MARCH 20 Update: COVID-19
Message to Students from Dr. Laurie Quinn, Interim President
Transcript:
Hi, Champlain College students. Interim president Laurie Quinn here. I
wanted to send you a message today to let you know how much we miss
you, and tell you how you’ve been on our minds and in our hearts
during this COVID-19 crisis that has affected so many people and so
many places and has changed your college experience. All of us at
Champlain wish nothing more than that you could be having right now
the Champlain College experience that you thought you’d be having. It
makes us deeply sad that there isn’t a safe way for us to provide you
that. Seniors, I want you to know that you’ve been especially on my
mind. I know how hard this time must be for you. Please take care of
yourselves. Stay connected to your Champlain community.
And know that we will get to the other side of this. I know what a
caring community all of our Champlain students are and so I want to
reassure you that your fellow students with hardship needs are being
taken care of by our staff teams at this time. While campus has very
few staff or faculty, we are working virtually all the regular hours.
We’re available and we are getting creative and we are very committed
to finding ways to continue to run the college and support you and our
community during this time.
I am very mindful as I tell you how all of us are learning to work
remotely and do things differently, that on Monday we’re asking you,
our students, to do the same as we head into remote learning and
remote instruction. And I want you to know I have a couple of pieces
of advice for you. First, be kind to yourself and be kind to your
classmates and your professors. This is new for many people. It is
different than what we are used to, and it’s going to take a little
time and a little kindness and patience for us to get in the groove of
remote learning, but I’m confident that we will and remember that when
you are adapting you are developing one of the very most important
life skills. Champlain made you a promise that we would help you
develop into the professional that you hope to be for the life that
you want to build and I’m confident that we can keep that promise to
you, even though the way we do it will look very different than any of
us thought.I want you to know that as you begin remote instruction, we
are rooting
for you, we will be patient, and we will be kind, and we will help you
create structures that make you successful in this new way.
I would advise you to also create those structures for yourself to the
greatest extent that you possibly can through schedules, through
spaces, and through a determination that when you come to the other
side of this, you will have developed skills you didn’t even know your
college education was going to give you. I hope you’ll stay closely
posted to our site available right off the Champlain.edu main page, so
that we can continue to keep you informed about all the different
areas that we’re managing right now and so that you can also
communicate with us. We want to hear from you anytime. Together we
will figure this out. We will continue to be Champlain. Thank you so
much for all that this is asking of you, and please know that you
remain the reason why all of us at Champlain do what we do.
I am so proud of this community and the way that we have handled
things so far. Let’s keep it up, and let’s make sure that we do our
part and I know I can trust you to do yours. Thank you and take good
care.
