Dear student,
The recent wild weather in South Australia has unfortunately taken quite a toll on the Bedford Park/Sturt campuses.
A severe storm event Saturday afternoon – including very strong winds and lightning strikes - has left some damage on part of the campus.
The worst affected area was University Drive near Sturt campus, where trees have been split and felled, fences and signs have been damaged, and debris is widespread.
In some respects, the lockdown proved to be a silver lining as just a few security and other essential staff were on campus and thankfully no injuries have been reported.
The SES, MFS and CFS have been assisting our crew with making the campus safe and our precincts should be fully accessible from Wednesday.
Between storms and the covid lockdown this is not the start to semester two that we could have forecast or wished for, but we’re a committed and adaptable community!
South Australia’s Premier Steven Marshall today stated we’re on track for the lockdown to end late tomorrow night at 12.01 am (Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning).
We are excited to be transitioning our activities back to campus. However, we need to stage this over the next few weeks to ensure that we can most effectively manage the health and safety of our community as well as providing a high quality learning and teaching environment with as little disruption as possible.
As indicated previously we will keep all learning and teaching activities online this week with the exception of clinical skills and labs. Those clinical skills and laboratory sessions that were already timetabled for this week will proceed where possible - please check your FLO site or communicate with your topic coordinator for confirmation of scheduled clinical skills sessions or labs in the coming days. All lectures, workshops, seminars will remain online this week. We encourage the use of masks where appropriate.
Next week from 2 August we will also resume our workshops, seminars and tutorials on campus where spacing allows. Lectures will remain online due to the need to utilise larger lecture spaces for more interactive learning and teaching. Please check your FLO topic sites for information on how teaching will occur in your topics.
And don’t forget orientation activities have been moved online and our Online Welcome Hub will be available for the first week of semester from 26-30 July between 11am and 1pm.
Even with the likely lifting of restrictions in South Australia, serious concerns remain nationally, and it is important that we stay vigilant. Please visit the SA Government COVID-19 website and our student COVID-19 webpage for latest information. If you are able to be vaccinated please do so – combined with thorough hygiene and physical distancing, it is our best defence in battling the pandemic.
For those of you who are interstate and overseas, please stay safe, follow your local health advice, and reach out to us if you have any concerns or special needs at coronavirus@flinders.edu.au.
Stay safe and positive, and don’t hesitate to reach out for support if you think you may need it.
Best regards
Deborah
Professor Deborah West
Interim Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Students)