COVID-19 update, 1/13/2021

Dear Faculty Senators, Deans, Chairs, and friends,

We hope your semester is off to a good start.

Here’s a 10-minute video about our opening numbers and what we think might be coming our way:

We had 18 student cases, which is not much lower than we ended. We did note that this is from relatively few “pods” of students, who were isolated before most students came back, so there is some hope that this won’t bloom out of control. We do continue to worry that some students will bring COVID-19 back with them, and testing is just starting in earnest.

We also talked about some creative ways to think about your classes to try to keep them safe. Since our classroom protocols keep students relatively safe, we do want to encourage faculty to reinforce good habits for students outside of the classroom.

Vaccines are coming, but it will be awhile, so we need to keep our standards up, and encourage students to minimize risky behaviors that endanger us all. Distance, Masks, etc., all add layers of “Swiss cheese” to help keep us all safe.

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Please forward this information to your departments or other interested groups of faculty, students, staff, alumni, and friends. Although we aim these videos and sheets at faculty, please share the video and this information with students in your classes and elsewhere.

Our earlier videos and Tip Sheets are available here:

https://www.truman.edu/coronavirus/covid-19-working-group-videos/

If there are other questions or things you’d like to know more about, please contact us at: ndmoore@truman.edu

-Faculty Senate COVID-19 Working Group
(Nancy Daley-Moore, Christine Harker, and Scott Alberts)