I wanted to offer a quick word about how we’ll keep you apprised of further developments regarding the fall 2020 semester, and to alert you to some especially important updates for students that we made today.
Every time a decision is made or a policy worked out, the Communications team has been steadily updating the college’s coronavirus FAQs and working with offices, departments and programs who are posting relevant information to their own pages. You’ll find new content when you visit sites ranging from Athletics to the Dean of the College. The main FAQ includes links to many of these resources.
Today I want you to know we’ve made an especially important addition to the student and family FAQ, regarding the remote/in-person decisions due from students by the end of the day tomorrow (Friday, July 10). The additions address questions about whether the decision to enroll in person or remote is binding or can be changed, about scaled refunds for board charges if fall plans evolve, and about the possibility of in-person thesis work during January 2021. I hope this is all useful to you in what must be an extremely difficult decision.
To our international students: Deans Sandstrom and Pretto asked me to assure you that we’ll be flexible about your decision deadlines as we help you navigate the new guidance from ICE, about which they and Maud wrote to you yesterday.
To campus more generally: we in Communications don’t want to burden your inbox with blast emails every time we post something new to the FAQs. Instead, we’re encouraging decisionmakers to announce all future updates via Daily Messages, to give you an easy go-to resource. We’ll include a date stamp on any FAQ updates, too, so that you’ll be able to easily recognize the new information.
Families don’t receive Daily Messages, so we’ll inform them directly and periodically about updates of particular relevance.
It’s all part of an ongoing effort to keep you apprised without adding to the existing information overload. I hope it helps.
Sending you all good wishes as we sort out huge questions while planning for the fall…
Jim Reische