President's Communiqué
Moving to Virtual Campus
March 11, 2020
Per Chancellor Miner’s communication today, Foothill College will move face-to-face classes to virtual instruction (online, Zoom, email, etc.) beginning Monday, March 16 and for the rest of the academic year. All courses with scheduled lecture hours will move to a virtual platform, including final exams, with limited exceptions (some lab classes, applied arts, physical education, and allied health). Faculty should consult with their Deans.
The main campus and Sunnyvale Center will remain open for the winter and spring quarters, and as of March 16, will be staffed by employees essential to maintaining operations.
Our college will also move toward having employees work virtually to promote social distancing (an effort to minimize human contact). In the next two days, managers will identify critical functions and essential employees needed to maintain operations physically on campus. In other words, some employees may be asked to work on campus. For employees working virtually as of March 16, a newly created Virtual Support Hub will be available to offer tech support to enable employees to work from home. Please see your managers for hub support.
Although there are no cases of COVID-19 on the Foothill or Sunnyvale campuses, we are accelerating our adoption of this new protocol. The college has been planning for this transition over several weeks and is working hard to expand support systems for faculty and students who may need assistance with teaching and learning virtually. Thank you to faculty leaders and administrative team for drafting the Foothill College Instructional and Student Services Continuity Plan.
The federal government has also provided additional guidelines for Santa Clara County today. We will be holding an Emergency Operations Center meeting for members on the EOC tomorrow (Thursday, March 12); initially planned as a drill, the EOC will now be activated.
Our college guidelines for travel and gatherings remain the same, with one exception: all gatherings (even for ones less than 100 people), as long it involves students, will be postponed or cancelled as of tomorrow. For all meetings (including governance meetings), please consider Zoom meetings to the extent possible.
Whether at our campus or at home, please continue to practice good health protocols.
We will be providing more information over the next few days. These are challenging
times, and I thank you for your patience and kindness as we proceed in transitioning
our college to become a virtual campus temporarily while still providing essential
services to meet student needs in person.
Don’t forget to Gel-In, Gel-Out.
Of Service,
Thuy