Campus News

Celebrating the class of 2021- plans for graduation

March 15th, 2021

As you may know, while final-year students were awarded their degrees in 2020, we had to take the decision to postpone graduation ceremonies and to hold celebrations online instead.

The university has been exploring options to give this year’s final-year students the graduation they deserve, while anticipating the progress of the pandemic and any likely restrictions that may still be in place.

After listening to the views of students, we have taken the difficult decision to postpone in-person graduation ceremonies until 2022. Instead, students who are due to graduate in 2021 will be invited to a virtual ceremony this year and certificates will be sent in the post. The virtual ceremonies will allow an opportunity to come together to recognise achievements and to celebrate with peers and tutors.

The university will now plan for graduation ceremonies in 2022, to which we will invite our graduates from 2020, 2021 and 2022.  This promises to be our largest ever set of graduation celebrations.

The course of the pandemic remains difficult to predict and the target dates for easing restrictions set in the government’s roadmap remain heavily dependent on the circumstances at the time. This means that we cannot plan with certainty to celebrate graduation in the way that both staff and students want.

When surveyed, more than three-quarters of our final-year students told us that they wanted an in-person graduation ceremony free from restrictions. We have therefore made this decision now to avoid disappointment later and to prevent people booking travel and accommodation unnecessarily.

We appreciate that this will be disappointing news, but we hope that you will be able to join us for in-person celebrations in 2022. We will be in touch over the summer to confirm the date of the 2022 celebrations and will write to you with details of the 2021 virtual ceremonies in the coming weeks.

Graduation is an important event for students to share their success with the family and friends who have supported them in their studies. We are committed to giving you the opportunity to celebrate your achievements with us in Nottingham in 2022.

Graduation FAQs

Is the decision to postpone graduation ceremonies in 2021 final?

Yes, the decision to postpone graduation ceremonies in 2021 is final.

What is the decision to postpone graduation ceremonies based on?

This has not been an easy decision to take. A number of factors have been considered in reaching this decision. These relate to:

Health and Safety

  • minimising the risk of an outbreak within our University community
  • not wanting to have to turn a student or guest away from graduation due to a positive test result

Equality

  • allowing for all our students, Home, EU, International, to have the equal opportunity to attend with their families and friends
  • recognising the varying levels of anxiety amongst our student and graduate groups, as well as their guests, and allowing equal opportunity to attend

Logistics

  • uncertainty as to when large-scale events can go ahead
  • uncertainty as to the requirements for large-scale events to go ahead, such as social distancing measures and on-site testing
  • prioritising the quality of the event

Have student and graduate views been taken into account?

A survey has been run for the Class of 2020 to help inform our approach to the in-person ceremonies. In particular, this identified that waiting for ceremonies without social distancing measures was a priority. A survey will be circulated shortly to the Class of 2021 in relation to the virtual celebrations in Summer 2021 and the in-person ceremonies in 2022.

Will I still be able to graduate in 2021?

Yes. If you pass your final exams and assessments, you will still graduate as planned in either Summer or Winter 2021. You will have the opportunity to attend virtual celebrations and your certificate will be sent to you electronically and in the post following your graduation.

When will virtual celebrations take place in 2021?

Celebrations will take place alongside graduation conferral in the Summer and Winter of 2021. Dates for these will be announced when confirmed.

When will ceremonies take place in 2022?

Consideration is currently being given to the arrangements for ceremonies for the classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022. Details of these will be shared once confirmed.

Will the 2020, 2021 and 2022 cohorts be in the same ceremony?

No. Ceremonies will be held separately for each of the cohorts.

Where can I find more information about graduation?

Information about graduation can be found on our webpages. If your question is not answered there, please email graduation@nottingham.ac.uk.

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Women’s Staff Network Menopause Cafés

March 15th, 2021

Staff are invited to join the next Menopause Café discussion via Microsoft Teams.

Menopause Cafes provide a time and space to discuss the menopause rather than delivering information about the menopause.

A Menopause Café offers a discussion with no pre-set agenda and without expectation or experts. The topics are chosen by the participants on the day.

Upcoming sessions include:

Tuesday 16 March: 12.30pm – 1.30pm

Wednesday 21 April: 12pm – 1pm

Tuesday 18 May: 12.30pm – 1.30pm

Thursday 17 June: 1pm – 2pm

Join the Teams Meetings here.

The Menopause Café is offered with no intention of leading participants to any conclusion, product or course of action and is an open, respectful and confidential space where people can express their views safely.

They are run on a not-for-profit basis and the events are open to everyone and are scheduled each month.

