Head of Technical Services.  

Heads of Profession will play a key role in ensuring that each professional community is supported and empowered to work to the same high standard across the University. A further update including the final list of Heads of Profession will follow later in the month. 

Governance, Processes and Communications 

Alongside new appointments, work is continuing to support the transition to the new structures and refine the processes that underpin them wherever possible. As part of this, a new online-only Finance authorisation process will launch later in the month, while a number of the updates to the University’s governance, regulations and quality framework reflecting the transfer of responsibilities to Divisions have also been published.

Detailed work is also ongoing to introduce new mailing lists and Teams channels to help people across the University communicate with new stakeholder groups formed through the divisional structure. This will also support work to simplify how we communicate at Kent, reducing duplication and out-of-date email lists where relevant. An update on official University-wide lists and channels to use will be included in the wider guides to the new structures later this month. 

Find out more about Organising for Success 

Everybody has their own level of mental health, the same as their own level of physical health.  A person’s mental and physical health interact closely and are strongly connected.  Poor physical health will affect someone’s mental wellbeing, no matter how emotionally resilient they are.

Therefore everybody needs to have a good understanding of how to maintain good mental health and how to interact with people who may be struggling with mental health issues.  Saturday, 10 October is World Mental Health Day.  All mental health charities mark the day with their own campaigns.  The Mental Health Foundation’s campaign encourages people to communicate with ‘Tea and Talk’; MIND encourages people to ‘Do One Thing for Better Mental Health’.

The University has several resources and support mechanisms in place for staff struggling with issues that are affecting their mental health.  Staff can self-refer to Occupational Health.  The University’s Employee Assistance Programme offers leaflets, telephone counselling, face to face counselling and an information line:

University of Kent – Care first – Employee Assistance Resource; Log in = uokent; Password = university

OH has been running a series of blog articles since the Covid 19 crisis began and many of these focus on mental health and the challenges of working from home and working through change.  These are accessible on the Health and Wellbeing website

Learning and Organisation Development will be running an additional Virtual Training Session on Mental Health awareness with Anna Minogue; details coming soon.

Here are 10 Top Tips for maintaining good mental health

5 General Tips

1. Connect with other People: good relationships are important as they can help build a sense of belonging and self-worth, give you an opportunity to share positive experiences and provide emotional support to others

2. Be Physically Active: Evidence shows being active can improve your mental wellbeing by raising your self-esteem, helping set goals and achieve them and can cause chemical changes in your brain which can help to positively change your mood

3. Keep Learning: Research shows that learning new skills can improve mental wellbeing by boosting self-confidence and raising self-esteem, helping build a sense of purpose and connection with others

4. Give to Others: Research suggests that acts of kindness can help create positive feelings and a sense of reward, giving you purpose and self-worth and help connect with other people. Examples are small acts of kindness towards other people, or volunteering in your local community

5. Living in the Moment: Paying more attention to the present moment can improve your mental wellbeing, including your thoughts, feelings, your body and the world around you. ‘Mindfulness’ can help you enjoy life more and understand yourself better

5 Tips for Good Mental Health at Work

1. Maintain Boundaries: Don’t let work activities creep into your personal time.  This is more important now when most of us are based working from home.  Put in boundaries of time and space for your work activities.

2. Keep in Contact: Prioritise Team meetings, in Teams, Zoom or telephone.  This is your work community and they understand the challenges of your work better than anyone else.  If you’re having a bad day, reach out to a colleague.

3. Take Breaks: ensure you maintain breaks in your home-working routine.  Breaks are especially important if your home workstation set-up is not as ergonomic as it should be.

4. Take your Holidays: 2020 is probably the weirdest work year for all of us and the lack of certainty can completely throw our sense or normality.  Working in this alternative way means it’s important we take time away from work, to rest and enjoy ourselves.

5. Reach out to your Manager: if you find yourself struggling or feel overwhelmed you can access lots of the University resources (see information above). You can also  talk to your supervisor or manager, or  consider contacting someone else in your management line or HR or OH.  The University has a Psychological Wellbeing Standard in place which contains an Individual Stress Risk Assessment Tool.

A working group in Finance have been working on a new solution for requesting financial approvals as part of the ongoing focus on simplifying how we work through Organising for Success.   

