Dear Humber employees,

Over the last few months the Humber community has joined together unlike ever before. As the global COVID-19 health crisis has evolved, our staff have shown incredible adaptability, resilience and perhaps even more importantly, empathy and compassion for each other and our students. Thank you for rising to the occasion and continuing to make us proud.

In the face of many unknowns, we are continuing to focus on our existing expertise in providing rich, career-focused education that prepares graduates for success. Today, we’ll be letting our students know that we plan to provide both interactive online and in-person education in the Fall 2020 term.

Thanks to the creativity and innovation of our professors and staff, we are able to offer almost all of the programs we had planned to in Fall 2020. Sixty per cent of our programs will be offered entirely online, with the remainder having both online and in-person components. All electives will be delivered online.

We have posted the complete list of programs and their mode of delivery here. There are six programs that will be entirely deferred to a future term and students in those programs will be receiving messages today.

On-campus learning will only occur for courses where it is safe and necessary to do so. The amount of time that students will be required to be on campus will be limited to those specific courses. Courses with in-person requirements will likely also have online components.

Student services will remain primarily online for the Fall term. Please see the latest list of services and their mode of delivery. When we are able to open libraries, computer labs and other spaces, there will be strict rules about physical distancing and the number of people allowed in these areas.

The safety of our community members remains our top priority. We have a dedicated team working on plans for the safe, gradual reopening of our campuses, and we will continue to work closely with the government and public health authorities to ensure that we are adhering to all guidelines established for any potential on-campus activities. As shared in last week’s planning update, we expect that the employees who are able to complete their work remotely will continue to do so through the Summer and Fall 2020 terms.

While much of what we do has changed, our tradition of teaching and learning excellence and our commitment to students remains the same. We are committed to providing students with a great online learning experience; helping to keep students connected; fostering an environment of wellness, kindness and inclusion; and doing our best to be flexible.

It’s important our students know what they can expect from their programs and courses in the Fall. Over the coming weeks, Faculties and programs will be sending their students more details and holding information sessions to help answer their questions. We want to ensure that students know that regardless of delivery mode, all courses will include regular interaction with their peers and professors.

As we make decisions, we will continue to share updates with the Humber community. We also understand that advice from the authorities may change quickly and we may need to respond just as rapidly. This may mean needing to slow down a return to campus or shift our approach and we are prepared to do that. In the meantime, we continue to share information through the daily Communiqué newsletter and on www.humber.ca/updates.

I invite you to join me at our upcoming Townhall on June 8, to hear the latest on our progress in implementing Humber's 2018-2023 Strategic Plan, the college's plans for the Fall term, and resuming on-campus operations. You can register here.

Your contributions are helping to shape the future of education at Humber.

Thank you for all that you do.