President's weekly update
15 October 2020
If you have been following our daily updates of students and staff who have reported testing positive for COVID-19 you will have seen that for students these have been declining quite sharply. Staff numbers have remained low. This is encouraging, but gives no room for complacency, particularly in light of high infection rates in our region. We are not aware of any infections transmitted through teaching, and the pattern of infections shows that these rose well before the start of teaching and began to fall before we increased the proportion of online learning for most programmes.
We have many comments from staff and students who greatly value face-to-face teaching. As planned we will be reviewing our position and taking advice from regional Public Health experts next week.
You will have seen that the government has introduced new ‘lockdown tiers’ (which are different to the Department for Education tiers) and that Greater Manchester is at their Tier 2, but may move quickly to Tier 3 lockdown status, though if this is the case, government advice is that universities should remain open.
Many congratulations to Professor Jayne Lawrence in the School of Health Sciences and Diana Hampson, Director of Estates and Facilities, who both received an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list; Professor Brian Cox in the Department of Physics and Astronomy received a CBE. Marcus Rashford, England and Manchester United player also received an MBE. We have awarded an honorary doctorate to Marcus for his support for disadvantaged children but due to COVID restrictions have not yet been able to confer the degree.
Yesterday we should have celebrated our Foundation Day with a lecture and honorary degree ceremony in the Whitworth Hall. Maggie Philbin, who was set to be our Foundation Lecturer, Dorothy Byrne, Sir Ian Langlands, Martin Lewis and Dr Helen Pankhurst were to receive honorary doctorates. Regrettably, due to the continuing restrictions, we could not proceed with the celebrations, but we will confer these awards as soon as it is possible to do so. We decided the day should not go unmarked and that it would be fitting this year to produce a film which pays tribute to the University community for its incredible efforts during the pandemic.
At a video meeting with about 70 leaders in the University we discussed current infection rates, teaching and the safety measures we have in place. We also discussed the fact that registrations for international students, while still uncertain, currently look much better than predicted.
International students are arriving but, not surprisingly given the reports of high infection rates (which we have been very transparent in reporting to them), some are opting for online for semester one. This is an option that we have always given to students, while noting that for many degrees, face-to-face teaching is a requirement for accreditation. In a meeting with the Chinese Consul General, he told me that he is very supportive of our approaches, but explained that Chinese parents are worried about high infection rates in Manchester.
Last week I spoke with our elected mayor, Andy Burnham, and separately with Lucy Powell, our local MP, to explain the current position with student infections and what we are doing to support students that are isolating.
I chaired a meeting of Russell Group Vice-Chancellors, most of whom are facing the same issues as us. None has gone fully online for teaching. All have seen a rapid decline in student infections after an early increase, low levels in staff and no evidence of infection through teaching.
I met our external auditors who updated me on the progress of the audit of our accounts. They were very happy with the audit and praised our finance staff for their diligence and compliance.
At the Greater Manchester (GM) Local Enterprise Partnership, we heard about the devastating impact of the pandemic on businesses, jobs and employment rates and real concerns about the impact on mental health. We also discussed GM’s submission to government for support for research and innovation in which our staff have played a critical part.
I was interviewed for a project supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council on the role of arts and humanities for business, science and research more widely. I said that they were critical and fundamental. I cited our Vice-President and Dean who says that Humanities is about everything to do with us being human.
I visited our Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre (GEIC) to show one of our supporters the work that is being undertaken. We discussed commercial opportunities and the Manchester Graphene Company.
Nick Robinson interviewed me on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme and of course asked me about student infections, what we have learnt from the extremely rapid rise in infections (from almost none to a peak in just a few days) but also about research in universities to understand, diagnose and treat COVID-19. I was also interviewed in my capacity as chair of the Russell Group by the Times.
Nancy Rothwell, President and Vice-Chancellor