I am absolutely delighted to welcome staff and students back to the Sino-British College. Our beautiful campus is looking very different from when you last saw it before the Spring Festival holiday. There have been big changes from the cold days of late January. Now, the sun is shining, the trees are in leaf, and the weather is getting warm again.
During the weeks and months we have been absent from the Fuxing Lu campus, many other changes have taken place. The pandemic control period has been both difficult and dynamic. Our most pressing concern has been the safety of our whole SBC family – I trust that everyone has been safe and well.
We have all made major adjustments to be able to continue our everyday work and study. Our academic staff have learned new ways to teach and guide students through the curriculum. Our students have been learning new ways to learn! Our partners have been adjusting how they work with us, both by changing how they communicate and by altering their teaching and assessment patterns, which also challenge us at SBC.
Not everyone will be able to return to our campus in May. Some of our international staff and students are still caught offshore. All our teaching staff will continue to lecture, discuss, advise and work either in our classrooms in Shanghai or from their remote locations. Our domestic students have the option to return to campus or to work from home, so we are continuing to deliver classes and office hours online even as we return to our classrooms and offices. No SBC student will be left behind as we make these changes, and activity on campus gradually returns.
The Year of the Mouse began inauspiciously but things are – and will be – getting better. We look forward to the return of our students and staff, and to our campus being made even better by having you here, together again.
