As I’ve been working with Coe faculty and admin to help guide us toward online delivery of classwork, I’ve neglected writing. I’ve been jotting notes though and now I’m going to “catch up” on some random events. I think it will be important to have this documented, and will encourage my students to document, too.
Background:
Prior to March 1: in addition to general Coe things and Tech Lab, I was working on a pre-conference workshop for the Educause ELI2020 Annual Meeting to be have held March 2-4, 2020, as well as a presentation for the NEXT 2020 Conference in Akron, OH, to be have been held March 13, 2020.
February 28-ish
In a working meeting with our Associate Dean of Faculty Development at Coe, I mentioned having contributed to a high level plan during the Bird Flu scare in 2006 or 2007 (?). We were just trying to figure out what we’d do if campus was quarantined and students had to stay in their rooms. I jokingly said “do we need one of these for Corona Virus”? and we laughed it off saying “hope not…”
In the weeks before February 28ish, many of us had been reading and watching the spread of the Corona Virus through Wuhan, China. We were impressed by the construction of a hospital in ten days, and sad that Chinese New Year celebrations were ceased. I was reading daily updates about deaths and confirmed cases, from reputable sources. I did not consider the idea of a similar spread in the U.S.
Sunday, March 1
I flew to Seattle, WA to meet up with thousands of others attending ELI2020. Everyone was monitoring Covid-19, but there had been no real worries about the spread in the US, and no reported deaths. On Saturday an email was sent from Educause indicating they were monitoring the situation and had put extra sanitation measures in at our host hotel, but the conference would go on as planned. I left my house at 4:30AM on with no qualms about Covid-19.
I was in the Seattle airport at noon, working in lovely little coffee shop area, waiting for my presentation partners to arrive. I was in a real GSD (get-stuff-done) mode. I paused to check email and found an urgent message from Educause indicating the ELI2020 Meeting was cancelled. My first reaction was disbelief (I even went to the webpage to double check). Then I got on the NYTimes website and saw that the first Covid-19 death had been reported late Sat/early Sun in Kirkland, WA (not very far from Seattle). Speculation indicated the virus may have been in the area for several weeks prior to this first confirmed case and death.
I got on our group Slack and posted the news, and also texted the two partners that had already shared mobile phone numbers. We were all in disbelief. Twitter was active with participants who were already in Seattle trying to plan an “unconference” and people were trying to decide if they should just show up at the hotel or turn around. Here’s what our four-person group did: Adam and I were already in the airport: we rebooked our flights back home for the same day, then got a local brew and talked about our workshop and when/where we might be able to present it. Krissy had just landed at O’Hare and ended up getting a rental car to drive back to Green Bay, WI. Dave was luckiest…he was on his way to the airport, so he just turned around and went home.
I emailed the associate dean: ‘remember that thing we were joking about? maybe we should talk…”
March 2, 2020
About 100-120 or so ELI2020 attendees jumped into an “unconference” – about 40-50 us via Zoom from our homes/offices and the rest in the very deserted ballroom of the Hyatt Regency in Bellevue, WA. One of the topics as Campus Response to Covid-19. Someone shared a Google Doc that had been started with links to various college’s plans or responses to the virus. Duke University invited everyone to a webinar scheduled for Friday (March 6) to share what they had put in place to move Duke Kushan (their sister school in China) from traditional face-to-face instruction to online delivery. I signed up.
Week of March 2-6
We are watching news from Washington state and the progression of the spreading virus, but it feels very far away. We are all washing our hands a little more vigorously. We read reports of cruise ships and quarantines; but they are off the coast of Japan or other far-away locations. We see reports from other parts of the U.S. but testing is sporadic and confirmed cases are few.
On March 6 Coe announces that students studying in Level 3 countries are coming home and students studying abroad in other areas can decide whether they want to stay or come home. Coe also cancels all study-abroad May Term courses. The rest of us our encouraged to practice good infection control strategies.
At some point during this week (or maybe early in the next week) the BOE suspends out of country travel for faculty and students for the next 30 days.
Stro @ Coe 