Dear Physics Community,

In my message of March 20, I wrote that “International students cannot leave the country because of travel bans.”  I have since learned this is not universally true.  If you need to travel internationally, please check first with the consulate of the country you wish to travel to.  I will try to get better information for you, the State Department site seems only concerned with US Citizens.  I apologize for posting incorrect information.

UPDATE: I contacted Vivian Ruiz and David Elwell in ISO and they advised:

1. view their country’s Embassy to confirm restrictions on entry to their country. Some are allowing citizens to return but may face a 2-week quarantine or isolation (similar to US citizens returning to the US).
2. check their airlines as there are daily changes to flight access.
3. If students have questions about their ability to return to the US, they should contact their ISO Advisor Point of Contact (http://iso.mit.edu/about/student-advisor.shtml).

Peter

Dear Physics Community,

We are all now sheltering-in-place, some of us far from home, and perhaps wondering why doing so is necessary.  Please watch this speech about why we are doing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHUuWq6y8F0.  This is a history-making speech and deserves attention.

Academic Continuity Meeting

Housing – yesterday’s note on graduate student housing is here.   60% of the remaining students have completed the required forms.  245 undergraduates remain in emergency housing.  Both are required to follow the same rules.

Undergraduate admissions – Pi day came and went without the usual hoopla, so I asked what happened.  Admission offers went out and a few more students than usual were offered admission.  CPW and other outreach does a good job recruiting students and, without these events, the concern is the yield will be lower.

Campus space – secure of buildings is underway and a note will go out that will provide clarity to the access policies and processes.  Normal access will end Tuesday.  After that, card access will depend on being on the Limited Access Plan (LAP).  If you are not on the LAP, you can request access through ATLAS.  The LAP will have people from four categories on it: approved critical access (from plans submitted by PIs), scheduled to record a lecture, essential, and vendors.

Not much else, the meeting ended early and there will not be a meeting tomorrow.  Its a weekend, so nothing from the Department.

Here’s a cartoon Dan Kleppner sent:

Peter

Dear Physics Community,

I have not opined about how I think the pandemic will play out.  From my advising for the government, I hear quite a bit from experts and some who think they are experts, none of what they say is consistent, even the classified ones.  This is a time to go day-by-day: what can I do to make things better for me and those around me now, in the next hour, and the next day.  Longer than that, I just do not know.  What is very unusual is the right now, we are all doing this and I find some solace in that.  While we are physically separated, we are all, everyone in the world, going day-by-day, together. A unique moment.

Academic Continuity Meeting

Travel – The State Department issued a Global Level 4 Health Advisory yesterday advising against all international travel.  The State Dept. has also limited visa processing, reported in the here.

Emergency grades – will go into effect with the resumption of classes on March 30.  There has been push back from various quarters in both directions – return the ABC/DF/I or making PE/NE/IE optional based on student or faculty preference. Careful consideration of many factors already went into the decision to have PE,NE, IE grading, and the Cahir of the Faculty will not reconsider it.

Graduate housing – guidance out here.  The situation evolved yesterday through the day in two ways.  First, some numbers:

• MIT residential graduate population is 6,400 students
• 4,000 live off-campus, 2,400 in Cambridge, 1,600 elsewhere
• Of the remaining 2,350 living on campus, 530 have left
• Of the 1,820 remaining, 550 are US citizens, the rest are international.  International students cannot leave because of travel bans.

I know the numbers do not add up – it is okay.

Through the day yesterday, two things happened that caused concern for graduate student housing:

• Research on the coronavirus indicates it lasts much longer on surfaces and remains airborne longer than thought.  Both of these findings increase the likelihood of infection in shared living situations.
• The City of Cambridge said MIT could help the city by being prepared to support the 3,000-4,000 members of the MIT community living in Cambridge.

These two developments made the Administration strongly “encourage” any graduate student who can leave, to do so.  They offer various incentives that outlined the guidance.  My reading of the rules in the guidance makes me advise you to get out if you can – life in MIT graduate housing will be tough.

