The COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause significant disruptions across the province and around the globe. Here in Alberta, experts predict it may be many weeks before public health measures relax, and months or years before life returns to a pre-pandemic normal. What does that mean for the U of A? We talked with Andrew Sharman, Vice-president (Facilities & Operations) and executive lead of the Public Health Response Team, to understand how the U of A is planning for upcoming semesters, and to get a sense for what September on campus might look like.
How is the U of A planning for the Fall semester when the outlook remains so uncertain?
Right now we're looking at three likely scenarios - each with a load of planning assumptions - based on public health predictions, the information available, and conversations with our U15 counterparts. Then we're creating decision points.
Take one of our scenarios, for example: that the Fall semester is done through mixed course delivery. If we need to do remote delivery - either 100% or partial - we need to be preparing from, say, mid May.
It's like being on a highway with different exit points: at what point do you need to make a decision - or have certain public measures lifted - to be able to take that off ramp? We have to make sure we've started planning early enough for the scenarios that take the longest to achieve.
Who is involved in planning the Fall semester?
We've struck a planning oversight committee as part of our U of A COVID-19 response, and there are five planning teams: academic impacts, research impacts, infrastructure and operations, faculty and staff, and finance - plus a communications group supporting these five. All those committees have faculty representation, and we've also reached out to get student representation. It's key to us that we're integrated across all our faculties.
Each team is working with our three scenarios right now, and then we'll bring together all five streams to figure out where our decision points are, see where we will need approvals from the university's governance bodies, and so forth.
What are some of the big indicators we're looking at - factors with the highest impact for our community?
There are two big ones:
First, the ability to relax public health measures in Alberta - at the moment we're still at essential services only. Easing some of the public health measures will start energizing our campuses and bringing some people back in - so that's phase one.
And second, the ability for international borders to re-open and air travel to recommence. Without the international borders open, you're not going to be bringing international students to the university (unless they're already here). This very likely means a mixed delivery option in the fall at best.
Our campuses closed down rapidly in March - can we expect them to re-open quickly when measures are lifted?
I don't think we're going to have a big bang, no.
One of the big challenges that hit us in March was the restrictions on groups of 250 people or more. We have classes of 250 - but more importantly, we have lecture buildings where classes let out and suddenly you have 1500 people in an atrium.
So the question becomes: if you're not allowed to have 250 people together in September, say, can we get started with some of the smaller programs? Can we start doing labs, or practicums? It may be more gradual.
Are there certain measures we expect to be lifted first?
I think the first piece will be moving around with some more freedom - which probably means re-starting some of our graduate research, for instance. We already made the decision for spring/summer to stay remote, but there are still some constraints on our teaching and learning outcomes, like labs and practicums. Hopefully we can start to address those, too.
What is the next step in the Fall planning process? When will we hear more?
Teams are working now to look at the key issues - I think the academic side is the biggest challenge, followed closely by research - and we're trying to develop those key decision points very quickly. I'm hoping to have all of the team plans by mid May at the latest, so that we can start melding those together, and we understand the impact of each area.
Would we allow for varying circumstances - for instance, small in-person courses combined with larger online courses? Or moving from online to in-person mid semester?
The first one, definitely if public health restrictions are relaxed: I think that's going to be a more realistic approach. The challenge with flexing from online to in-person mid semester is that you have students all over the world, and you can't expect them to make it here on short notice. Our hope and intent from a planning perspective is to end the semester the way it begins. For example, if it is remote delivery, we would ask instructors and students to prepare for remote delivery all the way through from September to December. We hope to provide as much stability for our students and instructors as possible. That said, as we have seen these past few months - everyone must remain flexible in how they approach planning ahead. Health measures can change at a moment's notice. Time zones are obviously another challenge with respect to remote delivery of classes as well as how we can assess students throughout the semester.
What about other elements of campus life - like libraries and residences, or small events?
Residences are still open - we have about 1,400 students living in residence, and we're likely to keep that number throughout the summer. We may still have some restrictions but we will do what we can in conjunction with public health to support other students who want a place in our residences.
As for other amenities, I think campus and community recreation is a good example. As restrictions do get lifted, we hope we can reopen the gymnasiums - even if it's limited to 50 people at a time. For summer camps, like municipalities, we'll make further decisions over the coming weeks. As for libraries, we still have spaces open for students to access computers and wifi, so I think we'll see more of that as restrictions are lifted.
Little things can re-energize campus - the challenge is that if a sudden activity is spread across the whole campus, beyond public health concerns other considerations come into play like staffing and security.
What about Winter 2021?
We certainly need to look at the Winter term. We're focused on Fall right now… but if we're limited in the Fall semester, what does that mean for the Winter semester? What are the decision points? We'll have to look at it carefully.
How does U of A's planning compare to other post-secondaries in the province and country?
A lot of our colleagues are modelling similar scenarios. We have a U15 call every week, and we keep in close contact with Alberta post-secondaries as well. Talking to colleagues across the country, we're all in similar situations, and planning for multiple scenarios.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.