Dear colleagues,
I hope you have had an enjoyable and restful summer and you have taken advantage of opportunities to spend time with your family and friends.
With the new academic year beginning next month, we can all look forward to a welcome return to face-to-face teaching.
This will see our campus energised with new and returning students, keen to come together to learn in person and to fully embrace the university experience after the significant disruption we have dealt with over the past two years. They will form a new Strathclyde community, eager to study and socialise in our city centre campus and I know we will all be delighted to see our buildings vibrant again.
As a campus-based institution, our community thrives when we have opportunities to connect and collaborate in person, and I look forward to seeing many more students – and colleagues – on campus beginning in September.
Indeed, with our Professional Graduate Diploma in Education cohort already having started classes last week – and our January intake students studying over summer – there is already a ‘buzz’ and an energy around Strathclyde, which is set to grow as we move towards Freshers’ Week and the beginning of the first Semester.
I would like to thank all of our academic, professional services and support staff across the University for the planning and preparations they have put in place to help make this happen. Over recent months it has been great to have the opportunity to see so many of our colleagues in person as we return to being a campus-based University again.
We know that working in a face-to-face environment provides a real sense of community and has a positive impact on mental health and wellbeing. We take the welfare and wellbeing of colleagues seriously and want to ensure that our people feel valued and included, and this works most effectively when we come together to provide first-class teaching, research and innovation on campus, underpinned by excellent support and administration services.
Campus facilities, such as our new Learning & Teaching building, provide social, meeting and collaboration spaces, as well as catering outlets, in which to interact with colleagues, while Strathclyde Sport is once again offering its full timetable of classes and activities to support your physical and mental health and wellbeing – all in the heart of Glasgow city centre.
Over the coming weeks colleagues will see some changes on campus as COVID-19 signage is replaced to reflect current guidance. We recognise that the coronavirus continues to circulate, so the health, safety and wellbeing of the Strathclyde community will continue to inform our decisions and actions, as has been the case throughout our managed journey as we navigated the pandemic.
We will continue to monitor the situation and take appropriate measures to protect our staff and students as required.
Further information on this can be found on our COVID-19 information webpages, while our Wellbeing Hub is a source of support for a healthy work-life balance, active travel advice and a range of online learning resources.
I look forward to seeing many of you in person in the weeks and months ahead and I know you will join me in welcoming our new and returning students to the Strathclyde community.
Best wishes,
Jim