Dear colleagues,

I am following up on the message that everyone has just received from President Brown and Provost Morrison announcing that we are moving all classes to remote teaching, effective March 16, 2020.  President Brown and Provost Morrison’s note also includes recommendations about assembly and efforts at social distancing that we should deploy as part of the collective effort to limit the spread of coronavirus.

So, what does this mean for us?

As I see it the right next steps are the following:

  1. All teaching as of March 16, 2020 moves to remote teaching. Accompanying this message is a note from Dean Lisa Sullivan, which outlines some of the more technical aspects of how we shall be handling the transition to remote teaching. Thank you in advance to everyone who is working on this.
  2. All staff and faculty are encouraged to work from home to the extent possible, ensuring continuity of core operations. We note that our goal is to promote social distancing for the purpose of minimizing and preventing any potential spread of the virus.  We are hoping to help minimize staff and faculty having to use public transit or engage with crowds in public spaces, aiming to create opportunities to work from home (not from coffee shops, or co-working spaces) while meeting operational needs. This will require a unit-by-unit, project-by-project determination and conversation within teams.  Dean Ira Lazic (iralazic@bu.edu) is our point on this, and she stands ready to help with any of these conversations to ensure that we respect individual needs, ensure that we meet operational needs, and contribute to the collective effort to mitigate the spread of coronavirus.
  3. Physical presence will not be required for any members of our community, where participation is possible digitally. This will require that we operate with compassion and thoughtfulness towards one another, balanced with an acute awareness of our responsibilities to the whole. We ask that everyone in the community accommodate the comfort level that others have around engaging with colleagues at the school at this point in time, ensuring that we are not expecting physical presence to conduct our work where alternative solutions, such as working remotely/digitally, are possible.
  4. It remains our responsibility to ensure that continuity of operations is in effect. This entails that, where necessary to conduct regular business, personnel who are working remotely should ensure they have the proper accesses (e.g. VPN where applicable), current passwords for access to University databases, moving files from the Y-drive to the OneDrive to reduce burden on VPN usage, forwarding calls from office phones to cell phones, functional proficiency in online platforms and databases etc. Additionally, we encourage all departments to have up-to-date lists of all personnel and their emergency contact information. IS&T is posting helpful instructions on access here.

We encourage each manager to review their department’s Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) with their staff and to assess what work and services must be done on campus and what can be done remotely. For assistance with Continuity of Operations Plans, please contact Rene Fielding, Director of Emergency Management, at 617-353-7556, or by email to rmfield@bu.edu. For remote work information, please contact ithelp@bu.edu with any questions, visit http://www.bu.edu/tech/support/working-teaching-remotely/, or go to www.bu.edu/tech for information on upcoming IS&T drop-in sessions on remote work readiness.

Meanwhile, I wanted to acknowledge—continuing my series of notes from this week—that we are indeed in uncharted territory both in our professional lives, and as citizens, in our daily lives.  This moment is challenging and it falls to us to do what we need to do to continue fulfilling our mission, even as we ensure that we are doing our bit as members of the world not to inadvertently contribute to the outbreak. Thank you all for doing what you are doing to make that so.  A particular thank you also to the staff and faculty who are working double time to ensure that we handle the tricky transitions required by the moment well.

A reminder that we have the opportunity to have a conversation with formal experts in the field among us tomorrow, Thursday, at our event: Coronavirus. What do we know? What do we not know? What should we be doing about it?  The University’s COVID-19 website remains an excellent resource for information on the current epidemic as do many of our colleagues who are experts on this matter.

Perhaps, one last note if I may.  As all this swirls around us, there is plenty on which to reflect about the role of public health in creating a healthier world.  Clearly a novel viral outbreak is at the heart of our work, the detection and containment of outbreaks being as much a core function for public health as any.  And in that respect the outbreak has shone a spotlight on public health like no time in recent memory.  If there ever was a time to elevate the visibility of public health to our students, our world, it is this one.  I am aware that many members of our community are actively engaged in communicating the work of public health, and I wanted to thank them, and everyone, for all you are doing during this time.

As always, please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions.  We continue to monitor the situation closely, and will change our approach as needed, as indicated by the science where applicable. We shall keep all apprised as soon as anything changes.

Thank you for all you do, every day.

Warmly,
Sandro

Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH
Dean, Robert A. Knox Professor
sgalea@bu.edu

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