Message to ANU community from the Hon Julie Bishop, ANU Chancellor
Dear ANU Friends
During these challenging times, I know that everyone within the ANU community is working hard to ensure that we can keep our students and staff safe and healthy and engaged in educational and academic endeavours.
It has been an immensely difficult start to the year, first with the devastating bushfires in our region, then the extreme weather events that caused significant damage to our campus, and now the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic with travel bans, social distancing and other regulatory measures imposed by the Federal and ACT governments.
As the new Chancellor from 1 January, I have had the opportunity to observe and appreciate the extraordinary dedication and commitment of our Vice-Chancellor, our executive team and the teaching and campus staff in ensuring the well-being of our students remains our highest priority.
In particular, I thank you all for your commitment to ensuring the success of ANU health and safety measures and for your patience while we managed the transition to remote learning and teaching. This has required a huge effort for all involved to ensure that ANU remains operational while still maintaining the highest standards.
We are also playing a leadership role, with ANU providing some of our nation's finest minds to focus on the frontline issues of combatting COVID-19, and with our academics and students providing direct support to our public health system.
The core work we do every day is equally critical. Australia will need our best thinkers to help us recover from the unprecedented economic and social impact of this crisis. Our universities will be critical to our nation's future in the post-COVID world. ANU students - our future leaders - will need skills in critical thinking and analysis. There must be co-operation across disciplines to develop solutions for the myriad issues we will face.
The ANU community can be proud of its efforts to date and confident that we can rise to the challenge of continuing to build the long term health and prosperity of our nation.
Julie
