Kent Bulletin - University of Kent

The
Development Programme
After every Bulletin mailing, we
are delighted with the positive
response in the form of gifts to
the Annual Fund. Since the
spring mailing, about 50 of
you have made new donations.
THANK YOU, and please
keep them coming! Through
your help, and that of earlier
donors plus royalty income
from the Affinity Credit Card,
we were able again to award
the Alumni Postgraduate
Scholarship this autumn.
Keep on learning
Rhonda Smith (R68) helped
select this year’ s Alumni Postgraduate
Scholar.
During Adult Learners Week,
agencies, further education
establishments and government
departments try to
encourage more ‘adults’ to
continue learning and upgrade
our skills. The new Older &
Bolder project exhorts older
individuals also to ‘keep on
learning’. It may help keep
dementia at bay.
So when, in June, I went to
UKC to help select the next
Alumni Scholar, I did so in the
spirit of ‘continuing education’.
Receiving the papers on
the short-listed candidates
called for research. Working as
I do with health organisations,
I thought I knew what the
immune system was – b ut in
relation to computers and data
mining? It turned out it’s a
metaphor and made sense,
just about. What is its practical
application, I asked myself,
so attuned to the real world.
Having
read history
and politics
at UKC, I
felt more
attuned to
the two
projects submitted
by THE 2001 ALUMNI
KIRSTEN HAACK R98,
students from SCHOLAR
International
Relations. But that feeling
soon evaporated as I tried to
make sense of the economic
integration issues put forward
and underlying mechanisms at
work in the UN. The fourth
project concerned the mobile
phone and privacy - a subject
close to my heart.
Cheered by advice that we
should award the scholarship
as much for the student’s
ability to communicate about
their work as for the project
itself, I relied on my instincts.
And luckily, those instincts
agreed with the views of the
academics and others on the
panel, whose crisp questioning
had brought out the best in all
candidates. Via entirely different
routes, we selected the
same candidate. Kirsten
Haack (R98) is undertaking a
PhD on the definition of
democracy in the context of
international law.
So I made my own personal
contribution to Adult
Learners Week this year, and I
might just submit an entry to
the Older & Bolder competition
for next year!
BAE SYSTEMS
enables students
at UKM
Thanks to the generosity of
BAE SYSTEMS, eight new
students started the foundation
degree in electronic and
computer systems at the
University of Kent’s new
campus in Medway this September.
They join more than
500 other new students at
UKM, studying such subjects
as sport, health and fitness,
social work, business studies
and law. The new campus was
established through a partnership
between Mid-Kent College
and UKC.
London Marathon
Would you like to help put
together a UKC team for the
London Marathon to raise
funds for today’s students? If
so, please get in touch
(J.K.Burn@ukc.ac.uk).
In memoriam
Alumni have contacted me
about making gifts in memory
of the late Steve Reilly,
Lecturer in Politics and International
Relations at the
University, and in memory of
Robert Parsonage R84. If
you are interested in joining
Lucy Amis R88 in making a
gift in memory of Steve, please
contact her at
lucy.amis@iblf.org. In memory
of Robert, please contact
Graham Ferguson R84 on
graham.ferguson@americanexpress.com.bh
or
J.K.Burn@ukc.ac.uk.
Making Music!
The University Chamber
Choir toured in
Guernsey in June,
having raised much of
their funding for the
tour through arranging
concerts and busking
beforehand. They
were helped with
grants from the University
Benefactors’
Fund, the Colyer-
Fergusson Music
Fund and the Students’
Union. Pictured
in the grounds
of the Blanchlande
Girls’ College,
Guernsey.
Furley Page Solicitors in Canterbury
are generously supporting
the Lunchtime Concert
Series at the University.
PICTURED: BACKBEAT PERCUSSION QUARTET
7