Update from College Secretary and Director of Human Resources to staff

2 September 2020

Dear colleagues

Yesterday saw our first ‘hybrid’ induction session for new academic staff. The Provost welcomed half of the attendees in person and the other half virtually. This is what our ‘new normal’ will look like.

Below are some updates we would like to draw your attention to:

Working & leave arrangements

Following the updated Government guidelines on working and leave arrangements due to COVID-19, Trinity’s Procedure for Leave and Working Arrangements during COVID-19 Outbreak (PDF) and COVID19 Staff FAQs have been revised accordingly. Please take time to review them to ensure that you are fully up to date with the new developments. All staff who have been effectively working remotely should continue to do so until 13 September 2020, after which further guidance will be issued, apart from essential staff who are rota-ed to come onto campus.

Face coverings

You will have seen in the media this week that NPHET has reinforced the importance of face coverings. We would like to remind you again that face coverings are now mandatory for all teaching and learning events for all students and staff, in all the Libraries and in internal public spaces on campus. Please comply with this requirement in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

HSE testing centre on campus

We are proactively setting up a staff and student HSE testing service for symptomatic people or close contacts of confirmed cases which will be up and running in time for semester 1. This will help prevent clusters developing in the College community. We would like to thank Dr David McGrath, Director of the College Health Centre and his colleagues for their work on this.

Orientation Week

As you will be aware, Orientation Week starts on Monday 21 September for all postgraduate and undergraduate visiting and Erasmus students, and from 28 September for new undergraduate students.

Unfortunately, this year it is not possible for the annual Freshers’ Fair to take place due to public health regulations. However, a clubs and societies exhibition is being planned instead with large poster boards dispersed throughout the campus and a huge variety of exciting online initiatives will also be happening.

The Provost plans to address some students in person at the Orientation Address which will be live streamed as well.

Timetables

Timetables will be published on 14 September at the latest. The University Council has mandated that as much face-to-face teaching as possible should be scheduled for all students – any individual requests from students to attend their teaching and learning activities wholly online for semester 1 will be considered on a case-by-case basis and granted only in exceptional circumstances based on financial hardship, underlying documented medical condition, immunocompromised and/or any disabled student requests.

Requests from undergraduate students for courses to be taken online will be dealt with centrally by Student Cases while postgraduate students should approach their course director. It should be noted that such cases should be considered the exception rather than the norm and there will be no change in fees for any student who is granted permission to attend wholly online.

Stay safe. Stay well.

Kind regards

John Coman
Secretary to the College

Antoinette Quinn
Director of Human Resources