Welcome to the November newsletter

By Michael Sinnott, Director of UCD Agile

Happy November newsletter!  As I write, the pink tinged clouds of a magical November dawn are fading into the soft greys of reality and the significance of ‘working from home’ is starting to sink in.  I am not sure if many of us will be totally surprised we find ourselves here again but the disappointment is huge. 

We have been doing ‘remote working’ interviews since the May 2020 WST newsletter.  In today’s interview, I had the pleasure of reliving the sun-filled memories of the start of this academic year with Jason Masterson, ex of the Student Centre.  He is one of those colleagues we all know who put time and energy into helping others be successful, calmly creating the kind of campus community that we all value so much.  He will kill me for using him like this but it is the energy and light we get from working with colleagues like Jason that helps push back the cloudy greys the can crowd in.  Perhaps more than ever in these challenging times, our colleagues are worth celebrating… albeit with masks, social distancing and a PCR test. 

Also in this newsletter you can read about the Ardmore House Activity Based Working project,   a team in University Secretariat’s experience of their Lean Practitioner project,  UCD Health Affairs, and much more.

My favourite start of year story for 2021/22 is from my wife.  She has a colleague whose daughter got a second preference CAO choice and came to UCD at the start of this year.  When the second round offers came, she got the option of her first preference but she stayed with us.  Why?  The people… and no, not just her new classmates… but all of how we crafted her first two weeks’ time on campus and the staff she met during it. 

She had found her village.