Welcome to the May Newsletter

By Michael Sinnott, Director of UCD Agile

Welcome to the May 2021 newsletter.  The sky is bright, the birds are singing, there’s a whiff of vaccines in the air… there is more hope around, at least in this fortunate part of the world, than there was this time last year.  Year on year comparisons – this time last year we were all sun burned and sitting on dried out lawns, going ‘at least the weather is good’ but, with this year’s unseasonable cold, ‘at least the shops are opening’.

Lots of great things continue to happen in UCD, fuelled by the commitment and creativity of our colleagues all around the campus or working in their ‘distributed offices’, scattered across the island of Ireland and beyond.   Our biennial Work Smarter Together event in March (WST21) made the most of online necessity and, in the process, addressed some of the main challenges in feedback after 2019’s event, making it more accessible, drawing in nearly five hundred participants from across UCD and, for a Lean HE panel session, from six other universities on the island. 

Work Smarter Together is always about celebrating the collaboration and creativity which powers UCD.  Enjoy what we are bringing you in this May newsletter, including news of the WST Summer School in July  and a look back at WST21 from the perspective of those who took part  – Elena Keany and Jean Lynch share their thoughts. We also have updates from the Excel Learning Community, a round up of news from the WST Communities of Practice, and much more!

The best of luck with all the end of trimester work from now on, enjoy your holidays, and let’s hope our paths cross in Belfield in only a few months.

Regards

Michael