PPE – Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is essential for maintaining the health of those treating infected patients.  MIT is collecting PPE from labs around MIT for use in local hospitals and I am in trying to find out if PPE that can be obtained makes sense for those in dorms.  I am helping with a large group at MIT working to manufacture masks, face guards and ventilators for local use.

Staff and faculty – we are learning to work from home and MIT is producing advice on how to make this possible, especially with small children around, see here.

Campus space – the campus space reduction plan will circulate tonight, I hope.  Limited access will go into effect Sunday.  PIs: if you have critical access needs, this about who will be using the access.  MIT police will need to know they belong where they are.

Physics Department

Graduate Oral exams – we will have a policy out early next week that will be consistent across the divisions.  We are also working on PE/NE/IE grading guidance for graduate courses.

Student focussed talks – Anna Frebel is organizing a weekly department-wide zoom style talk series for grad students and postdocs (and really anyone who wants to listen).

Anyone can sign up to speak! Consider presenting, if you

• Were you scheduled to give a science talk at a conference this spring but it was canceled
• Have some new and exciting science to share
• Have something else interesting to share, or a topic to discuss (can be non-science!)
• Sign up here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lvDdzVSPpPK1FoKG36QgWCFu3lwnpQmOoQSkn-xBXlc/edit
• We need two people per week (plus two backups), for <30 min each.Please consider a non-specialist audience, as this is a department-wide effort! So you may need to add or take out a slide to make it widely accessible!

Thank you Anna!

Community – as we settle into this new life, we will have to find ways of building community.  Carol’s post is a good start for this and I would like to build on it.  In the coming week, I am going to work on how to make virtual informal gatherings with staff, students and faculty work.  If you have any ideas, please let me know.

I had eDrinks with people twice today.  Being 60 years old, I only learned about this last week from Carol’s post.  Both were great and made me realize how desperate I was for society.

Peter

P.S. I am posting these messages in my blog roll here and I have been accumulating useful links that have gone by here. In particular, I am trying to keep a list of MIT policy communications.

Thanks to Physics Council, Cathy Modica, Vicky Metternich and Christina Andujar for input and comments on these messages.

Dear Physics Community,

I was really heartened by the lunch talk today and the high level of interest and excitement in the community as we go online.  We have a deep bench for online and I think we will do well.

The Physics Department

Lunch Talk – Today we had an excellent faculty-staff lunch talk from Iain Stewart.  You can see his talk here.  93 people attended and I learned some things:

• For a remote talk, you should multiply the time needed by a factor of 1.3
• 4-5 people who tried to connect ended up in a “limbo room”, a known bug of zoom.  A restart was needed, but the talk was already 20 min by the time we knew.  Ideally, should start zoom 10 min early with everyone connected to make sure there is no one limboed.  The reality will be different.
• Zoom glitched every 10 min for 4-5 sec.  Just have to live with it.  Crashed once but restarted in 15 s.
• The students did not get the zoom invite owing to miscommunication on our end.  I apologize and will fix this – students are most welcome.

Iain’s talk was great and I learned a lot.  The “office hours” after were pretty useful as well.  I do not know if they were recorded.  Thank you Iain!

Student focussed talks – Anna Frebel is organizing a weekly department-wide zoom style talk series for grad students and postdocs (and really anyone who wants to listen).

Anyone can sign up to speak! Consider presenting, if you

• Were you scheduled to give a science talk at a conference this spring but it was canceled
• Have some new and exciting science to share
• Have something else interesting to share, or a topic to discuss (can be non-science!)
• Sign up here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lvDdzVSPpPK1FoKG36QgWCFu3lwnpQmOoQSkn-xBXlc/edit
• We need two people per week (plus two backups), for <30 min each. Please consider a non-specialist audience, as this is a department-wide effort! So you may need to add or take out a slide to make it widely accessible!

Thank you Anna!

Piazza – Iain hs set up a piazza page for online teaching in Physics here. The name of the class is 8.ONLINE-EDU.

