Classes to resume Monday, March 16 via remote learning
By Kristy Koehler, March 13 2020—
This afternoon, in an email to the University of Calgary community, president Ed McCauley announced that “when classes resume on Monday they will not be in-person. Instead, UCalgary will move to alternate forms of course delivery until the COVID-19 situation has stabilized.”
Remote delivery will be used for the remainder of the term and for final exams.
U of C suspended classes on Friday, March 13 to allow for consultation with public health experts, government officials and other post-secondary institutions. The university itself remained open, with all services available and staff at work.
In a March 10 email, provost and vice-president academic Dru Marshall told students that significant preparations were underway in case of classes needing to move to a digital format.
It seemed inevitable that face-to-face classes would be cancelled as the Government of Alberta asked organizers with events planned for more than 250 attendees to be cancelled. The province’s larger post-secondary institutions, U of C, the University of Lethbridge and the University of Alberta, suspended Friday’s classes, citing the large capacity of some lecture theatres.
McCauley’s email reiterated that the U of C’s instructors had been preparing for the move online and that the institution has “invested in new technology platforms” saying he hoped the transition would be “relatively seamless.”
According to McCauley’s email, students will be hearing from their instructors on Monday with more information.
In a second email, sent by Marshall this afternoon, students were told that their “course instructors are working dilligently to adjsut their courses to remote and online forms of instruction and assessment and will share […] an updated and approved course outline by Thursday March 19.” These new outlines will contain the changes to final assessments.
As for the university itself, it will remain open and the staff and faculty will be at work. All services remain available.
The move to remote learning and alternate forms of final assessment will not cause any student to lose credits or the ability to graduate.
The email stressed that the university is aware of no cases of COVID-19 on campus and that Alberta Health continues to assess the risk to the campus community to be low.
Further information is available on the university’s COVID-19 website.