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Dear GMS Faculty, Staff, and Students,<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s letters from President Brown is the university\u2019s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how we will make adjustments in the interests of all our BU community members.\u00a0 The change to remote teaching will begin next Monday (March 16th<\/sup>) and I applaud all of you who planned ahead for this transition.\u00a0 Note that EdMedia is a continuing resource and GMS has staff who can assist with Zoom as well.\u00a0 Contacts are on the GMS web page and feel free to reach out to us for help.<\/p>\n There are some points in President Brown\u2019s communications that are under discussion and many people are asking questions.\u00a0 I do not have all the answers now.\u00a0 Generally, keep academic activities to groups of 10 people or less.\u00a0 If it is not essential, either cancel or do it remotely.\u00a0 However, the campus is still \u201copen\u201d so faculty and staff are expected to come to work as usual.<\/p>\n Research Graduate Students and Postdoctoral Scholars:<\/strong>\u00a0 Research activities will continue normally.\u00a0 Research graduate students should report to their research laboratories for rotations or thesis research, but do so with common sense.\u00a0 Talk with your PI to see if you can shift hours so you avoid rush hour on public transportation, freeze down cells, back up your data, try not to schedule long-term experiments with animals.\u00a0 You should follow the decisions and recommendations of your research PI.\u00a0 PhD thesis defenses can go on as scheduled, but limit attendance to 10 or fewer people.\u00a0 Avoid inviting family and plan your (anticipated) celebration at an off campus site to accommodate well-wishers.<\/p>\n Clinical Graduate Students:<\/strong>\u00a0 We hope that the status of clinical rotations will be resolved tomorrow morning at a meeting of BU deans.\u00a0 There is universal understanding of the potential impact on accreditation and graduation requirements and we are doing everything possible on behalf of our students.\u00a0 This is evolving very rapidly and I will keep you updated as soon as possible.<\/p>\n I appreciate your concerns and forbearance as we work through these changes.\u00a0 We still have a few days until the changes come into effect and I am very optimistic that matters will be worked out in time.\u00a0 These are extraordinary times and we are extraordinarily resilient.<\/p>\n With best regards,
\nDebbie<\/p>\n