She represented us with wisdom, dignity and intelligence and as she leaves for a very well-deserved sabbatical, our thanks and good wishes go with her. There has been much discussion and input. The longer day means up to an extra half hour per day in their service. They are checking to confirm staffing impacts and how this could be accommodated. I appreciate the input received, and am pleased to say that, to date, there have been no show stopper issues raised.
Next steps are to complete consultation and report findings over the summer.
I wish to clarify one point. The attempt is not so much to shift class times but to lengthen the teaching day by one hour. The managed class start times will spread out student arrivals and reduce the peak demands on Translink. There are obvious advantages to Translink because of this change and moreover the University gets access to more classroom space. There will be a certain amount of disruption in the implementation phase as well as the continuing cost of having various services open longer hours.