VC Martin Bean and DVC Education Professor Belinda Tynan

RMIT VC MARTIN BEAN AND DVC EDUCATION PROFESSOR BELINDA TYNAN – 21 MAY 2020

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VISUAL: RMIT Vice-Chancellor and President Martin Bean addresses the camera.

MARTIN BEAN SPEAKS:

Wominjeka everyone,

We keep hearing that these are unprecedented times and they certainly are.

I keep saying what an amazing job you’re doing, and again I want to thank you for supporting our community in all that we do at RMIT.

But I realise you want to hear a lot more than that.

Now the government has started to relax some of the restrictions on our lives outside RMIT, I know you’re asking what that means for us; and more specifically what it means for you as we start to look to the future.

As a dual sector place of learning and with many of our students and staff based in the middle of Melbourne’s CBD and in the heart of Bundoora and Brunswick, our challenges are complex and in some ways unique.

It’s part of what makes us such a rich and wonderfully diverse community.

The government has asked for us to prioritise the return of practical hands-on education and that’s exactly where we’ve focused as we finalise our return to campus plans; and they also want us to support our people to continue to work from home wherever it’s reasonable to do so as we collectively take our first cautious steps toward a new COVID safe way of operating.

Today’s update is all about giving you more detail on our plans to return to campus and how we’re thinking about the second half of the year.

As I’ve said before, it will be careful and gradual, balancing government advice with our own assessment of the risk for each return scenario.

That means there are a lot of people working very hard right now to get this right, to prioritise who needs access to campus first and to ensure that our return is a smart, safe and measured process fit for the circumstances.

So, I thought I’d ask one of those people Professor Belinda Tynan to share a few insights with you regarding the planning underway.

Over to you Belinda.

VISUAL: RMIT Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education Belinda Tynan addresses the camera.

BELINDA TYNAN SPEAKS:

Thanks Martin.

Hi everyone, I’m Belinda Tynan and my day job is Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education responsible for making sure the student experience is excellent - even though our world is slightly crazy at the moment.

Right now, I’m also one of the many hands on deck to get our staged return to campus life right.

At this point, our focus remains firmly on semester 1, with an eye to the second half of the year.

So, let me tell you a little more about what we’re focused on for semester 2.

First, classes that are already being delivered remotely will continue to be delivered remotely in semester 2. For now, this includes lectures and tutorials.

Second, the latest health advice allows us to begin prioritising the return to campus of some essential practise-based learning activities, this includes thing like labs, specialist classes, research activities and ‘make-up’ activities that cannot be replicated online, with an emphasis on students in their final year.

Our priority is getting these activities back on campus first.

This means that learning and teaching for students in these programs will be a combination of online and on-campus learning, with physical distancing and very strict hygiene measures in place.

But as government advice evolves we may bring more learning, teaching and research activities including some tutorials back on-campus sooner. It’s simply not possible to be completely clear on this right now.

We understand that these decisions will have different implications for different student cohorts, particularly if international travel restrictions are not lifted.

So we’ll continue to determine alternative options for impacted students along the way.

By impacted this could mean our students who are unable to come to Australia right now or perhaps students or staff caring for elderly or at-risk relatives or managing health conditions.

We’re mindful that there are many variations of personal circumstances, some of them are quite challenging, and we want to be as supportive as we possibly can be.

Over the coming weeks as we finalise our return to campus plans our approach may be different to other universities or indeed other sectors. We’re OK with this. Our clear intention is to make decisions that are right for the health and wellbeing of the RMIT community.

So Martin, I think that pretty much sums up where we’re at right now. Back to you.

VISUAL: RMIT Vice-Chancellor and President Martin Bean addresses the camera.

MARTIN BEAN SPEAKS:

Thanks Belinda.

I speak for the entire RMIT leadership team when I say we look forward to welcoming our staff and students back on campus when the time is right.

Thanks to everyone for your patience while we finalise our return to campus plans over the next couple of weeks.

We’ll make sure we keep you regularly updated as decisions are made.

For our students this will be via Canvas and for our staff via our internal communications channels.

While it’s not the focus of this update, I do want to acknowledge that this continues to be a really tough time for a great number of people in our community.

If you need help, there’s help available, so please reach out.

Because, at RMIT, especially in the tough times, we’re better together.

Thank you.

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