Happy New Year.
I would normally, at the start of term, send you all an email welcoming you back to Loughborough University.
As you can see, it's a cold and chilly day here today on our campus.
But something I can hear that you probably can't, is just in the trees behind me
between the fountain and the Students' Union is a robin singing its heart out despite the inclement weather.
Now as you know whether you live in this country or elsewhere in the world,
there are Covid 19 restrictions in place which means that learning, teaching,
preparing for your examinations and the assessment if you're an undergraduate,
and your ongoing learning and teaching if you're a taught master's student
either down on our London campus or on our campus here in the East Midlands largely has to be online.
We have no alternative but to do that, the new law passed by the government requires
everybody, whether it's a university or many other organisations in the UK,
to stay at home unless you're a key worker amongst my colleagues here
or unless there are particular reasons why you as a student can return.
And let me be very clear, if there are good reasons for you to return to the University
and you will have received an email from Richard Taylor, the Chief Operating Officer,
outlining that, we are ready to get you back to the University and look after you while you're here,
if you need to come into halls of residence and our own accommodation that is available to you
but I must stress only if within the government guidelines you can come back because it's within your best interests
to do so or you're on a course where there's an exemption that allows that to happen.
Now why did I want to speak to you like this today?
First and foremost wherever you are in the world, wherever you are in the UK, it's to remind us all that we are
still members of the Loughborough Family and still members of this University community and whether
we're at home, whether we're working elsewhere if we're in Loughborough but not able to come onto the campus
because you're in private residential accommodation or indeed if you're one of the many
hundreds of students who've been here throughout the vacation because you were unable to get home,
we still pull together as a community and the Loughborough Family in exactly the way we've done in the past.
All I'm asking you to do, and I know it's a big ask, all I'm asking you to do is remember that
and do your utmost and do your best and in return I promise you that what
my colleagues will continue to do is provide you with the best possible environment to both
prepare for exams, undertake assessment and then, until the government revises its guidelines,
continue with your learning and teaching remotely or online.
If you do that, I give you one guarantee and that is the moment we can do, we will open up our two campuses
and we will get you back here so your learning and teaching can resume.
But all of those other things that are part of the Loughborough student experience
in the Students' Union, Sport, Action, Rag, Volunteering,
holding the elections that you need in halls of residence to identify who your next hall committee is going to be,
all of those things are activities that we will get going and we will support you in doing.
And finally before I sign off, there's one thing that I absolutely need to impress on you
and that is we will promise that whether it is within the year that you're studying,
and in that context we will make sure that you're in an
environment academically where you can progress to your next level of study robustly,
and of equal and perhaps for some of you even greater importance,
the promise is that the degrees and qualifications that you will get if you're in your final year
at the end of that year of study will be academically robust so you can be proud of your qualifications,
employers, professional bodies and others will continue to recognise
Loughborough degrees as the outstanding qualification that you will have earned and you deserve.
So for a further period of time, stick with it.
I and my colleagues will support you, we will get you back here as soon as we can and, most importantly,
keep your chin up and remember you're all part of the Loughborough Family.