Carol has sent some more gems:

• The Immune-Boosting Meal Plan
• On Digital Minimalism and Pandemics

Academic Continuity Meeting

Campus – the buildings group is in the process of securing limited access (formally called “mothballed” – term changed because nobody under 60 knows what a mothball is).  Buildings currently designated limits access will be secure (i.e. closed) by Sunday.  Assessment of candidate buildings will be complete and those buildings closed by Wednesday.  Physics does not use any such buildings, so we should not have a problem but if you find you need access somewhere, contact me.

Teaching and technology resources – MIT now has site licenses for Grade Scope, Slack Enterprise, and Zoom.  Janet Rankin’s group has resources for teaching online here. Please contact Janet if there is something specific you would like to see a workshop on.

Graduate Student Housing – as promised I brought this up at the 8 am meeting.  The response (I forgot from who) was that graduate students were being strongly encouraged to leave if they can, but there was no plan to evict anyone.  As the day progressed, I heard the encouragement was causing great stress, so I have asked Ian Waitz to make a clear statement about graduate student housing.  This evening, he said he would say something soon.

Advisories – MIT has put out a number of new advisories here. Some highlights:

• Financial aid and support update for students – March 19
• Financial aid FAQ for students – March 19
• Updated graduate housing policies and guidelines – March 19
• Social distancing, self-monitoring, and self-quarantine: A how-to guide – March 19
• Updated guidance on meetings – March 19
• MIT Human Resources FAQ for employees – March 19

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) – MIT is donating all of its PPE to local hospitals and other local universities are making similar moves.  PPE is in critically short supply and essential to the well being of those caring for the infected. If you have access to PPE you could donate (sealed in packaging), contact me.

Many have written to thank me for doing this, but I have to say it is the effort of a group and a privilege for me to be able to do this.

Peter

P.S. I am posting these messages in my blog roll here and I have been accumulating useful links that have gone by here. In particular, I am trying to keep a list of MIT policy communications.

Thanks to Physics Council, Cathy Modica, Vicky Metternich and Christina Andujar for input and comments on these messages.

Dear Physics Community,

I went by MIT today to pick up and drop off some things (see below).  I had about 5 minutes in my office to grab the books I might need as a physicist.  I chose,

•  “Thermal Physics” by Kittel and Kroemer
•  “Quantum Mechanics” by Schiff
•  “Classical Electrodynamics” by Jackson
•  “Molecular Biology of the Cell: by Alberts et al.

At home, I already have,

•  “The Physics of Energy” by Jaffe and Taylor
•  “Modern Classical Physics” by Thorne and Blandford
•  “The American Practical Navigator” by Bowditch

So that’s my desert island physics book collection.  I remember a time at Berkeley, over a pitcher of beer, talking with Gary Hinshaw and Rich Ruby about which ten books you would take that would capture the essence of physics.  Never thought I would have to do it.

Top Level Things

Important: in the past days, I have learned about this thing called Zoom.  We will all use Zoom a lot in the coming months and there is a tutorial webinar on it here. You have to sign up.

I’m posting Carol’s link again as it is very valuable to those of us new to online socializing.

Special for Physics Graduate Students – I have heard some of our graduate students are concerned that they will be asked to leave their MIT accommodations involuntarily.  Every morning 8-9 am, I am on a phone call that includes Department Head, Deans, the Provost, Chancellor, senior staff and others.  I have never heard this discussed or even mentioned.  Our graduate students are extremely valuable to us and, early on, the decision was made graduate students should stay on campus if they chose.  It is true there was encouragement for graduate students to leave if they could, for the obvious reason that they may be more comfortable at home with family, and reducing the population density on campus helps everyone out, but it has been clear from the start that if a graduate student chose to stay, that would be honored.

If any of you hear officially anything to the contrary, please let me know.  I will do everything I can if the Institute moves to kick a Physics graduate student out of MIT housing.  Also, I will bring this question up for tomorrow’s 8 am meeting and see if I can get an explicit guarantee, which I think would make us all feel better.