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UUK calls for review of USS valuation

March 11th, 2021

Following the recent publication by the USS Trustee of potential future contribution rates, Universities UK (UUK) has written to USS Trustee Chair Kate Barker, calling for a review of the basis for the estimates which suggested that contributions should significantly increase to maintain pension benefits at their current levels.

The letter, signed by Universities UK president Julia Buckingham and chief executive Alistair Jarvis, expresses concern that the current approach represents an overreaction to a unique set of economic circumstances, resulting in a scheme that would price out scheme members, be unaffordable for employers, and increase intergenerational unfairness.

Universities UK will now hold further discussions with USS and the government’s Pensions Regulator, and will launch a consultation with university employers later in March on the potential ways forward.

Staff at Nottingham who are members or eligible to join the scheme will be invited to express their views alongside this.

Chief Financial Officer Margaret Monckton and Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Andy Long will lead a further series of webinars on USS for staff later this month and new USS 2020 Valuation webpages will provide all the latest information as it is published.

Dr Tim Bradshaw, Chief Executive of the Russell Group has also written a letter to the government Pensions Regulator to express similar concerns, and request it releases detailed information relating to any concerns it has expressed to the USS Trustee about the covenant and related matters that have led to the recent valuation and proposed costs.

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School of English seeking volunteers for Public Involvement Panel (PIP)

March 10th, 2021

The university’s School of English are recruiting individuals for a ‘Public Involvement Panel’ (PIP) to work with their research team to investigate the effectiveness of Coronavirus Public Health Messaging.

The research project needs volunteers from the general public who represent:

  • BAME communities
  • residents from England, Scotland and Wales

to get involved in making our research accessible and inclusive for the wider public. You will be reimbursed for your time. We have already had several expressions of interest and are still seeking interest from more people who belong to BAME communities.

The following information is about the PIP, discussing what the research is about and what you can expect from participating.

If you are keen to get involved, please contact researcher Pepita Barnard to find out more.

What is the research about?

The research will investigate how the design of public health messages (relating to coronavirus) can affect
a) people’s understanding of the messages
b) how they respond to it on an individual level and
c) what this understanding and behaviour mean on a population level and whether the messages are effective for promoting public health initiatives in response to Covid-19.

By the end of the project we would like to understand what language people understand and respond to most effectively and ultimately how we can design public health messages for maximum public health benefit.

This project will use publicly available online content and will also recruit people to take part in the study, to use a mobile phone based app to collect data about their interactions with public health messaging.

The design of this research will be led by a team of experts in privacy preserving technologies and linguistics with lots of experience of collecting these kinds of data in an ethical and fair way.

The research team come from a range of disciplines including – English Language, Computer Science and User-Centred Design. The research project was designed in partnership with the University of Cardiff and key national health organisations of Public Health England, Public Health Wales and NHS Education for Scotland.

Information about the PIP

As part of this study we are setting up a Public Involvement Panel (PIP) for this project to act primarily as consultants and reviewers for research study materials, findings and publications. It is really important to this project that we have input from the general public on these activities so that the research can be successful and that research outputs are of value to a wide range of people.

We are recruiting a small group of volunteers (approximately 10-12 people) to represent the range of adult ages and genders for the panel.

We aim for no more than half of the PIP to be comprised of participants who define themselves as White as we are interested in how people with difference cultural backgrounds respond to public health messages.

What are we asking of you?

Once we have found enough members for our PIP, we will circulate information to prepare members for the first of approximately 8 x 2 hour meetings over approximately 18-months.

Early project activities: There will be 3 or 4 online video workshop-meetings that will be scheduled to take place over the next couple of months. These meetings will be used to help shape the documents we will use with the study’s participants.

Later project activities: 3 – 4 meetings will be scheduled towards the end of the project to review our findings, develop public facing communications about the results and to review formal research outputs.

There will reimbursement of £30 for your time to prepare and participate in each of the panel workshops-meetings. There are likely to be a couple of additional remote contacts where the project team ask for your input/ opinion on some small points and the time for this engagement will be reimbursed with a voucher which is appropriate to the task.

What times?

We will plan meeting times to accommodate the preferences of the group. This could include evening meetings. Once group members are identified we will do a short poll to find out some days and times to suit most people.

To be involved in the PIP everyone will have to commit to the first meeting. If you cannot attend a meeting at some point, that is ok, just let us know. Please note that we can only reimburse your time for the PIP meetings that you attend.

How do we meet?

Zoom or Teams will be used for the online PIP meetings. Once we have identified the PIP members we will find out what the majority preference is and decide on the platform based on group preference.

How do I get involved?

If you would like to get involved and/or if you have any questions about the PIP, please contact: pepita.barnard@nottingham.ac.uk

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Disability Recognition Month: call for funding

March 10th, 2021

As part of the university’s ongoing commitment to EDI, we are inviting applications for our disability recognition month in May.

