ï 2019-20 REFLECTIONS W

2019-20 Final Reflections

A message from Prof. Mehmet Karamanoglu, Head of Department, Design Engineering and Mathematics

Many of us will remember the 2020 academic year for some time to come, and for many of us with lasting effects. Sadly, whilst there has been some devastating news for some of us, and all of us have encountered many challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic, it is comforting to know that we are making positive moves toward reaching some form of normality. Whether we will go back to how things were is yet to be discovered, but I suspect we will all define a new normal in what we do.

Reflecting on the past year, and particularly for the past 4 months, there is no doubt that there has been some very difficult periods but focusing on the positives, I am very pleased to see our students continue to achieve great successes, alongside staff managing to switch to online delivery and support really quickly and effectively. While none of this was planned, we did fantastically well and managed to get through this difficult period. I am very grateful to everyone involved in ensuring a successful completion of the academic year.

We would normally have a degree show to celebrate our student’s success and this year this was going to be a festival of celebration on the campus. Although the plans for this started in October, unfortunately things did not go according to plan but it is still good to see some of the students having the opportunity to showcase their work on various online platforms such as dezeen, core77 and our in-house showcasing website: creativegraduates.mdx.ac.uk which was created quickly to replace the on-campus event.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge the amazing response our staff across the University have given when we received calls from the NHS to assist with the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of staff across the institution responded and of course our Faculty did its fair share too. A team of staff started to adapt their research in infant lung function to develop new technological solutions to assess respiratory functions in adult patients to help with their COVID-19 recovery. This work is still ongoing. Another team of staff, made-up of 70+ volunteers across the Faculties of Science and Technology and Arts & Creative Industries pulled together to respond to the chronic shortage of PPE equipment across the hospitals in the London region. They worked long shifts over 38 days, 7 days a week to produce over 67,000 face shields for the healthcare workers which included our own nursing staff and students working in Covid wards. To be working with such fantastic staff and students makes one nothing but proud. (read more pp. 05-06)