Dean’s Message – Spring 2023
Welcome to the Spring edition of the SABL News.
With the blossoms in full bloom and the lawns growing greener by the day, it’s been lovely to walk around the campus and enjoy the arrival of the new season! The balmy snap coincided perfectly with our Winter Graduation ceremonies, where I was excited to celebrate with 153 of our faculty’s latest graduates. Thank you to those of you who joined the procession and came along to support our graduating students.
I would also like to thank those of you who volunteered your time to represent UNE at AgQuip recently. It was a great opportunity to inspire some future students, as well as showcase all the great things that are happening within the faculty to industry and alumni, our new Vice Chancellor, and to the Assistant Minister for Trade and Assistant Minister for Manufacturing, Senator Tim Ayres, who dropped by briefly on one of the days.
As mentioned in the recent faculty meeting, there are a few housekeeping things to be aware of:
- New Deputy Dean: I am excited to announce that we will have a new Deputy Dean joining us in early November. He will be based in Armidale three weeks of the month and in Sydney for one week. It will be great to have another person on board, and to have more faculty representation at UNE Sydney. I will provide more information about him closer to his commencement date.
- Cybersecurity training: You would have seen there is a new cybersecurity module available. This only takes seven minutes to complete and is critical to ensure our online systems remain safe and secure. You can complete the training here.
- CAPEX funding: I am pleased toannounce that our faculty has had over $1-million of CAPEX requests approved. Thank you to Mark Haydon for pushing these requests through to the DVC and the COO to get these signed off. This is great news.
- Building conditions: We are still working on the refurbishment of our buildings. We have begun painting, replacing carpets, repairing walls, and we are starting to see some great progress. There is still more to be done, but we are working through this as quickly as possible. If your area needs urgent repairs or refurbishment, please talk to your Head of School.
- Excessive leave reduced: A big thank you to those of you who have booked and taken leave this year! Now that our excessive leave budget has been significantly reduced, we are able to start looking into some big picture ways that we can invest into research, teaching and learning initiatives, and professional development. Find out more about what we’re planning to do by listening to the most recent Faculty meeting. (Password: r.^c3lE&).
- Save the date: We will be holding another faculty BBQ on Wednesday, 27 September. Roz Mortimer assures me it will be “quite unique this time” and will involve people “engaging with each other when sitting opposite each other, cooking their own food.” (Vegan/vegetarian options will also be available.) I hope you’re as intrigued as I am! If you haven’t received the calendar invitation, please let my office know.
As always, thank you for everything that you do, and have a wonderful weekend!
