Dear colleague,
From the broadest perspective, universities are about investment in the future. Students study with us because they know a good education provides a grounding for their life journeys, we carry out research because it can help societies in the long-run, and we build on knowledge because it benefits all our futures.
But we also need to invest in ourselves as an institution, and that includes enhancing our infrastructure to allow our education and research to flourish. To this end, the £200 million that we have pledged over five years as part of our long-term strategy will transform our ability to deliver exceptional education and research. As those of you who were able to join our Investing in a Better Sussex webinar last week learnt, while the pandemic caused us to reduce our ambition, we are now on track to deliver on all our priorities. These include: the West Slope re-development; the IT Network replacement; and the Student Information System replacement. To ensure the programme remains aligned to our strategic priorities, an annual review process has been established.
Last week Provost Professor Rachel Mills and I completed our tour of all our Schools. What shone through was the positive, hardworking and committed nature of staff and students, something I have noticed repeatedly since I came to Sussex. The overall sense is that there is a lot of great research and teaching work, and we have learnt about many examples of heroic efforts by staff. Virtually all the students we met were articulate and engaged, and great ambassadors for their subject and university. We also heard about some of the challenges staff and students face, including buildings in need of upgrades and refurbishment. I’m pleased to say that that is also part of our investment programme.
The final school tour was of the Brighton and Sussex Medical School, which we jointly run with the University of Brighton. Here I had a tour of BSMS with Professor Claire Smith, our Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education Innovation and Head of Anatomy. I was fascinated by the amazing work of the anatomy laboratory, who facilitate using donor bodies for the education of medical and allied health students.
As I mentioned last week, we are launching an appeal to raise funds towards hardship bursaries and scholarships for students from Ukraine affected by the war. I very much hope that you will wish to join us in offering some comfort to these students in their hour of need. I am fully aware that you may have already supported some of the many charities providing humanitarian help to those affected by the war and may not be able to help us on this occasion. However, if you feel able to make a gift towards Ukrainian students whose lives and education have been turned upside down by the war, your support would be immensely appreciated. No gift is too large or too small.
We know that we can touch people’s lives in many ways by what we do and how we treat them. This week I learned about the death of former Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret McGowan. I did not have the good fortune to meet Margaret, but it is evident from the many tributes paid to her by past and present staff here that she is warmly remembered by those who knew her. That, surely, is testimony of a life well lived.
Finally, I had an enjoyable time as a spectator at Varsity last week. I was delighted that Sussex were the overall champions of the sport matches between us and the University of Brighton, but mostly it was just wonderful and uplifting to see students pushing themselves to do their best in the traditional competition that’s been on hold for the past couple of years.
I hope you have a good week.
Warm regards,
David Maguire
Interim Vice-Chancellor