Thank you for letter me know about this.

Upcoming Departmental Events

All these events are virtual, via remote connection, and open to all the community.  As time passes and we add events, they will be more targeted to specific groups as they were before.

•  Thursday, March 19, 2020 – Faculty-Staff lunch, “Remote Teaching” led by Iain Stewart and Pablo Jarillo-Herrero
•  Thursday, March 26, 2020 – Faculty-Staff lunch, our biophysicists will tell us about viruses, how they are transmitted, and how to limit epidemics
•  Thursday, March 26, 2020 – Colloquium – Prof. Scott Gaudi, Ohio State, “The Demographics of Exoplanets”
•  Thursday, April 2, 2020 – Colloquium – Prof. Alan Guth, MIT, “Inflation”

Academic Continuity Meeting

Around campus – construction projects around MIT have all be halted by the City of Cambridge.  This includes on-campus renovation projects.  Each building on campus will be designated

•  Essential – full services and access
•  Mothball candidate – TBD based on research in the building and access needed.  Dean’s and Provost will decide.
•  Mothballed – unoccupied, secured, very limited access, reduced services
•  Leased – owned by someone else, subject to their rules.

I believe all Physics buildings are Essential.  Access will follow the research guidelines the Dean’s are developing.

Security – MIT’s buildings are largely unoccupied.  Every door that can be is locked, but some cannot be for fire access.  The police force is changing from mostly reactive (following up on reports) to proactive (going around the buildings looking for problems).  The police will be checking that people in MIT buildings are supposed to be there, so it is a good idea to carry (or even display) your ID.  The police recommend that you make sure your office is locked and take with you anything that is valuable or important to you.

Remote teaching – we will start soon.  We need to be doubly careful that we communicate to our students our expectations for their course work when we start again – things will be very different than before.

Shelter-in-place – Gov. Baker and Mayor Walsh have both said they do not anticipate giving a shelter-in-place order (meaning you cannot leave your house except to buy food, go to the pharmacy or doctor).  This was done in the Bay Area because of a spike in COVID-19.  We hope MA residents got the idea of social distance, hand washing, etc. early so this does not happen to us.  If it does, it will have the following impacts:

•  Access to campus even for critical experiments may not be possible
•  We hope to increase access in a few weeks, but shelter-in-place would compromise that
•  The campus would move to a “snow emergency” posture where even essential services might be curtailed
•  There would not be access to campus rooms for recording lectures – this would have to be done at home

Finances – The Provost gave a short report on finances.  Clearly, the endowment and its payout have taken a hit, but it is in good shape because of the efforts of MITIMCo over the past year.  Also, MIT has recent experience from 2008 in reducing spending in bad economic times in a balanced way.  Right now, MIT is incurring huge costs in contracts, gifts, and getting ready for online instruction.  Right now is not the time to worry about next year’s budget – securing the community is the major task.

Physics Department

Physics Staff – thank you for coming to the zoom meeting yesterday, it was really good to see you and spend some time together.  We will continue more frequent meetings to share experiences and check on each other as the term progresses.

Roll call – finding where our students, some of our research staff and some faculty are is underway.  Emma Dunn is doing a terrific job finding our undergraduates and has made contact with 126 of 218.  If you are an undergraduate, please respond to Emma – we want to know where you are and that you are safe. If you are a graduate student and you have not responded, Syd Miller will resend the link and please respond if you have not already.

Events – we are starting to schedule events – a few are listed above and I am working on adding more in next week.  The Divisions are starting to have seminars and journal clubs and I will work with Christina to produce a consolidated list for the Department. Many of you had conference talks canceled, so please contact you Division Head, Lab Director or me and we will find a time for you to give your great talk to the community.

Oral exams – Nergis, Physics Council, Cathy and I are working with the Division Heads on Written and Oral Exams.  We will have guidance early next week that will be consistent across the Department.  We intend to be very flexible about extensions.

