Dear Barnard Community,
I write to make you aware of the note (below) that President Bollinger sent out this morning. Our thoughts are with the member of the Columbia community who has tested positive for COVID-19 and their family.
As I wrote to the community earlier this week, as classes will be virtual for the rest of the semester, we are urging students to move out of the residence halls - as soon as possible - because of the communal living, bathroom and dining facilities. Reducing the density of people in these spaces is essential to reducing the risk of virus spread for everyone on campus during this next critical phase of COVID-19’s evolution. We are asking students to make sacrifices here to help protect those in our community most vulnerable to infection.
The situation is rapidly changing in the Columbia community, NYC and across the globe. New restrictions on international travel (and possible restrictions on domestic travel) have led to increased urgency in Barnard’s response. Only students who have no other option but to be on campus should remain in the residence halls through spring semester (e.g., those who are not able to return home, have compromised immune systems that prevent travel, have housing insecurity).
All students must finalize their plans using the Housing Response Form no later than 5 p.m. Monday, March 16. As Dean Grinage outlined in a message to students Friday, financial assistance for students on need-based aid is available to leave campus.
Barnard staff should continue to work with managers of their units to determine if they can work remotely, based on responsibilities of positions. As I wrote to staff on Thursday, Barnard will be conducting a Remote-Work Pilot Test this coming week. The goal is to protect the well-being of our community while the educational work of Barnard continues.
These are certainly trying times for us all. We are working hard to provide you with the most up-to-date information (here on this site) we have and to uphold the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff. Please continue to take care of one another.
With gratitude,
Sian Leah Beilock
Columbia University message
Dear member of the Columbia community:
Over the past week, I have sent messages setting forth our efforts to grapple with the health risks of COVID-19 while doing our best to keep the University functioning. Each one has asked for increasing levels of change in our operations in response to rising risks. Today is yet another. Two significant events have happened in the last 24 hours. The first involves the increased number of people in the surrounding region infected with the virus and, most immediately, the discovery that one of the members of our community has been infected. The second change is the announcement that the federal government is entertaining the prospect of imposing restrictions on domestic travel. Both of these now require us to take the following steps, and I ask everyone to help with implementing them.
We must significantly reduce the number of students in our residence halls. Any student who can leave must leave, by Tuesday, March 17. Some students will not be able to leave, and for us to care for them, in every sense, we need the space to do so. It is, therefore, a responsibility of those who can go home to do so. We recognize this is for almost everyone a major sacrifice, and we are prepared to, and are preparing ourselves to help in every way we can.
We must take steps to reduce our research activities to those that are “essential” — at this point a necessarily vague standard, but one that at least points us in a direction we must go and that can be implemented with careful thought and particularity by our respective Deans and Chairs.
At the Medical Center, we must continue to reduce the number of students in our dormitory, identify what research can be done remotely, and take other steps to suspend student clerkships and rotations. Here, especially, our efforts must be to aggregate our medical capacity to serve the patient needs likely to arise from the spread of the virus.
Lastly, we need to close various non-academic areas that bring people together in large groups, such as the gymnasium and our Chapel.
All of these actions will lead us to become an even more virtual community for the time being. As such, Columbia will remain our point of connection in teaching, research, and action, as well as emotionally. This is a time for everyone to help each other out as much as possible. As always, this communication will be followed by others with more details. I am sorry to convey these messages and actions.
Sincerely,
Lee C. Bollinger
亲爱的巴纳德社群：
我写信是为了让您知道今天上午校长布林格发出的那封信。我们的思想与来自哥伦比亚社区的成员和该成员的家人同在，该成员的COVID-19测试结果呈阳性。
正如我在本周写给社区的信中说的那样，由于本学期的剩余期间内将会进行在线课程，我们敦促学生尽快离开宿舍，因为宿舍里有公用的起居室、浴室、和就餐设施。在COVID-19演变的下一个关键阶段，降低这些空间中的人员密度对于降低校园内每个人传播病毒的风险至关重要。我们要求学生在此做出牺牲，以保护我们社区中最容易受到感染的人们。
这个情况在哥伦比亚社区、纽约市、和全球各地都在迅速变化。对国际旅行的新限制（以及可能对国内旅行的限制）导致巴纳德的回应变得更加紧迫。只有别无选择，只能留在校园里的学生才应在春季学期继续留在宿舍中（例如：那些无法回家、因免疫系统受损而无法旅行的人、无家可归者）。
所有学生必须在3月16日星期一下午5点前使用“住房回复表”完成她们的计划。 正如院长格林尼奇在周五给学生的消息中所概述的那样，学院可以根据需要给学生提供经济资助，以便她们离开校园。
巴纳德员工应根据职位职责继续与他们的部门经理合作，以确定他们是否可以远程工作。正如我在周四给员工写的信中，巴纳德将在下周进行远程工作试验测试。目标是在继续进行巴纳德的教育工作的同时也保护我们社区的福祉。
这无疑是我们所有人的艰难时期。我们正在努力为您提供我们所拥有的最新信息，并维护我们学生、教师、以及员工的健康与安全。请继续互相照顾。谢谢。
巴纳德学院校长，希恩·莉亚·贝洛克（Sian Leah Beilock）敬上
哥伦比亚大学的信息
亲爱的哥伦比亚社区成员：
在过去的一周中，我给您发送了一些邮件，阐述了我们在努力保持大学运作的同时，为应对COVID-19的健康风险所做的努力。每个人都要求我们增加操作水平以应对不断增加的风险。今天又是另一个。在过去24小时内发生了两个重大事件。第一个事件涉及周边地区感染COVID-19的人数增加，并且最直接的发现是我们社区的一名成员已被感染。第二个变化是关于联邦政府宣布它们正在考虑对国内旅行施加限制的前景。现在，这两个方面都要求我们采取以下步骤，我请大家帮助实现它们。
我们必须大大减少学生宿舍的人数。任何可以离开的学生必须在3月17日星期二之前离开。有些学生将无法离开，而对于我们来说，要照顾他们，从各个方面来说，我们将会需要这样的空间。 因此，这是那些可以回家的人的责任。我们认识到这几乎是每个人的重大牺牲，我们已经准备并且正在准备竭尽所能提供帮助。
我们必须采取措施将我们的研究活动减少到“必要”的研究 — 在这一点上，这是一个模糊的标准，但至少可以指出我们必须走的方向，并且可以通过我们的认真思考和特殊性来实施，特别是院长和主席们。
在医学中心，我们必须继续减少宿舍中的学生人数，辨认可以远程进行的研究，并采取其他步骤来中止学生的工作和轮岗。特别是在这里，我们的努力必须是聚集我们的医疗能力，以满足可能由病毒传播引起的患者需求。
最后，我们需要关闭一些大众可聚集的各种非学术领域如体育馆和礼拜堂等。
所有这些行动将使我们暂时成为一个更加虚拟的社区。因此，哥伦比亚将仍然是我们在教学、研究、行动、以及情感上的联系点。这是每个人尽可能互相帮助的时候。与往常一样，此通讯将会有其他的跟进信息来提供更多详细信息。我很抱歉要传达这些消息和动作给您。
哥伦比亚大学校长，李·布林格（Lee Bollinger）敬上