The theme for 2021 is ‘Disability: Finding our way’ and focuses on raising awareness of disability, inclusivity, neurodiversity and the value of difference.

This funding initiative is designed to support multiple locally planned activities during May 2021. Funding will be awarded to host local events or activities to a maximum of £200, with applications to be assessed by the Disability Recognition Month Planning Committee.

If your application involves face-to-face events, then please visit the University’s Coronavirus webpages as your main source of information and guidance.

For applications, please complete the Disability Recognition Month local funding application form by Thursday 25 March 2021.

 

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Changes to Travel and Expenses Policy and booking supplier

March 10th, 2021

As a result of a detailed consultation across the university, the Travel and Expenses Policy has been updated.

In addition, the university has changed our Travel booking supplier to Key Travel and has also made some changes to the staff reimbursement process.

Find more information about these changes on the Travel and Expenses update March 2021 Sway.

 

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Staff can now book regular asymptomatic tests

March 9th, 2021

All staff are now able to access an online booking system to arrange their asymptomatic Covid-19 testing slots several weeks in advance.

This is in addition to facilities already in place which allow staff to simply turn up and access testing.

The Testing Service uses MyCareer to arrange appointments. On first use, you should see a Terms and Conditions page.  Data is not shared any further or used for any other reason.

Those booking appointments will be able to select times and locations to suit their needs but should cancel any bookings which are no longer required.

Staff who are on campus regularly are urged to take a test, at least once a week, until vaccines are widely deployed. The university is in full support of staff on campus accessing asymptomatic testing during paid working hours.

This will help keep you safe, protect loved ones and the wider community, and also help ensure that our university can remain open for essential teaching and research.

Our asymptomatic testing service detects the virus through a simple saliva sample. It is quick, easy to do and private.

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Digital Experience Insights Survey

March 8th, 2021

The Digital Experience Insights Surveys have now launched and will be live throughout March for staff, students, and postgraduate and early career researchers – and there’s a chance to win a £50 shopping voucher.

The role that digital technologies play in our daily lives has changed substantially over the last year, and we would like to know how you engage with these and with the university’s digital environment so that we can make improvements in ways that are meaningful to you.

The surveys take 10-15 minutes to complete and there are four separate surveys for:

  • Professional Services staff
  • Teaching staff
  • Postgraduate and early career researchers
  • Undergraduate and postgraduate taught students

Research and teaching staff should complete the survey for teaching staff, unless no teaching has been conducted this academic year, in which case the researcher survey should be completed.

Staff are invited to complete the survey, and to encourage students to do the same. The individual surveys can all be accessed through the landing page below.

nottingham.ac.uk/digital-insights

We first ran the Digital Experience Insights surveys on the eve of the pandemic in 2020, so it’s critical that we understand the extent to which our digital landscape has changed over the last year in order to improve the experience beyond Covid. Please take a few minutes of your time to complete the survey – it’s open until Sunday 28 March and your feedback really helps us to improve life at the University of Nottingham.

Professor Mark Bradley, Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor for Teaching and Curriculum Leadership said: “The way our students and staff use digital technologies for teaching and learning has transformed across the last 12 months. We now need to take stock of what we’ve done well, what we could do better, and where we go from here. This survey will be a key mechanism to help us work out the way forward.”

If you have any questions about the surveys, please email learning-technologies@nottingham.ac.uk.

About the survey

This national survey is being carried out by the University of Nottingham in conjunction with digital solutions specialists, JISC. We’re running the survey to find out more about how the university community uses digital technologies and how we can improve the digital experience at the university.

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International Women’s Day 2021 – a tri-campus message

March 8th, 2021

Happy International Women’s Day (IWD) 2021. The IWD 2021 campaign theme is #ChooseToChallenge.

A challenged world can drive positive changes. We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements.

Collectively, we can all help to create an inclusive world. Show you are in by striking the ‘choose to challenge’ pose and share on social media using #ChooseToChallenge or send it to the IWD image website.

Women at the University of Nottingham make a difference to lives across the world, through their teaching, research, leadership and participation.

This year, we have exciting programmes of online and in-person events across our three campuses in the UK, China and Malaysia.

For events in UNNC, please access this link.

Online events in UNUK can be found here – staff from China and Malaysia campuses can participate in some of the events.

Malaysia’s events have already taken place.

Professor Sandy Hwei San Loh, Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Lead, University of Nottingham Malaysia

May Tan-Mullins, Vice Provost (Teaching and Learning), EDI and Sustainability, Director of Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies (IAPS), The University of Nottingham Ningbo China

Professor Sarah Sharples, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, University of Nottingham UK

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