A statement issued by director of Civil Engineering School about the temporary adoption of new measures on university campuses to contain the rate of contagion by covid-19.
Monday, 2020/10/12
You may have heard yesterday’s statement by the Secretary of Public Health of the Generalitat, Mr. J.M. Argimon. He advanced that universities will have to do non-face-to-face classes for 15 days, specifying that he was not referring to laboratories (or assessments). This was a surprising statement, because neither our University nor any other was aware.
We still don't know when the measures that Mr. Argimon announced will start, nor what exactly they will consist of. We expect more precise instructions and will inform you as soon as they are communicated to us. But it is clear that in the coming days we will have to spend a good part of teaching in a non-contact format. With a decision agreed with other UPC centers, we think that the goal should be for teaching to be online on Monday 19 (except for laboratories and assessments), at least until Monday, November 2.
These days, between Tuesday the 13th and Friday the 16th, lecturers may schedule some online sessions and, in any case, they are required to: 1) in all the classrooms where it can be done, streaming is to be used, so that students who wish can follow the class online and 2) limit assessments during the class to the cases in which they can also be online.
These measures are not taken because classrooms an unsafe place. They are taken because the social interactions generated by the university presence (transport, cafeterias, informal meetings…) are side effects that generate contagions. If we provide online teaching but students do not limit their social life to a minimum, this effort will be useless.
Pedro Díez
Director de l'Escola de Camins
UPC-BarcelonaTech