This is being posted several days late, and I apologise for that.  On Monday evening, when I should have written this, I was preparing for a two day meeting of the Russell Group Pro-Vice Chancellors for Learning and Teaching, to be held in Glasgow. What I have tried to recapture is my reactions to the change of atmosphere on Monday.
 
Evrything is back to 'normal'.  Not only are the new students here, but the continuing undergraduates are back as well.  Students are waiting to get into lecture theatres in the Alfred Denny Building, there are throngs making their way up from the Richard Roberts Building on the hour.  I had to queue in the Students' Union shop for several minutes to pay for my lunchtime sandwich.  The start-of-the-year plant sales are taking place on the concourse. (I wonder how many of the plants being sold will last more than a month or two in the hands of first year students who may never have cared for a houseplant in their lives before.)  When I drive home in the evening there are groups of students making their way through Broomhill to and from the residences.  The buzz is back.

Universities were created to teach.  Research took place through teaching - through the discussion of philosophical and moral questions.  It was not until the nineteenth century that a research function came into the core structures of some universities.  Today Sheffield, and many other universities around the world like it, has a dual mission of research and teaching.  But during the summer months when undergraduate students are not around (and postgraduate students are not in great evidence as they get on with their research and their projects), and when the lecture theatres and seminar rooms undergo maintenance and refurbishment or are occupied by conferences, the university is only half an institution. 

Now we are back to normal, with the whole of the institution's complex portfolio of activities in full swing.   

My randomly chosen blogging days for October will be 5th, 12th, 14th, 20th and 28th.