Dublin University Business and Economics Society (DUBES) is to move all its speakers’ events online for the first term, in a sign of the impact on Trinity’s societies of the coronavirus pandemic.
DUBES – which normally runs speakers’ events every two or three weeks during term time – says it has taken the decision in order to protect the “health and safety” of its members, and hasn’t yet made a decision on whether to hold its events online or in person in the second semester.
In a press statement, Conor Murdoch, the auditor and chair of the DUBES committee, said: “At DUBES, the health and safety of our members and guest speakers is our number 1 priority, and we believe that by hosting our events online we will best be able to ensure that safety while still providing our members with the engaging and educational content that they have come to expect from our society.”
“We hope to make this transition to online events as smooth as possible, and we are committed to running them to the same standard as any in-person event we have held in the past”, he added.
At this point, DUBES hopes to return to normal events in the second term, but this will be dependent on government guidelines and public health advice.
Trinity’s next academic year will start on September 28th, with blended learning that will see students receiving a mixture of online and in-person teaching.
First-term exams will take place in January 2021, rather than before Christmas, as part of a radically altered academic calendar that will shorten the Christmas break to two weeks.
First-year students will start College – which will run a mixture of online and blended learning – with an orientation week on September 21st.
Meanwhile, toilets and shared offices will be designated as “high-risk” zones by Trinity next year, as part of the phased return to campus life.
College’s 300 teaching spaces will all be evaluated to see how they can be used for teaching while adhering to two-metre social distancing protocols.
Staff were told last week that the College will seek to maximise the amount of face-to-face teaching it conducts next year despite the virus, and will attempt to maintain “the distinctiveness of the Trinity experience and the Trinity Education”.