Open House – The APO team and Divisions are planning for our Admitted Graduate Student Open House on April 1-3.  Graduate students play a big role in this and it is something we can all do that is positive for our community.  Keep in mind that video presentations can be used for other things.

TAs, Student-workers, and UROPs – the Department intends to make full use of student workers and TAs, both graduate and undergraduate, in the coming weeks to overcome the serious challenges of going to online instruction.  We have also encouraged faculty to re-engage with UROP students, but that will probably take a back seat to the getting online instruction going week after next.  If you have not already, TAs, Student-workers and UROP should contact their supervisors and making plans for the coming term.

I have heard from some of the Physics Community reports of racist remarks relating to the origin coronavirus.  No matter how you think, this virus just happened to appear in Wuhan first – it was always there, waiting.  It is not the product of any country or race and assigning blame along those lines is not a part of our values and will not be tolerated.

This kind of nonsense will go away with time and, I hope, a better political climate.  Still, we have to always say how unacceptable and awful it is.

Peter

Dear Physics Community,

Ending the second day of working at home, I’m struck by how different it is and how much I miss being “at work”.  I think I accomplish about 25% of what I normally get done, although this is a difficult time – there are many meetings and discussions that need to happen.  Of course, I do not have small children at home which presents an even more difficult complication.

I have two major meetings each day: the Academic Continuity meeting 8-9 am and the Physics Response Team from 9-10 am followed by many smaller meetings.  These are both exceptional groups of people and they are a big part of the reason I think this will work out.

Top-level things

Important: please read what to do if you think you have been exposed to COVID-19 here. MIT Medical said, “Call first, call first, call first.”  This document fleshes this out.

Also important: in the past days, I have learned about this thing called Zoom.  We will all use Zoom a lot in the coming months and there is a tutorial webinar on it here. You have to sign up.

The Washington Post has a good graphic about how infections spread and how to minimize them here.

New York Times Op-ed by Presidents of MIT, Harvard, and Stanford.

We are starting some events in the Department.  All are open to everyone in the Physics Community over zoom:

• Thursday, March 19, 2020 – Faculty-Staff lunch, “Remote Teaching” led by Iain Stewart and Pablo Jarillo-Herrero
• Thursday, March 26, 2020 – Faculty-Staff lunch, our biophysicists will tell us about viruses, how they are transmitted, and how to limit epidemics
• Thursday, March 26, 2020 – Colloquium – Prof. Scott Gaudi, Ohio State, “The Demographics of Exoplanets”
• Thursday, April 2, 2020 – Colloquium – Prof. Alan Guth, MIT, “Inflation”

Note: as time passes, there will be more events and they may be scheduled at different times.  I’ve used the old names and times for them, but they will be open to everyone.  I’ll try recording, but no guarantees.  Work in progress.

Academic Continuity

The focus continued to shift from undergraduates to broader issues: graduate students, faculty and staff, and research.

Housing – 2,350 graduate students remain on campus.  Policies for them will be delivered soon. 290 undergraduates remain, including 58 in fraternities, sororities and independent living groups (FSILGs).  The FSILGs must be secured and the student moved onto campus.  This is complicated because FSILG’s are independently owned and operated.  Dining arrangements continue to evolve and health arrangements are being made.

MIT Health – MIT does not have an infirmary (a place in a large institution for the care of those who are ill) but a clinic (an establishment or hospital department where outpatients are given medical treatment or advice, especially of a specialist nature) which means someone who falls ill and needs to be in a hospital will go somewhere else.  MIT Health is being reconfigured for people who are not ill to  enter through one door, those who are ill to go in another and there is pharmacy access. Important: if you feel ill, call 617-253-4865, do not go to the clinic.

MIT Health has started COVID-19 testing based on potential exposure, symptoms, or travel.  Screening tests have not started.

MIT Health is starting tele-health so non-COVID-19 problems can get some attention remotely.  Some information is here.

