Message from Keith Brown and Fiona Smyth to academic staff

20 Sep 2021

New academic year – COVID-19 and our approach to safety on campus

Dear colleagues,

Welcome to the new academic year 2021/22. We hope you had chance to spend time with your family and friends before your preparations for Semester 1 began in earnest.

As Keith said in his recent Message from the Dean in eNews, once again we commence the academic year with new challenges to overcome. However, we can draw confidence from knowing that over the past 18 months we have demonstrated enormous creativity in finding solutions, and great resilience in adapting to the resulting changes.

Staff and student safety

There has been a huge investment of time and effort in making the University as safe as possible and we want to assure you that our priority is to maintain the safety of our staff and students within the guidelines set out by the Government and the operational guidance for HEs issued by the Department for Education.

The key points from this guidance are that we have a legal duty to keep everyone safe in the workplace and that we must not put in place any measures that limit the teaching and learning outcome for students, or significantly limit their wider activities. The Government has indicated that if in-person teaching is not delivered then we could be subject to cuts in fees.

Therefore, we will be employing a number of measures to manage risk including:

Encouraging and facilitating all staff and students to have COVID-19 (and other) vaccinations. Pop up vaccination centres will be on campus for the start of term.
Ensuring we all undertake regular self-testing for COVID-19 (tests available freely on the campus at catering outlets).
Maintaining social distancing where we can without restriction of activity or student experience.
Enhanced cleaning and disinfection regimens.

Face coverings

We cannot mandate the wearing of face coverings in all situations. However, it is strongly recommended that you wear a face covering whilst moving around indoors on campus.
It is expected that face coverings will be worn in lecture theatres and large teaching spaces. In other areas they may be required if indicated by local risk assessment. There will be clear signage in areas where they are required by a risk assessment, along with signage outside teaching areas.
Face coverings are available in numerous places across campus and will be made available in all teaching spaces.
Schools will be given transparent face masks that they can distribute for staff to wear during teaching if required.
Read the University FAQs on face coverings.

Ventilation

Please take note of the maximum room occupancy advice.

Students

As part of our Welcome and Welcome Back campaigns to our students we have included a strong focus on COVID-19 safety and good citizenship.
These messages are being repeated regularly in all our communications with students. All messaging has been co-ordinated with the Students’ Union to reach as many students as possible.
Across campus there is signage to remind staff and students of the key actions to take to minimise the spread of infection. To provide additional visibility you can add a slide to your teaching sessions.

From the University’s recent survey of our students we know that, of the 8,200 Humanities students who responded to the survey, over 7,800 told us they were already fully or partly vaccinated. The pop-up vaccination centres should increase this further.

You can find further information on safety on our estates on StaffNet.

Dual teaching

This year a key challenge for us is ensuring we can deliver high-quality dual teaching during the first semester and over 600 colleagues have already booked onto one of the training sessions. The feedback our eLearning team has received about these sessions shows how welcome they have been, and how vital the training could be to our success in this area. If you have not already done so, please book your dual teaching training now.

Hybrid working
From 1 September we implemented our managed return to campus and our Professional Services (PS) colleagues also began their hybrid working pilot. Jayne Hindle, our leader in this area, and her team have provided information and guidance, along with regular updates and drop-in sessions for PS staff on this new way of working. In the coming weeks they will be offering similar drop-in sessions for academic colleagues and we urge you to take part in these – your feedback is vital for the ongoing planning of the pilot. Information on these sessions will be shared shortly.

Research
Last month’s message in eNews from Brian Heaphy and Alison Wilson, Head of School and Head of School Operations for the School of Social Sciences, reiterated our commitment to supporting colleagues with their research. While the pandemic has given many humanities researchers new areas of focus, it has also led to significant challenges. It is vital that we continue support colleagues focusing on their research so they can continue to positively impact our communities.

Planning

While we are all hoping for the best we are also planning for all eventualities. We will be starting the academic year with an on-campus timetable. However, weeks of work by Schools, Estates and Timetabling have gone into preparing a secondary timetable should the Government direct us to reduce on-campus activity at any point. We expect, but cannot guarantee, a two-week notice period to manage any timetable shift if directed by the Government.

We will share any changes with you as quickly as possible to allow as much time as possible for planning.

Finally

Thank you for your ongoing hard work and commitment and, once again, welcome back to campus. We look forward to seeing and meeting many of you in person over the coming weeks.

Best wishes
Keith and Fiona

Keith Brown Fiona Smyth
Vice-President and Dean Deputy Dean and Vice-Dean for Teaching, Learning and Students