| Another week of autumnal glory here in the New England and some respite from the challenges of recent adverse weather events.
News of further release from COVID engagement constraints has allowed UNE to formally move to the next phase of our return to campus plans and open up fully for T2/2021; I know this will make a lot of our students happy. It does mean we can increase occupancy and load on most of our sites (currently at about 60%) but does still limit the number of non-University affiliated guests we can accommodate. I am besieged by requests to relaunch Graduation and other such events – we hope to be able to do this later in the year when the weather is more certain and we can rely on the use of our open spaces; currently we are bound by the challenges of our built environment in the context of both institutional and community safety. Further delays in the vaccine roll out programme is another point of reference. At the other end of the scale, the ‘bubble’ between New Zealand and Australia is positive news. |
