School Manager's Report

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue18 1–31 July 2021

Approximately 3,950,000 people have lost their lives to COVID-19 out of approximately 182,000,000 people infected with the virus. That is an unbelievable number! Australia is deemed to be a lucky country who managed this crisis well, but last month we had glimpses of how things can turn sour in a matter of days. Lockdown was enforced in most major cities and we were all asked to wear masks in public places. ANU is still maintaining its ‘low risk plus masks’ status for now, and we are carefully monitoring the situation and will keep you all informed as things evolve.

Thanks to those of you who provided me with the information needed to create a contingency plan in case of another lockdown. We are going through this to create a list of essential staff who will be given permission to work on campus if the ACT government or the ANU announces a lockdown or work-from-home directive. We now have a clear idea of who needs to be on site to ensure business continuity to the degree possible.

As we finish the first half of 2021, our financial performance has been quite strong. We are getting more and more research and non-research contracts. We have till now received mostly positive responses from the academic staff who have availed themselves of the services of the grant-writing consultants. We are hopeful that this will increase our success rate with ARC grants. Our student load has increased as well, with the ASTR1001 winter term offering having 90+ students and semester 2 enrolments looking strong as well. I would like to thank everyone for working hard to ensure that the recovery of RSAA (and, in some instances, the ANU more broadly) following the economic fall-out from COVID-19 is swift and trending upwards. I envision this trend will continue in 2022. 

Lastly, there is a possibility (as mentioned in the Prime Minister’s updates) that some sort of international travel will commence in 2022. This would be welcome news to all our graduate students studying offshore, who want to come and study at Stromlo. It would also mean that new international students will again start to study at ANU (onshore) which will fast-track the recovery plans. We can now see a glimmer of hope that things will get back to some sort of normality – even if it is a different definition of normal than before 2020!

Rafat Alam