Author: Shaun Williams, Executive Director Engagement and Advancement
The major part of today’s meeting, initially in Gold Command mode, was focused on the implications of the Prime Minister’s weekend announcement of a further national lockdown in England, to take effect from Thursday 5 November.
- UEB discussed in detail the implications of the Government’s stated priority to keep universities and other educational institutions open during the four-week lockdown period, and the Government’s instruction that students should not move back and forward between their permanent home and student home, and should only return home at the end of term for Christmas. UEB noted that the Government will shortly be providing further guidance about the end of term arrangements for students, and an internal group has been set up to address the implications of that.
- UEB agreed that the national focus on ensuring students can continue to receive a high quality university experience is a privilege, and a responsibility, that we should take very seriously indeed. UEB also recognised the enduring impact of the pandemic, and these new restrictions, on the ongoing wellbeing of our students and staff, and the need to ensure we continue to provide any support required.
- UEB also discussed the apparently conflicting comments from Government that colleges and universities should consider moving to increased levels of online learning where possible. The core of our teaching is already online this term. It is understood the Government will be clarifying its position this week, and it is expected this will confirm that universities should take account of their own circumstances against the backdrop of Government guidelines.
- UEB then reviewed the latest number of confirmed active COVID cases amongst our students and staff, which remains relatively low, underpinned in part by our major asymptomatic testing programme for students and eligible staff.
After these detailed discussions UEB agreed the following:
- The University will remain at Tier 1 in terms of the Department for Education response levels. This will be reviewed during the week as further guidance is received, and a further Gold Command meeting will take place on Wednesday, ahead of the new restrictions starting on Thursday.
- In line with Government policy, our intention is for the University to remain open and operating in the COVID-secure way that we have been doing since the start of term, continuing with the same teaching patterns that we have been providing for the first few weeks of term, and that our laboratories will remain open.
- An update email will be sent to all staff immediately after UEB, and further communication about the operational implications of the new restrictions will be provided to staff and students during the course of the week.
- Clearly events could change further over the coming days and weeks and UEB was confident the University has the preparations made, and the agility, to adapt our approach ahead if required.
The meeting then reverted to UEB status for the rest of today’s agenda, the monthly focus on our Strategic Major Projects. This included:
- An overall update on the status and progress of the current active strategic major projects.
- A further update on our estates project, where the current focus is on the feasibility stage for plans for the development of the Highfield campus North East Quadrant and Faraday site, and the future development of our sport and wellbeing offering.
- Approval of the project closure report for the Office 365 Project. The core project phases, designed to increase our internal and external online collaboration, were all completed and delivered as planned – email migration to Exchange Online, migration to SharePoint Online, rolling out Microsoft TEAMS, and decommissioning Skype for Business. Who could have predicted back in January that TEAMS would become such an integral part of all our working lives so quickly?
- An update on the overall IT Projects workstream including the hugely important Cyber Security project, a major project to create a single CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform supporting the student journey from applicant to alumni, and an Information Management project to improve the way information is managed, stored and worked with across the University.