It’s wonderful to be able to contact you all at the end of a hectic but very fulfilling week. It was wonderful to see the campus buzzing throughout Welcome Week.
(This newsletter is also available as a podcast for those students who may prefer an audio format: CLICK HERE)
Dear Classics students,
- End of Week One: Well done!
- Classics Social on Tuesday afternoon
- Classics Staff Departmental Forum
- Note about Next Week’s Strike Action
- Welcome to the Youngest member of the Classics community
It’s wonderful to be able to email you all at the end of a hectic but very fulfilling week. It was wonderful to see the campus buzzing throughout Welcome Week.
Well done to our first-years on getting to the end of their first week on campus! I hope Welcome Week was enjoyable and informative for you all and that you feel more confident about the start of teaching next week. I also hope that all our returning students and new postgraduate students have found the various induction sessions informative.
On Tuesday afternoon, we all got together in the Foyer of the Shilling Building for a Classics Social that was extremely well attended. There was excitement and anticipation around the place and I was delighted to see so many good conversations taking place between staff and students but also among the students! (see photos). I would like to reiterate a point that I made a couple of times this week already: all of us, undergraduates, postgraduates and academic staff are all members of a community of scholars and I am sure that you will feel that more strongly later on in the academic year. The Classics Society has already made contact with academic staff and we have started rolling up our sleeves to help put together an exciting programme of events. Watch this space!
Today, Classics academic staff met for the first Departmental Meeting (“Forum”) of the academic year. We started our meeting by sharing highlights from the past month(s) and it was immediately obvious that all colleagues were impressed by their encounters with students this week (mainly through PT meetings). The rest of our meeting was devoted to discussions about teaching and student experience. We have exciting plans and plenty of ideas that we can’t wait to put into practice from next week. To give you one concrete example, we will implementing recommendations from a Staff-Student Neurodiversity Group. This group came together late last year to consider ways to improve the student experience of our neurodiverse students. If you want to find more about this group, please contact Dr Emilio Zucchetti.
I would like to make you aware that strike action has been called by the Universities and Colleges Union for the week commencing the 25th of September and this is likely to affect teaching on certain modules. Colleagues who are on strike action don’t have to declare their intention to strike beforehand, but may choose to inform their students on their modules.
Finally, on Tuesday we welcomed the youngest member of the Classics community to the Department: Marcel, the son of Tom and Lizzie! He is clearly another future Classicist.
I hope you all have a relaxing weekend - see you next week!
Christos
