Are your universities preparing for closure?

[historyrocks]

There’s been a flurry of emails this afternoon asking for immediate information on student assessment and what to do if exams are cancelled. A member of teaching staff (in a different department) is currently self-isolating, which I think has added a new level of urgency to plans.

I came on to see if anybody was posting about this! Never mind closure re business as usual, we have open days scheduled with no plans for cancellation. I'm aghast. And anxious.

Mine closed weeks ago and we have moved to online lessons. (But I am in Italy).

My head of school told me they had a 6 hour 'cobra' meeting yesterday and I should expect stuff heading our way. Joy.

We already have been asked to do course based contingency planning

Oh god.. Hadn't thought about open days. Ours is also going ahead AFAIK

Am admin and aghast went but been asked about logistics of working from home en masse. I know colleagues are making alt exam arrangements if need be and Admissions are working out what to do for people who can't take IELTS etc.

Lectures may be ok as can be streamed, it's the tutorials that will suffer. And graduation in 2 months time, from a heavily OS leaning cohort

I'm senior in my department and absolutely inundated with Covid-19 contingency planning both for this academic year and the knock on effects for next. The potential impact is huge.

Yes, our department is making plans. Uni as a whole is saying it will stay open as long as possible though. I'll be in teaching next week, but some colleagues will move to remote teaching and some exams have been postponed.

Same as octoblock !

I think so, lots of emails about it.

Yep. Making sure all staff have remote working capabilities and asking all teaching staff to make sure all course materials on the VLE, last years lectures available on video and alternatives to exams in place. We're in London.

We cannot teach or assess online (performance and practice based conservatoire) we are very worried about how to deal with end of year shows which are key assessment points for our students at all levels. We can't run into summer because staff and students work then and have house contracts that end so nowhere to live and no student loan to carry them through. It's a nightmare.

Does anyone else work in a conservatoire? How are you intending to deal with end of year assessment that is performance based rather than exams?

Looks like we’re being geared up for online delivery, with support staff testing working from home. Open days still going ahead which is pretty daft in my opinion 🙄

I doubt it. I'm on strike though so I don't really know what's going on

Can performances be done over Skype? Or show-reels made on YouTube?

Yes, we are also making preparations for closing with knock-on impact for next year. I say that, but half my colleagues are out on strike and the ones who are here are getting more and more anxious. The potential impact is indeed huge.

I'm in New York State. Lots of frantic planning going on behind the scenes. All professors told that they need to get ready to teach online ASAP. Everyone assumes that there will be a shutdown, but not sure when. I work in the library and we aren't listed as one of the sites to be closed, even though that is fairly insane. Working on TPTB to plan to close us if everything else goes down.

After the emails this afternoon, I have a feeling we will close in the next week or two—if not earlier. We’re lucky in that teaching is almost over and then we have the 3 week break before exams. We could replace the exam with an essay submitted online quite easily. Most material is digitised and students already submit everything via the VLE.

I’m getting DH to drive me to work early tomorrow morning so I can transfer all my books and research material to home so I can keep writing if the university does close.

Currently inundated with emails and virus planning. I think we are hoping to hold out til Easter break then basically send everyone away for at least a month.
I'm in a conservatoire and can't see that the performance programme will totally survive. Luckily with two thirds of the year almost done many students have done enough practical work to be assessed and if not we're talking about running intensive projects instead in June/July/whenever it all blows over. It's been suggested we don't book leave ...

Confusing messages at my place. We’ve been told to prepare to go online but no word yet as to whether we actually will. Buggered if I’m going to do that ‘just in case’. We’re already badly affected by the strike and not being able to teach in person is just going to complicate things even further.

No idea about exams....

We also had emails about moving modules and assessments online. The challenge is the programmes in my department are teacher education and our students need to complete a certain number of weeks on school placement in order to qualify. If the schools shut this can’t happen.

I know they've set up something so tutorials will be done online, no idea what they'll do about labs, probably cancel them? I think most students have done about three quarters of them by now, at least in the course I demonstrate for.

I'm only a PhD student, so don't know as much about the policies as staff. I'm getting slightly worried because I'm still running experiments alongside writing up, and need some analytical software that runs only on the one Windows XP computer in the department (!) so working at home won't be ideal. I'll have to if it's becomes necessary, and thank my lucky stars I don't have cultures to worry about!

We’re an arts post-sec, not a conservatoire. Working group meeting twice daily in full contingency mode. Some departments are planning online options but this isn’t viable for most programs.
It’s a bit of a gong show. I suspect that planning will be dynamic, and my poor team of administrators will be the ones bearing the brunt of the constantly changing messaging.
But I live in hope.

DD’s university has issued far more guidance but not yet planned to close. She has five weeks left - if they can get through that unscathed then it would be great.

Presumably the universities will close if the schools do?
I normally rely on my parents for holiday childcare but with this taking out the older generation they are staying at home as much as possible.
If school closes but Uni still opens I will be on parental or unpaid leave for the foreseeable!

All we have been told is to wash our hands and business as usual (I honestly do work in HE and not for BoJo!). We have had a confirmed case from a student.

The only odd thing was our line manager came round and wanted to update everyone's personal email and mobile phone number. I assumed this is for contact purposes if they were to close.