In the next couple of weeks, all financial approval requests will move to a SharePoint–based Financial Authority form under a new process developed with input from the Directors of Division. The form includes all areas needing financial approval and reporting access, and is automatically passed on the appropriate approver once it is submitted. Once approved, the form routes to UBW Help for processing and for creating and updating workflows. 

This move away from the existing paper-based process is designed to make applications easier to complete and approve. The new form will be visible and editable by the applicant, with reports to Finance Managers detailing financial approvers in their areas made available shortly. 

Due to the scale of the changes for both Divisions and PSDs, all existing approvers will also need to complete the forms to enable us to close the existing workflows held in UBW. Support will be provided with this, with new workflows based on the SharePoint forms then be in place from 2 November. 

More detailed information will be provided to relevant finance staff across the University next week ahead of the launch. In the meantime, please contact Vicky Gatward-Warner in Finance directly if you have any further questions. 

I am absolutely delighted to be able to announce that we have now selected our first Signature Research Themes. These are Food Systems, Natural Resources & the Environment; Future Human; and Migration & Movement. All three have a powerful contemporary relevance, and between them they represent some of Kent’s principal strengths in interdisciplinary work; the synergies between our research and teaching; our links with business; and our regional, national and international engagement and partnerships.

I would like to thank all those who took part in the selection process as well as all those who submitted proposals. It was immensely gratifying to see such strong contenders and it was extremely difficult to make the final selection. The themes that were not successful on this occasion will be encouraged to continue their excellent work with a view to their becoming future Signature Research Themes. I would like to thank Dr Tim Hopthrow, Professor Dan Mulvihill and Professor Catherine Richardson, the academic leads for the Themes Task and Finish Group, as well as colleagues from the Office for Scholarly Communication, all of whom have worked tirelessly in support of this initiative.  We will continue keep you updated on the work of the Themes over the coming months. You can find out more here.

On a different note, COVID-19 continues to dominate much of our lives. The number of positive cases of COVID-19 remains very low among our staff and student populations at this point. However, we all know circumstances can change and both Academic Divisions and Professional Service Directorates are working hard to ensure we have robust plans in place to respond to range of scenarios. We have developed a care package to support students who are self-isolating and will ensure we make details available to parents as well as students as we know this is an area of considerable concern.

We also have a framework in place to support the health and wellbeing of all staff during this challenging time and will continue to work closely with our Staff and Trades Union Representatives to ensure we are responding to staff concerns as they arise.

The University’s ‘Gold Command Team’, which oversees our response in terms of teaching delivery, campus operations and student and staff health and wellbeing, is now meeting twice daily. We continue to work in line with Government guidance, and this week received further confirmation that there is a strong commitment to working with universities to enable students to return home at Christmas. We will continue update you on a regular basis and additional information can be found on our Covid webpages for staff and students.

With the greatest of thanks and my very best wishes to you and your families,

Karen

Professor Karen Cox | Vice-Chancellor and President

In this series of public online seminars, the Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE) focuses upon technology enhanced learning. In rapidly changing times, the sudden move to more online forms of learning in HE brought on by COVID-19 have challenged us all. World leading scholars will highlight research that will help us all in our online teaching practice. The online seminars will explore learning design, learning analytics, electronic assessment and feedback and contract cheating.

CSHE are hosting five seminars – all will be held online via Microsoft Teams. You can find more details about each seminar on our website:

Designing for online learning: Practical implications from research on learning design and student self-regulated learning – Wednesday 14 October 2020 10.00 – 11.00. Professor Sue Bennett, University of Wollongong, Australia

Using Learning analytics to support learners and teachers at the Open University – Thursday 22 October 2020 13.00 – 14.00. Professor Bart Rienties Open University, UK

Online and Onboard: The impact of electronic submission, feedback and grading on the staff and student experience – Thursday 29 October 2020 13.00 – 14.00. Professor Emma Mayhew, University of Surrey, UK.

Detecting and addressing contract cheating in online assessment – Thursday 12 November 2020 10.00 – 11.00. Associate Professor Phill Dawson, Deakin University, Australia

Seminar 5 Title TBC. Thursday 26 November 2020 10.00 – 11.00. Professor Dragan Gasevic, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

The Templeman Library will be closed on Saturday 10 October while essential maintenance work is carried out. The Library will close at 21.00 on Friday 9 October and reopen at 09.00 on Sunday 11 October.

You will still be able to access the resources you need for your studies online, and alternative study spaces will be available across campus.

We will be available to help you remotely with all your library and IT queries.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this essential work.