The Bartlett Together Festival: planning a virtual induction week

The Bartlett UCL share their plans for an exciting programme of virtual welcome events, designed to bring together their student and staff community to celebrate the beginning of Term 1.

Ahead of a new academic year, colleagues are busy putting last minute touches to their plans for welcoming new and returning students to a year like no other at UCL.

Liz Griffith, Head of Communications and Marketing at The Bartlett UCL, shares her faculty's experience of planning an exciting programme of virtual welcome events, to bring together their student and staff community and celebrate the beginning of Term 1.

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At the start of September, we invited all our students and staff to register for a week of interactive virtual events, hosted by academics from across The Bartlett. The Bartlett Together Festival will run from Monday 28 September – Friday 2 October 2020.

The aim of this event - which will be livestreamed via Zoom - is to bring together our student and staff community in The Bartlett to kick off the term in a virtual setting, as we won’t all be getting together on campus this year. Staff and students will be exposed to thought-provoking ideas, debate and insights on a range of vital topics, including climate change, post-pandemic cities, and social inclusivity in the built environment. 

We’re running ten sessions (two per day) throughout induction week featuring exciting research topics and insights from different academics and Departments across our faculty. We’ll be aiming to make the festival fun and interactive for attendees, using interactive features in Zoom during the sessions, as well as a daily engagement plan in between sessions using email and social media. 

The Festival is drawn together by a new Bartlett Together webpage, where students check-in with what's coming up and register on the programme. Staff and students will also be encouraged to share their experience and follow the event throughout the week at #BartlettTogetherFest.

Example events

The Bartlett Together Festival is underpinned by our Commitment To Change: our manifesto of 12 commitments to build a better future, together. Dean Christoph Lindner will open the festival with a special session exploring the Commitment To Change, and what it means for our student community. 

See some sample events below to get a sense of the festival plans or view the full festival Schedule.

Bartlett Faculty Welcome Sessions

Returning Students Welcome Talk and Q+A sessions with the Dean, Professor Christoph Lindner throughout induction week. These sessions are designed to give our returning students the opportunity to connect with the Dean and hear from him about the year ahead.

Returning Student Welcome | 13.00-13.30, Thursday 1 October
Dean of The Bartlett, Professor Christoph Lindner, delivers a special welcome talk to mark the beginning of the 2020-2021 academic year.

Q+A Session with The Dean and Bartlett Alumni | Multiple dates
Dean of The Bartlett, Professor Christoph Lindner, and Bartlett alum Alexia Koch hold a 30 minute Q+A session

Opening Session: The Bartlett Commitment to Change

Dean Christoph Lindner will open the festival with by exploring The Bartlett's Commitment To Change, and what it means for our student community.

Speakers

• Christoph Lindner, Dean of The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment
• Kaia and Fola, Bartlett Undergraduate Ambassadors

Prosperity, entrepreneurship and (re-)building the future

Forward thinking entrepreneurs have the capacity to foster new business models, new business values and new relationships with society. The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed fragilities in the relationship between society and business, and more challenges, like the climate crisis, are coming in the future. We not only need to build back better – we need to build back differently. At The Bartlett’s Institute for Global Prosperity, we founded Fast Forward 2030 – a network of young entrepreneurs – to do exactly this. The network has grown rapidly with 300 impact-driven founders, and regular events which inspire and equip people to start impact-driven businesses. This session will connect you with resources and networks within The Bartlett, and invite you to get involved with FF2030. We’ll introduce staff and students to the aims of FF2030, its events and partners, and give a quick taste of how one might nurture their fledgling entrepreneurial talents for good. 

Speakers

• Patrick Vickers
• Matt Davies, Founder of Goodsted
• Selin Yigitbasi-Ducker, Board Member of Fast Forward 2030

Creating Value(s): Towards a 4D space model of the UCL Campus

Bringing together a diverse group of researchers, educators and curators from different parts of the Bartlett and beyond, this session will shine spotlights on the current UCL campus estate consisting of more than 250 buildings, highlighting how the campus can be used as a living laboratory to further our understanding of the built environment. We are working with a four-dimensional understanding of space including physical and temporal dimensions to represent, visualise and investigate historic, social, economic and technological aspects of UCL buildings as well as the land between buildings. In this session, we will showcase the diversity of teaching and research related projects on the UCL estate including the historic development of the Bloomsbury campus and how it looks today; ongoing investigations into space usage patterns and modelling buildings as connected networks, energy usage, sensors and sensemaking and a look into the future of real estate.

Speakers

• Kerstin Sailer
• Bob Sheil
• Amy Spencer
• Tasos Varoudis
• Duncan Wilson
• Dimitrios Rovas
• Yolande Barnes

Running successful virtual induction events

We’ll be measuring the success of our Bartlett Together Festival by tracking attendee numbers and engagement for each session in Zoom, as well as a post-event feedback survey circulated to all attendees.

If you are running virtual induction events for your students this year, you can use the tips from Student Support and Wellbeing to ensure you provide the best experience for your students.

If you're not currently in the Student Induction Forum for staff on MS Teams and your role involves any element of student induction or welcome activity - planning and running events, sending out comms to new students etc. - then please do join! It's a useful space for sharing updates and hearing about colleagues' plans for welcome week and beyond.