Today the Faculty of Engineering has shared detailed and program specific class format plans for September 2021 with our incoming and current students.
Each department has posted details in a LEARN course for current undergraduate engineering students and in a TEAMS channel for current architecture students. These details are based on the information we shared with the Registrar’s Office, which is responsible for University-wide schedules and classroom space.
For prospective first-year students we have shared program specific details to help them understand what the Fall Term will look like as they plan for September. Those who accept their offers will continue to be supported throughout the summer through Waterloo Ready and Engineering 101 LEARN community with information in preparation for joining Waterloo Engineering in September.
Incoming and current Grad students received information about the Class and Research Format for September via Grad Ready communications and directly from departments.
Overall, our plans are designed to be flexible, to accommodate public health constraints and recommendations. Our default model is that classrooms can be filled up to 50% capacity, but if there are changes as part of Public Health Guidelines in-class sizes can be reduced, or if the Region completely opens up our plans can scale up to 100% in-class. The plan has been designed to be flexible. All teaching will be aligned with classroom capacity limits as set by the University.
Orientation plans
We now know Orientation 2021 will be a series of remote events since it would be impossible to control social distancing at such a large gathering. The successful on-line programming that was created last year will again be used. We are hopeful Orientation 2022 will return to an on-campus experience.
Thank you!
To all faculty, department chairs, associate deans, academic advisors and those who manage our facilities and technology capabilities, thank you for your tremendous work to plan and prepare for Fall '21 term in the midst of so much uncertainty. You have been working very hard to prioritize the face to face learning opportunities for our students.
Next steps
We are developing plans for a safe return to campus for our faculty and staff members and will share them over the next few months. For University-wide information, continue to check https://uwaterloo.ca/coronavirus/ for details.
While we are preparing to resume in-person learning this fall, the safety and wellbeing of Waterloo Engineering’s community remain our top priority and we will continue to be guided by public health guidelines.
With the expanded rollout of vaccines, there is good reason to be optimistic about being back on campus this fall. I look forward to the day when we are all safely together with our students.
Thanks again for everything you have done and continue to do to make this happen,
Mary