4/15/2020 Email From GMS Associate Provost

To:  GMS Faculty, Staff and Students
From:  Deborah Stearns-Kurosawa, PhD, ad interim Associate Provost and GMS Associate Dean
Date: April 15, 2020
RE:  Recent Press Releases

 

In the last few days there has been some misrepresentation about Boston University’s plans for the 2020 fall term in the press, and I want to ensure that you understand how GMS and the University is preparing for a return to in-person courses.  BU’s recovery planning is focused on the fall semester, with the goal of resuming our on-campus, in-person programs in late August.  We are planning accordingly and will incorporate the best public health practices into those plans so that members of the BU community will feel comfortable and safe on campus upon their return for fall semester.

If for some reason public health authorities do not allow universities to re-open their residential campuses at that time, our planning will explore other alternatives.  In fact, we are already discussing many possible strategies for resumption of on-campus research and classroom operations based on different pandemic scenarios.  How and when this will happen is just not known yet, but we are being proactive and thoughtful.  These potential strategies are geared toward providing our customary excellence in education and research while safeguarding the health and safety of all.

It is worth noting here that you– faculty, staff and students — have successfully transitioned to remote learning and operations, incorporating our community’s richness of diversity, creativity, and quality scholarship in new and exciting ways.  You have quickly adopted strategies that were unheard of several months ago for how to teach, learn and research.  Our community continues to participate in classes, workshops, webinars, lab meetings, grand rounds, research lab rotations, and more in order to meet the academic curriculum.  We’re just doing it differently.

Thank you all for your continued patience and resilience as we work though these times together.

With warm regards,

Debbie