Down but not out

Abstract

The staff and students displayed tremendous resiliency in the face of a very difficult working and learning environment and we can only hope that any long-term impacts on each group is minimal. While no one wants to go through a natural disaster like this, we feel that generally things went fairly well in re-establishing the teaching and research programme as soon as realistically possible. I am incredibly proud of the attitude displayed by our staff and students in the face of these very trying circumstances. This positive attitude was highly influential on our success. Another key aspect to that success was that Canterbury supported an environment for identifying ground-up solutions in parallel to centrally-identified solutions: the department developed its own lecture delivery options both off-site and on-site; research groups found alternative research facilities off campus; and colleagues in other departments volunteered space in their areas. If we were forced to wait solely for centralised solutions, teaching and research would have been much more compromised. This reflects the devolved responsibility environment particularly well supported in the College of Engineering at Canterbury. It is not clear to us that a significant amount of advanced planning such as detailed earthquake contingency plans would have helped much, as the situation was unique. Generic emergency/business continuity planning such as easy access to phone lists, keeping files online and strapping down of equipment was very useful and planning for long-term loss of power. How quickly to strengthen buildings in respect to modern earthquake codes is an issue many organisations and municipalities are struggling with. Also we still have work to do in regards to improved business continuity planning for unique information that supports teaching and research. We are pleased to report that in regards to space, we are scheduled to break ground on a new 2,500 m2 building for chemical & process engineering for student study space, teaching and research labs and technical support. We will have modern facilities including room to expand and we are looking forward to an interesting future.