This message was sent to Â鶹AV staff, faculty, and graduate students on Nov. 24, 2020, from President Kim Cassidy.
Dear Staff, Faculty, and Â鶹AV Students:
Yesterday Governor Wolf released a new Covid-19 advisory order and accompanying mitigation strategies. I have subsequently received additional guidance as to how these apply to higher education. The advisory is consistent with our plans for operations from now until Winter Break begins, but I want to provide a few key points of clarification. If you have any specific questions, please reach out to your supervisor.
- The College already has in place strong mitigation strategies around masking, physical distancing and cleaning. Adhering to posted occupancy levels in indoor spaces continues to be very important, especially in light of the cold, dry winter conditions.
- The College will remain open and in-person work is permitted in all cases where it is necessary or where it is not possible to work from home effectively.
- Offices will be staffed at levels that are necessary to complete College work and where work cannot be done remotely. Offices should not be staffed solely for the purposes of maintaining a campus presence, but rather to complete work that is required to be done in-person to keep the College functioning efficiently. Please consult with your supervisor about departmental staffing plans.
- Faculty and graduate students are permitted to come to campus for teaching and research, but should limit time on campus to work that they determine is necessary to do in-person.
- Some services are essential, and impossible to do remotely. Staff members who perform these services will continue to come to campus for work as scheduled.
- We will continue to operate services like Campus Safety, Dining, the Post Office, the Bookstore, and Canaday Library. That said, modifications to hours and modes of service may change; for example, the Post Office may not be able to offer delivery service across campus.
We know that many of you have welcomed the chance to be back on campus and have cherished the opportunity to connect with your colleagues in familiar ways. Reducing our in-person presence in these ways is hard, but it allows us to lower the risk for all employees, both for those who can work remotely and for those who must come to campus. We will continue to monitor the directives from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and from Montgomery County, as well as build on our strong foundation of careful operation thus far.
Thank you for your efforts to keep our campus safe. Your work is essential to our success and to the health of us all.
Sincerely,
