Kudos to all and get ready for the coming fall

Now that the 2019-2020 academic year comes close to the end with this quasi-Darwinian twist we have called a pandemic, we ought to pause and look at what has been accomplished in the course of the last few months of the Winter Semester of 2020.

To cope with an unexpected and unprecedented situation, we were asked, within a short and intense timeframe, to radically shift our ways of doing things and to operate while relying on our sole capacities.

Learning and dealing with challenges
We had to learn how to effectively use on-line devices, whether for teaching purposes or working from home. We had to imagine ways to offer support to both faculty and students in order to help them deal with many challenges.

We also had to rethink how we deliver many services to our community, to redesign tasks and workloads. Moreover, at a time when we were deprived of physical contact due to social distancing and confinement, we had to answer with this supplément d’âme to instill some reality and life into what we were doing.  Overall, this COVID-19 period required each of us to tap into our reservoir of creativity, tolerance and resilience.

A heartfelt thanks
So to all our students, faculty and staff who put your shoulders to the wheel: I want to extend my heartfelt thanks and a genuine appreciation for all your hard work.  As the saying goes: “when the going gets tough, the tough get going”!

Through these past months, we have demonstrated much strength, goodwill and a true sense of caring for our students and peers. We have also learned that our main asset in such difficult times dwells in our capacity to adapt to unforeseen situations. We should all come out stronger from this episode. Now, after a well-deserved break, we ought to get ready for what’s coming up.

Working on Fall re-entry
No need to say that the coming academic year will not be resuming under normal conditions and the odds are high that we will have to face challenges similar to the ones we have just been through. Rest assured that the College administration is working hard to ensure that proper conditions and rules will be implemented for the Fall re-entry to the College.  To this effect, a framework is currently in the works and will be communicated, hopefully before the end of the week to our community, pending some expected ministerial clarifications.

Meanwhile, I wish everyone a restful and joyful summer with friends and dear ones, despite the constraints.

Richard Filion
Director General