To our U of T Engineering students, staff and faculty
Following U of T’s guidance directing employees to work from home and research to wind down by the end of this week, student T-card and fob access to U of T Engineering buildings will be disabled as of 5:00 pm on Friday, 20 March 2020.
This means the spaces will be inaccessible to all students, including research-stream graduate students. Faculty and staff will retain access for emergency situations only, such as critical maintenance of research equipment that cannot be planned for in advance. Post-doctoral fellows are considered staff. Facilities & Services will continue to patrol and maintain security.
We will keep our community updated as the situation evolves: uofteng.ca/covid19.
Chris
Christopher Yip
Dean
Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
University of Toronto
To our U of T Engineering community
In the spirit of taking care of ourselves and each other I wanted to share the following guidelines. Again, I know there is a lot of information going around right now — our Faculty’s updates are all collected here: uofteng.ca/covid19
Currently, Toronto Public Health and our Occupational Health & Safety Team indicate that there is an overall low risk level for COVID-19 infection; however, we will all remain vigilant. To that end:
- All employees and students should monitor themselves for COVID-19 symptoms listed in the University’s COVID-19 FAQs
- If experiencing symptoms, please have employees and students follow the directives detailed on the Toronto Public Health website including self-isolating, taking the available Self-Assessment and following the recommendations for seeking additional care from their primary care provider, Telehealth or nearest hospital based of their symptoms
- If an employee or student is contacted by a Public Health authority with regards to COVID-19, please have them contact the University’s Occupational Health Nurse at: ehs.occhealth@utoronto.ca
- If advised by Public Health that they are to self-isolate, any employee or student must confirm with Public Health that they are clear to resume normal activities prior to returning to work or study.
Students
- If any student is sick or self-isolating, they should advise their supervisor, undergraduate coordinator, or graduate coordinator as applicable of their status.
Staff & faculty
- If any employee is sick or self-isolating, they should contact their Manager, Chair, or Division Head per normal practice and complete the Employee Absence Self-Declaration form, available in the HR Service Centre and linked below:
I know we’re all doing our best to take care of our communities, both on campus and off.
Chris
Christopher Yip
Dean
Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
University of Toronto
To our U of T Engineering community
Reaching out to update you with the latest and share what this means for us here in U of T Engineering. Based on the current information from public health officials and our governments, U of T continues to adjust to safeguard the health of our students, staff and faculty. The latest changes outlined by the Provost include:
- All University buildings will be closed as of 11:59 pm, March 17, 2020 to the general public. Members of the University community will need key or fob access to enter them.
- Libraries at the University of Toronto will be closed as of 11:59 pm, March 17, 2020. Robarts will be open to members of the U of T community with limited staff.
- U of T will continue to provide residences for those students who cannot return home at this point.
- Any employee who can work from home should do so.
- Student support operations should move online and many have already made this transition — the Registrar’s and First Year Offices have gone virtual to continue to continue to serve students.
- If you have IT or equipment needs that would enable staff to work remotely, please contact your departmental IT teams who have been working extremely hard on this.
- All lab-based research operations must be shut down no later than 5 pm, Friday March 20, 2020.
- I’m asking researchers to be flexible and creative in how you support your research-stream graduate students and what can be moved online.
- Sharing this COVID-19 Lab Preparedness Checklist you may find useful.
- If you have specific questions about adapting your research or incorporating social distancing in your labs, please start by contacting your respective Associate Chairs – Research, and they will confer with Ramin Farnood as Vice-Dean, Research, as needed.
- We’ve also established a Research Continuity page on the Faculty & Staff Hub and will keep this updated with the latest.
I know many of you are wondering about final assessments and options for exams — I have heard may of your ideas and concerns. We will also be sharing info on plans for assessments later this week — we are working on solutions that best serve our students and allow our professors and instructors to deliver their courses in a meaningful way.
I realise that this is a very complex, challenging and uncertain moment for all of us and I thank everyone for everything that they are doing and will continue to do. We will make this work.
Chris
Christopher Yip
Dean
Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering
University of Toronto