Return to campus letter
Dear Concordia officials,
We are writing this open letter to let you know that we are concerned about the current plan to return to campus for Fall 2021 and the lack of information available to students, student employees, faculty, and staff. We are now a few weeks away from the beginning of the semester, and yet there remains tremendous uncertainty about the kind of campus we will be returning to. Messaging from the university has been infrequent, and what information we have received as to the status of campus in Fall 2021 inspires little but concern.
The current plan, that a 75% vaccination threshold amongst Quebecois students will enable a full return to campus with no social distancing, fills us with significant hesitation and dread.
As students, workers, and faculty, we have experienced firsthand the tremendous impact which a year of online schooling has had on our capacities to learn, work, and teach and on our collective well-being outside of the classroom. We want nothing more than to be able to see each other in person, to return to campus and enjoy the tangible benefits of learning and working as a community.
But, that said, we also must give precedence to the safety of ourselves, our friends, our families, and our wider city. A 75% vaccination rate across Quebec, of course, does not necessarily mean that 75% of Concordia students will be vaccinated, let alone 75% in every classroom. Many international students have had limited access to vaccines due to intellectual property restrictions inhibiting the diffusion of supply worldwide. The Delta variant has proven capable of resisting vaccinations, and the rise of further vaccine-resistant strains remains a possibility. Simply put, the pandemic is not over.
We, therefore, ask for three simple things.
Firstly, we ask that you commit to mandatory physical distancing in classrooms for Fall 2021 and for as long as the diffusion of COVID19 remains a pressing risk for members of the Concordia community. We know that the wearing of masks reduces rates of transmission indoors, yet physical distancing is also a key component to this equation so long as COVID will continue to be a part of our lives. We see a campus ‘as normal’ - undistanced - as presenting fertile soil for a serious outbreak of what is now a far more transmissible and dangerous disease than it was when the campus first closed in March 2020. This would be easily mitigated by a mandatory physical distancing policy.
Secondly, we ask that Concordia have a frequent cleaning schedule to ensure that if/when there is an outbreak of the transmission of the virus, the time of transmission would be limited. Cleaning high-traffic areas of the school several times per day is vital to limiting the transmission of this deadly virus and variants in a school of over 50, 000 students. This will ensure students, student employees, faculty, and staff are working in a safe and healthy environment. If we are being forced to learn and work in person, Concordia must ensure they are doing everything they can to protect their Concordia community. We are putting our lives and the lives of our family and friends we come into contact within your hands, please remember this when making all decisions.
Finally, we ask for better and more frequent communication of plans and updates over the next few weeks and into the semester. As students, workers, and faculty, we should not be making individual decisions pertaining to our own health and safety entirely in the dark. We would like to see the university disseminate its plans or strategy in case of an outbreak on campus. We understand and acknowledge that it is difficult to make concrete plans when circumstances are known to change so rapidly. But, we have been down this road before, and, as a result, we should know how to plan for different scenarios so as to ensure that there will not be any outbreaks at Concordia. ‘The situation is changing rapidly’ was perhaps a reasonable explanation for the lack of clarity on plans last year, but it no longer holds the same amount of water. We have 18 months of experience to draw upon. We have a good sense of how this virus is transmitted, therefore the university should be able to communicate its plans clearly, both those based on present circumstances and on potential scenarios. All we ask for is clarity.
No return to campus except a safe return to campus.
Sincerely,
TRAC