Sadly, once again as I write this, staff and students across CLEX are in varying degrees of lockdown as community transmission of the Delta variant of COVID continues to interrupt many aspects of our lives.
Here we are, roughly a third of the way through 2021 and also at about the mid-point of CLEX’s seven-year lifecycle. Many of you will no doubt be aware we were formally reviewed by the ARC in the second half of last year and the review findings were delivered early this year.
I imagine very few of us will have particularly fond memories of 2020 when we look back on it in a few years. Yet at the same time it’s been a year that has provided opportunities for introspection and reassessment of many aspects of our working lives and how work and life interact.
It goes without saying that we find ourselves in challenging and uncertain times. One silver lining is that CLEX enters this period of change as a centre with considerable experience in remote communication and developing supportive networks. This is a time to use those networks to support each other.
As Stephen Gray writes his final newsletter column for 2019, he looks back on many of the highlights of the year that is drawing to a close.
Stephen Gray congratulates the organisers and admin staff for another excellence winter school; acknowledges the success of the hump day tips; and highlights some new features on our Clever database that include a suggestion box, a mailing list tab and a report to help anyone in the Centre review their previously entered data.
The annual report is finalised, we welcome new students to our nodes, launch an advanced ocean modelling school and offer a CLEx Career Development Award for Women and Underrepresented Groups valued at $10,000.