I wrote my first coronavirus post a week ago and it was about travel policies and next year’s international student intake.  We’ve come a long way in a week.  As I said on Thursday, this is probably an all-virus blog for the next bit because it’s not clear there is anything else worth writing about (though: if y’all would prefer this blog to focus on the usual miscellany because 24/7 COVID is too depressing, let me know.  I can adapt.)

On Thursday, Laurentian was the only public institution in the country that had suspended classes.  As of Sunday noon-ish when I write this, here is the state of play (if I’ve missed anyone or gotten a status wrong, apologies in advance as it’s a moving target):

British Columbia, (73 COVID cases, 9 new).  UBC (both campuses), Victoria, Simon Fraser, Emily Carr, Trinity Western and BCIT announced on Friday that they would be suspending classes as of Monday (UNBC followed suit over the weekend, Thompson Rivers is holding a press conference in a couple of hours, I imagine for the same purpose). Vancouver Island and Fraser Valley are open.  Capilano University and Kwantlen Polytechnic took an intermediate (and I think smart) position of “we’re reviewing plans to move online, check in with us again on Monday”; Camosun says it is “transitioning to online delivery” but not giving a date.  Colleges outside the Lower Mainland and the Island all appear to be open for the moment.

Alberta (39 cases, 10 new).  All the universities in Calgary and Edmonton (plus Lethbridge) have suspended in-person classes.  Everyone else is still open, seemingly on the presumption that since they have smaller classes, there is less risk of transmission.

Saskatchewan (6 cases, 4 new).  The University of Saskatchewan suspended all classes Monday to Wednesday and is moving online Thursday.  Regina made a similar announcement on Saturday.  SaskPoly remains open for the moment.

Manitoba (4 cases, 0 new). The Manitoban government put all the schools on hiatus for three weeks (one of which was March break in any case).  The University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg are both moving to online next week.  Red River Collee and University College of the North have called a one-week “study break” (no classes) while they work out a move to online.  Assiniboine College is open.

Ontario (103 cases, 24 new).Complete suspension of in-person undergraduate classes at all institutions apart from Royal Military College.  Some institutions are online as of now, others are suspending altogether.  Queen’s, for some reason, is explicitly keeping graduate-level classes open even though these in theory are the easiest to move onto a Zoom or equivalent platform.

Quebec (21 cases, 4 new).  On Friday, the Government of Quebec closed all educational institutions in the province, from daycares to universities, for a period of two weeks.  The problem is that in doing so it gave institutions virtually no guidance to institutions about what that meant.  When you suspend classes at a school, you close the school.  But a university is different: you’d be surprised how small a fraction of university activities relates to students being in classes.  For practical purposes here, the big issue is that “closure” would mean closing residences and a) it’s not clear that Quebec rental law actually permits a university to do this and b) where would students – especially international students – go if they did this? 

After some conferral over the weekend, residences across the provinces will now remain open.  Classes are either suspended or moving online for two weeks or, in some cases, for the rest of the semester.  Athletics facilities and libraries are all closed.  Institutions seem to have different views about regular business, access to campus offices, labs, etc.  Some have more or less closed shop: Bishop’s, for instance, is leaving up to individual professors whether they want to go online but the Senate has basically said it considers the semester over and profs can stop teaching if they want.  Others seem to be promising something approaching business as usual.  This situation might take a couple of days to settle.

New Brunswick (2 cases, one new).  Classes are suspended across the province, but there are some differences.  CCNB and Moncton are simply suspending classes – nothing online and as yet no publicly-announced plan to do so.  Others like UNB are taking a one-week suspension followed by a resumption of classes a week from now.

Nova Scotia (no cases yet).  NSCC and Université St. Anne are still open.  Everyone else has either temporarily closed or closed for the semester. 

Prince Edward Island (1 case, 1 new).  UPEIhas suspended classes for a week to return online on the 23^rd.  Holland College, as of now, is still open. 

Newfoundland and Labrador (1 case, 1 new).  College of the North Atlantic is still open; Memorial announced Sunday that classes would be open Monday and Tuesday, then suspended for the rest of the week pending a move online as of March 23.

By my count, that’s a 90%+ shutdown of Canadian PSE classes, and it mostly happened in the space of about five hours on Friday.  Kind of amazing.  

At the moment, there is still some variation across the country in timing and mitigation efforts.  Some are insisting the suspension of in-person classes is for two weeks, others are going straight to shutting classes down for the semester.  Some are making immediate transitions to online, others are taking a few days to work it out (and in the case of classes in Fine Arts, or lab classes in STEM subjects, this is going to be tough).  Some are still thinking about what the final exam looks like; others have moved to the inevitable endgame, which is that there will be no in-person finals and it’s going to be 100% take-home exams in one form or another.

The most important thing to be determined now are, in order of priority:

• Getting students, especially those in residence, to practice social distancing.  I am sure many of you have heard the analogy between residences and cruise ships and there’s some serious truth to that.  I am hearing some pretty grim stories from some schools about the lack of information on COVID, let alone on social distancing (the video of the St. Patrick’s Party at Queen’s University in Kingston was fairly appalling, for instance).  There is really nothing more important than this.  People could die.
• Working out the conditions under which institutions might re-open. Anyone who says we are open again in two weeks is in la-la land. Right now the question is whether any summer school classes are going to take place (NOTE: There are going to be a lot of students out of work this summer, so to the extent institutions can create online courses and provincial student aid offices are content to fund a huge rise in students taking online courses, this might be a good idea). The main planning should focus on opening in September.
• Getting clarity on government funding plans. I am not an expert on the nitty-gritty of funding arrangements, but I imagine “teaching-days” are part of the conditions in at least some of them. It would be helpful for all governments to make clear current funding will continue unabated.
• Making work from home plans. The work of the institution goes on, but less of it may occur on- campus. From everything I have heard, very few academic or non-academic staff have yet received much in the way of real guidance about this; it will need to come soon.
• Supporting your favourite higher education consultants. Not really, of course, but running a small business is harrowing right now, so if you do have any projects you need help on, we’d be happy to work on them with you.

Keep safe, everyone.