COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has become a major public concern worldwide. Cases were first reported in December 2019; since then, there have been over 3,900 confirmed deaths worldwide and at least six presumed positive cases in New Jersey, which has led Stevens Institute of Technology to mount an increasingly severe response effort.
During the first quarter of 2020, various members of the Stevens administration have authored a series of “advisories, updates, and campus communications.” The first of those 13 advisories, issued by Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Marybeth Murphy and Vice President for Human Resources Warren Petty on January 27, shared general safety precautions, such as encouraging hand-washing and the use of tissues while discouraging eye-touching and the sharing of vapes. As the virus spread globally and the number of confirmed cases in the United States, including the nearby borough of Manhattan, began to soar, the campus communications increased in urgency and severity. On January 31, Murphy and Petty announced a prohibition on all faculty, staff, and student travel to China on behalf of the university; those who have visited China must wait 14 days after leaving the country to be permitted on campus. In accordance with U.S. Department of State and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, Stevens expanded the travel ban to include South Korea on February 25. On February 28, Japan, Italy, and Iran were added to the list. The February 28 notice additionally announced that Stevens must approve official travel to Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Hong Kong, and clarified that “[i]n most instances, Stevens-sponsored student or group travel will not be approved to these countries.” On March 4, Petty and Murphy announced the major step of forbidding all international official travel and suspending all study abroad programs, including those involving nations currently unaffected by the COVID-19 outbreak.
An official Stevens COVID-19 response website was launched on March 6.
Reports began circulating throughout the week of March 2 that the Division of Academic Affairs was preparing to end in-person classes. Several students told The Stute that their professors had mentioned informally that discussions were taking place within academic departments that indicated an impending shutdown, beyond what had been announced publicly at the time. A petition, authored by Ruidong Liu, began circulating on March 8 asking for Stevens to close the campus and begin online classes. The petition, which was digitally signed by over 1,400 individuals, citing the confirmed case of COVID-19 in Stevens’ resident Hudson County.
On March 9, Murphy and Petty confirmed those reports by announcing that the Division of Student Affairs was “working diligently to move all classes on-line as quickly as possible,” and that “faculty members are strongly encouraged to offer classes online and notify their students as soon as possible.” At the time of the announcement, few if any in-person classes had been cancelled. However, following the advisory being sent to the Stevens community, some students did report that their professors had cancelled in-person classes. It was unclear at this time what level of discretion professors had in deciding whether to hold classes in-person. The transition to online classes was further complicated by the academic schedule of many courses, which allocate the week prior to spring break for midterm exams.
Some students expressed confusion over the class policy outlined in the March 9 advisory. Students living in Stevens housing were told that they should inform the Office of Residential and Dining Services if they could not leave their Stevens housing unit to return home. However, many classes had not transitioned to being held online, or did so well after the advisory was sent to the Stevens community. Some professors were announcing to students that in-person classes would be cancelled for the remainder of the semester. One Business & Technology student who wrote to The Stute shared that they had a final presentation which had been moved online, but a peer in the class expressed uncertainty about how that presentation was to be recorded and submitted.
Despite some confusion, the transition to online courses has generally been smooth. Most Stevens classes already used digital tools such as Canvas for announcing assignments, accepting student homework, making lecture materials available for students, and providing a place for students to discuss aspects of the course. For those courses which did quickly transfer to online-only, the transition often consisted simply of professors uploading videos of themselves giving lessons to Canvas. Many classes at Stevens, especially at the graduate level, are “WebCampus” sections which are already held entirely digitally. Many students thus already know how to navigate and succeed in a course with no in-person lecture.
Later on March 9, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Christophe Pierre and Interim Vice President for Information Technology Michael Parente announced that classes on March 10 would be cancelled outright and all subsequent classes would be held online until further notice, ending much of the confusion surrounding the policies announced earlier. However, the Stevens campus itself remains open.
Stevens began to shut down or reorganize events of “discretionary” nature on March 5, following a campus-wide announcement.
Overall, the response of Stevens to the COVID-19 outbreak is on pace with peer institutions. For example, Princeton University President Chris Eisgruber announced a “move to virtual instruction following spring break” and a similar decrease in discretionary gatherings on March 9, the same day as Stevens’ advisory which strongly advised faculty members to offer classes online. Many east-coast colleges and universities are enacting similar measures, according to The New York Times.
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