HoD News - 16 April 2021

Dear colleagues,

Returning students on campus

This week a limited number of students have been allowed access to designated study spaces and facilities on campus. From Monday 19 April, first-year students primarily will be able to attend tutorials on-site.

Despite this partial reopening, activity on campus is still restricted to critical educational and research activities, and the current advice remains that we should all continue working from home. If you have a particular need to be on campus, please do not hesitate to contact your nearest leader (section head or centre leader) to discuss your situation.

Documentation requirements and testing facilities 

As communicated before the Easter break, you must be able to present a negative COVID-19 test taken no more than 72 hour ago in order to access campus. This applies to both students and staff and no matter the purpose or length of your stay on campus.

On campus Fuglesangs Allé, G4S is responsible for checking proof of a negative test for both students and staff, and everyone must be able to present evidence of a negative test on request. G4S will also make sure that distance requirements and other guidelines for safe behaviour among students in e.g. study areas are maintained. 

Please remember that in addition to the requirement of a negative COVID-19 test, the general guidelines for access to campus still apply, and you are required to send an email to reception.fsa@au.dk stating information about your stay (time, location and purpose).

Signage and posters informing of the negative test requirement are visible at all building entrances. It is important to note that most of the buildings on campus Fuglesangs Allé remain locked, and only employees are allowed access (using an AU access card).

Not all practicalities are in place yet, but preparations are being made to establish more testing facilities at Aarhus University to offer students and staff a supplementary testing setup with supervised self-testing. On campus Fuglesangs Allé, a test site is likely to be located in building 2640(R)-Lille Sal from next week. More details will follow as soon as possible.

Please keep yourself updated and find more information about guidelines for testing and safe behaviour on campus via AU’s corona website. 

Information security at AU  

As late as this Tuesday, a message was sent to you warning about a phishing email in circulation. This is just another example of the importance of raising our awareness on the issue of information security. The AU information security department has drawn up a list of advice that might help us avoid falling for phishing emails. I encourage you to take a closer look at the list and learn more about information security here.  

Campus 2.0

Earlier this week, the Dean informed about the winners of the tender regarding the new University City, where ECON and MGMT are planned to move in 2025. Read the full news story and see the visualizations here. The winning proposal is extremely exciting and innovative and will create a flexible study- and research environment, beautiful architecture and sustainable solutions. We can look forward to the integration of the University City and the University Park, which overall will make Aarhus University a real campus university.

I wish you a nice weekend

Niels Haldrup