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Faculty of Humanities

Message from Hannah Rundle

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. I hope you had chance to spend time with your family and friends over the summer period.

As we head towards the start of semester one, I wanted to take the opportunity to write to you all about our ongoing activities around responding to the impacts of COVID-19 on our activities on campus with a particular focus on our approach to safety on campus.

Once again we begin the academic year with new challenges to overcome due to COVID-19. Over the past 18 months we have shown how creative we can be in finding solutions, and how resilient we are in adapting to the resulting changes. I am immensely proud of the ways in which teams have supported each other and recognise how hard we are all working in circumstances that remain challenging and uncertain.

 

Safety on campus

As more of us are returning to work on campus I wanted to assure you that maintaining the safety of our staff and students is our priority. There has been a huge investment of time and effort in making the University as safe as possible and 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;
  • adjusting ventilation where we can (this will not be possible in every building and room on the campus);
  • across campus there is signage to remind staff and student of the key actions to take to minimise the spread of infection;
  • our new SafeZone app provides an extra helpline to report issues on campus and access support, but can also be used to report COVID-19 issues, and SafeZone check-ins can also help to design safe flows of movement across campus.

I would like to assure you that everything is being done to support staff and students on campus to minimise the spread of infection. You can find further information about safety on our estates on StaffNet.

Please can I also urge you to continue to keep yourself and others safe by following our safety measures and advice including:

  • using face coverings indoors when moving around or in spaces where a risk assessment suggests the need for additional measures. Face coverings and hand sanitiser are available across our campus buildings;
  •  opening windows where possible, remembering to close them at the end of the day;
  • not blocking or covering wall vents;
  • using the NHS COVID app and following current NHS guidance.

If you have any concerns about the safety of yourself or others on campus, please speak with your line manager in the first instance. You can also find information on the University’s campus management pages, or on Humanities StaffNet.

I am hugely grateful for all the efforts taking place across school and faculty office teams and especially from safety advisors to implement all our agreed safety measures.

Planning

While we are all hoping for the best we are also planning for all eventualities. We know from experience that the situation can change quickly. Colleagues have been preparing secondary timetables for students, and plans for staff, should the government direct us to reduce on-campus activity at any point. We expect, but can’t guarantee, a two-week notice period to manage any transition 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.

Arrangements for students

I thought it might also be useful to share with your some updates in terms of our arrangements for our new and returning 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.
  • 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 booked onto one of the training sessions. I would like to extend my thanks to the eLearning teams and teams in Schools for all the work they have done to ensure we are as prepared as possible for dual delivery.

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 fully or partly vaccinated.

Finally

From 1 September we began our hybrid working pilot. I hope that you are settling into your routines and working closely with your teams to help make the pilot as successful as possible. I am certainly appreciating meeting colleagues face-to-face and am enjoying the emerging buzz around campus. Jayne Hindle, our leader in hybrid working, 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. She and I are hosting another drop-in session today between 11am – 12pm so please do join us if you have a question, comment or idea to share. 

 

Thank you for your ongoing hard work and all of your commitment to work together to keep yourself and others safe on campus. I hope you will join me at my next open meeting on Thursday, 30 September at 11am where Jayne Hindle will present on the hybrid working pilot, the eLearning team will update us on their activities and Janine Ellis will share information about the hotel.

Best wishes,

Hannah.