On Sun, Jul 26, 2020 at 2:13 PM Lee Bollinger <lcb50@columbia.edu> wrote:

Dear Amy and Jim — Now that we have given ourselves a week in which to think through the teaching modalities of the Core, Ira and I would like to work with you to develop a plan. It is important, as a starting point, to recognize three things: first, that we have specifically invited first and second year students to be in residence in order to have as much of a campus experience as we can safely provide; second, that the public health experts assure us that the conditions we have laid down for classroom instruction will provide a safe environment for teachers and students (indeed, as one has expressed it, essentially the equivalent of a vaccine); and, third, that the instructional faculty for the Core is largely composed of non-tenure-track individuals, which means we should have greater leeway to expect in-person instruction, if that’s what we deem best. Clearly, there are many complex considerations in deciding how we should present the Core teaching — matters of equity across the student population, expectations of teachers and students about the risks involved with in-person teaching, potential problems of adjusting the teaching modalities from the beginning to the end of the semester as the presence of the virus changes, the importance of demonstrating to the students that we are doing all we can to provide them with the best education possible under the circumstances, and so on. Our view at the moment, given where things stand with the pandemic in New York and given what we have determined to be the best
return policy (i.e., favoring 1st and 2nd year students in the opening semester), is that we should tilt towards as much in-person teaching of the Core as possible. But we would ask that you think this through with extreme care and let us know your thinking by, say, the end of Tuesday, which would then give us sufficient time to work with you towards a final judgment. We really appreciate this. Best, Lee and Ira