Alison Sills, MUFA President
I started planning this article in the morning of Thursday March 12th. At that point, the word at McMaster was the university was working in a ‘business as usual’ mode, but please wash your hands a lot. By lunch time, I was providing comments on a plan to cancel classes and exams a few weeks hence, and before dinner, the Ontario government closed all elementary and secondary schools until April 5th and our prime minister was in self-isolation. And this morning, we learned that all face-to-face classes and exams are cancelled for this term.
No matter where we are in this crisis, there are a few overarching principles that should guide our response, both individually and as an institution. Here is my personal summary:
On the positive side, maybe we’re learning some useful things during this crisis. Maybe we’ll find some cute online resources that will help our teaching. Maybe we’ll finally work up those notes in PowerPoint. Maybe we’ll discover that WebEx meetings are great and we can reduce our carbon footprint. I know we’ll find that the McMaster community is tight-knit and supportive, and that we’ll get through this together.
Now go wash your hands.
