For comparison sake, here's what I (and my colleagues) received from President Bruce Harreld here at the University of Iowa:
Key phrase: we ARE planning to resume face-to-face instruction this fall.
A message from President Harreld and Provost Fuentes
Part of the reason we ask our students to study history is so they can better contextualize the present. Three months ago, we could not have imagined the situation we find ourselves in. Similarly, in April 2008, we couldn’t have imagined that just two months later our campus would literally be underwater. Many of us were here for that devastating flood, and many were not. But all have taken to heart the lessons the Hawkeye community learned.
The remarkable leadership of President Emerita Sally Mason, former Senior VP for Finance and Operations Doug True, former Provost Wallace Loh, our experts within what is now the Iowa Flood Center, and many others, guided the University of Iowa forward in 2008. They led with patience, grace, steadfastness, and humor, and had an unwavering vision of a campus brought back to life. Combining vision and expertise is what our university is all about, after all.
Now COVID-19 is our challenge, our chapter to write.
Most of us have read the news about colleges and universities deciding to stay virtual through the upcoming fall semester. And like each of you, UI leadership is trying to figure out exactly when it will be safe and appropriate to return to “normal.” Though the future is not set in stone—and we continue to monitor the latest guidance and information about this pandemic—we ARE planning to resume face-to-face instruction this fall.
The situation is, of course, extremely fluid, and the specific steps we will need to implement have yet to be determined. Therefore, we have assembled a team led by the Office of the Provost and embedded within the UI’s Critical Incident Management Team (CIMT). These dedicated individuals, representing every corner of campus, will be working diligently and continuously to outline a plan that will bring us back in August.
The team will follow guidance from UI medical and public health experts, the Iowa Department of Public Health; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the Board of Regents, State of Iowa. Advice from these organizations, and its implementation by the CIMT, has already allowed us to respond to COVID-19 with rapid and deliberate action. Within 15 days, the UI canceled study abroad programs, repatriated students, moved to virtual instruction, shifted to work-from-home status, and began the process of closing the residence hall system. We are confident that this same team will now provide us with the steps necessary to safely reopen.
The past few weeks have been full of twists and turns, and reopening our campus will likewise bring surprising unknowns. So, we have asked this team to explore various options, keeping our response to unforeseen events flexible while putting our community’s safety at the fore. We must anticipate what we can, but prepare ourselves to react to what we cannot.
As a community, we have already come together to develop a thoughtful strategic plan; created a transparent resource allocation and budgeting process; driven new investments into the core activities of the university; and built a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion that guides our behaviors in support of our mission. Together, we will see our campus safely brought to life again.
In an otherwise dark hour, one thing is quite clear: Hawkeyes take care of one another.
Thank you for all you are doing to help us through these very trying times.
Now, let’s look to the future. We will come out of this crisis stronger than we were before.
Bruce Harreld, UI president
Montserrat Fuentes, UI executive vice president and provost