A personal message from Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli
I am writing to you as a member of our alumni community, in a week that has seen us have to contemplate and act upon unprecedented levels of disruption and change to the way that we live our lives.
As you will imagine, the health and wellbeing of our students and staff has been my utmost priority over the last few weeks, but I wanted to take a moment to send my thoughts and best wishes to our extended family of alumni and friends worldwide. I hope that you and your families stay safe and well over the coming weeks.
Now more than ever we must act together for the common good and show care and kindness to one and all at this challenging time.
In my time leading this institution, I have been constantly inspired by the way that the University of Glasgow community comes together and responds to the most complex and enduring challenges. In the difficult weeks ahead, I know that your actions as individuals and as a community will be no different.
In times of global uncertainty, universities have a key role to play. I assure you that we are committed to using the wealth of knowledge and talent we have as an Institution to aid the global fight against COVID-19.
The MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, based in our Garscube Campus, has the largest group of virologists in the UK. Our teams are working with partners across the UK and globally on the sequencing of the virus, and their research will be pivotal in directly responding to the disease. In addition, I offer my thanks and full support to my colleagues and our PhD students who are temporarily leaving their research and work in the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences to help the NHS.
I also take real pride in seeing a number of members of our alumni community playing key roles in directing the global response to COVID-19: from Dr Kate Broderick (BSc Genetics 1999, PhD Molecular Genetics 2003) in San Diego leading the global race to develop a vaccine, to Professor Jason Leitch CBE (BDS 1991) who is Scotland’s National Clinical Director giving crucial advice and information to the Scottish population on how they can save the lives of others through their own actions.
We are thankful to each and every one of you for the efforts you are making in your own professional fields to come together in response to the threat of the virus.
In particular, I wanted to express my admiration and gratitude to all of the members of our alumni community working in front line healthcare and other essential services at this extraordinary time. I know that many of you will be facing the greatest challenges of your career and making significant sacrifices to ensure we can weather these times.
Finally, I wanted to let you know that although many normal University activities will be affected in various ways, our Development and Alumni team will be working off-campus throughout this period.
They hope to reach out to many of you at a time when we will all have much less social contact than usual. As ever, you can contact them at alumni@glasgow.ac.uk if you have any questions about your connection to the University or your very generous support of our work.
The weeks ahead will no doubt be testing. Wherever you may be in the world, all of us here at Glasgow wish you the very best.
Please do look after yourselves, your families and all around you.
Best regards,
Anton
Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli
Principal and Vice-Chancellor