Happy New Year!

A new year, 2012, wahaay!

Maybe we should ignore the man-made transition of the New Year. Instead we could arrange our lives around the solstices. What better point in the year to pause and take stock than on the shortest day, with the poor, enfeebled Sun struggling briefly above the horison? (yes, I'm writing from fairly high latitude) On the other hand, maybe a week or two later, with the days beginning to lengthen, isn't such a bad idea: we wouldn't want our stock-taking dominated by the dark thoughts that feed on short days.

What does 2012 hold? Early 2010 brought a redundancy pool and early 2011 the proposal to close DACE. But let's go with the lengthening days and try to look past these bruising experiences. Our new location makes continuing education a matter of importance across Glasgow University, as it should be in every university. We'll have encouragement and support to look at new sorts of activity, which may make us useful to people we haven't met before. We may be encouraged to work more with external organisations (see for instance our upcoming series of Saturday morning Astronomy talks, offered with our friends at the Glasgow Science Centre in their marvellous planetarium).

UK higher education is in a state of rapid change, in a way that many find deeply worrying. Our experiences in DACE must be seen as a tiny, local aspect of much bigger trends that will not suddenly reverse. New sorts of rocky time don't seem so unlikely.

But for now we'll look to the north-heading Sun. Busy, exciting, challenging - and lengthening - days ahead.