Dear staff,
We recently held our annual Teaching and Learning awards ceremony. The event provided a wonderful opportunity to thank and recognise our staff – both academic and professional – who are making such significant contributions to the quality of our learning and student experience.
The dedication and innovation on display at the awards was illustrative of the significant efforts of our staff to respond to the challenges and uncertainty of the last year. Thanks, in large part, to these efforts we had a better than anticipated financial performance in 2020.
When our 2020 annual report is tabled in the Queensland Parliament later this month (and published on our website), it will show that our operating surplus was $24 million and when you include unrealised investment returns it was $109 million (down from $128 million in 2019).
I want to acknowledge that without the ongoing commitment of our staff, this result would not have been possible. Throughout the past year, and despite all the challenges, everyone went above and beyond so that our students could continue their studies, our research could continue to have impact, and our communities remained connected and engaged. My deep thanks to you all.
To acknowledge your continued efforts, I’m pleased to advise that staff will be gifted an additional day of leave this year, which will be added to your balance in time for the Easter break. I would also like to invite you to a celebration of our staff on Wednesday 21 July from 2pm at Herston, Gatton and St Lucia to further show our appreciation. Please hold the time in your diary and more details on the planned celebration events will be shared in the coming weeks.
Some more good news: as you may know, census date for Semester 1 is 31 March. We are seeing a 28 per cent uplift in domestic postgraduate acceptances compared to last year and a decline of only 4 per cent in our international student acceptances on 2019. While this is a better situation than we anticipated, it is likely that the pandemic will continue to impact us throughout 2021, given that international borders remain closed.
However, I do understand that the better than expected enrolments, combined with the need to continue to teach many of our courses in both internal and external mode, is adding very significantly to staff workloads. We are, therefore, making new funding available immediately to provide additional support for our teaching and learning programs. To access these funds, I encourage Heads of Schools to submit proposals via Executive Deans to the Provost’s office.
In addition, the details of UQ’s new Research Fellowship scheme will be released this week by the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Reseach & Innovation. This scheme will largely support fellowship opportunities for UQ researchers (Levels A, B and C) and recent UQ PhD graduates, although a small number of fellowships will be available for non-UQ researchers. The scheme is being supported by the funding allocated by the Federal Government to ensure that we are able to retain our research capability and pipeline through the pandemic. Over the next two years, we will also provide some additional funding to support the SAGE Athena Swan program and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research Strategy.
Lastly, this week we have a number of initiatives to celebrate our diversity and promote belonging amongst our community, including the University Week of Action to raise awareness of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. I hope you can make some time to find out more about these initiatives and get involved.
Best wishes and have a good week,
Debbie
