I have heard a variety of way that different units are responding to the challenges of Covid this term to help ensure safety of their members. Some of these are:

1. To assist the staff in the units to be safe, moving back to remote effort for the office staff. This worked effectively in many units last academic year and in some units the decision has been made to return to this temporarily this term.  

2. Allowing instructors to make their own decision about modality of instruction for some fraction of the term. This could be a certain fraction for each week or section of the course, or moving to remote for certain course components (e.g. group work), or some other scheme that maintains in-person activities as a majority of the course but supplements this according to appropriate pedagogy for the course with at-distance learning, or moving outside for some fraction of the class. Units expect the instructors to inform the students through the course syllabus about the plans.

3. Allowing instructors the flexibility to move temporarily to on-line instruction completely as necessary based upon the circumstances in the particular class. So that it may be pedagogically preferable, if indeed many students are not present, to move to on-line methods of instruction. Some units are requesting that the Head be informed of this. If indeed the class might be best moved to completely on-line for the full semester, then approval from the appropriate Dean's office is required.