The work and dedication shown by academic and professional staff over these last months have been extraordinary and the sacrifices made countless. Students have demonstrated incredible resourcefulness both in their work and ways of working, have risen to innumerable challenges, and worked with staff to ensure that we find the most productive solutions in very challenging times. Staff have worked round the clock over the summer to ensure that we offer a rich and stimulating series of programmes despite the limitations imposed on us by social distancing and other measures. 

The School of Arts is a famously distinctive School comprising very different but highly compatible departments and disciplines. Our excellence in teaching and research is a matter of record and our academic staff enjoy high profiles nationally and internationally. I remain very humbled to be Head of the School of Arts, to work alongside our outstanding School Manager and leader of professional staff Jill Walsh, and to lead an astonishing team of teachers and researchers.

To those who are new, a warm welcome! To everyone else, my heartfelt thanks for what has been achieved already in the era of COVID-19, and what we will achieve going forward this new academic year. Preparations for teaching have been immense, intricate and highly complex - in short, a monumental task made more complicated in a landscape of changing government directives and restrictions. Thank you for unstintingly championing the arts in times when learning, passion and creativity matter more than ever! And please keep yourselves and others in our community safe.

Mary Luckhurst
Professor of Theatre and Performance
Head of the School of Arts