Research – we have collected scale-down plans from all our labs, as has LNS, MKS, RLE, and others.  These plans are being reviewed by the Deans of Science, Engineering, and Architecture.  I think we will hear tomorrow what their outcome is.  Our plans were well below guidance for campus presence.  Buildings will be categorized based on these plans as to what services and security level will continue.

Physics Department

The Divisions are closest to our students, post-docs, and faculty and staff are, in various forms

• reaching out to postdocs to see where they are
• starting zoom lunch talks, journal clubs, etc.
• developing plans for graduate oral exams.   The Department plans to have consistent guidance for oral exams early next week
• making plans for Graduate Open House presentations

Cathy and her team in the APO are making the overall Open House schedule and checking in with our admitted graduate students.  Alan Guth will give the Open House colloquium on Inflation, which will be a high point.

Remote Instruction is the next big topic being tackled and we will discuss it at lunch on Thursday.  All our instructors are converting their materials and presentations to online, Junior Lab is developing a way of operating online and many are considering the problems of giving invigilated (a word I learned from Will Detmolt) exams remotely. Some other instruction related thing to start thinking about:

• the need to core materials accessible to those with only and phone and low band-width access. This may be needed if there is so much going on the internet that connections are slow
• Student interaction with S^3 via remote counselors
• Backup plans if instructors fall ill
• How to arrange tutoring for our classes.  I suspect more than usual will be needed
• How to structure redundant course staffing

I think as we start going online, we will need to make rapid assessments of how well things are working and adjust.  We’re going to learn a lot.

There is more to this than changing the way we work – our social lives are…gone?  Maybe not – I just got this link from Carol Breen (thanks Carol!) that has some good ideas.

Peter

Dear Physics Community,

Today is our first day back at work and most of us are working at home – an eerie experience.  I’ve spent all day connected to zoom and my feeling is that this new way of working means we will get about half as much done as usual, at least at the start.  I think this will pick-up as we get used to it, but we should all adjust our expectations to what we can accomplish.  Please look for articles on how to work at home and share them with me.

Important: please read what to do if you think you have been exposed to COVID-19 here. MIT Medical said, “Call first, call first, call first.”  This document fleshes this out.

Also important: the Departmental guidance for everyone to work from home if you possibly can.  I do not want anyone sitting on campus at their desk because they think it is part of their job – you are safer at home than coming and going from MIT.  If you would like to email or phone me or Matt to discuss your specific circumstance, please feel free.

This week, we will try to restart a few things and learn how to connect with the community in this new way.  Please do what you can for each other – we are all separated and that is hard.  The Department will have some community events soon and I encourage SPS, UWIP, GWIP, and PGSC to organize whatever you can.  Suggestions for the Department are welcome.

Academic Continuity Meeting

The top-level focus is moving away from the student departures and toward the research scale-down and settling those who remain on campus.

Housing – Undergraduates are 82% moved out as of last night.  DSL is working on funding bridges to keep fraternities, sororities and ILG’s in business and secure as they will be closed for the coming weeks.  Dining plans may need to be adjusted after Gov. Baker’s announcement yesterday evening.  Graduate students in MIT housing will be consolidated into as few buildings as possible while keeping the density low.  No cost bridge program food is available in Baker and Maseeh Halls, whether you have a meal plan or not.

Research – Maria Zuber and Marty Schmidt sent guidance on scale-back of research on campus you can read here.  The idea is to minimize trips to campus and keep the density on campus as low as possible, around 10%.  This morning, Marty and Maria asked he Deans to collect scale-down implementation plans from the Departments via the Deans so they can determine the level of on-campus support needed.

During the research scale-down, some will need to come on campus to service critical equipment.  I’m asking PI’s to be sure not to ask people in their group to do something the group member is not comfortable with.  The group member may not feel they can express their concerns, so PI’s will need to read between the lines.  Please contact me if you need mediation in either direction.

There is lots of stuff going on behind the scenes to secure buildings that will be largely empty in the coming weeks and increase security without closing campus.

COVID-19 – Testing will or has started.  Urgent tests go through the state lab and have 24-hour turnaround, less urgent go through a commercial lab and have 2-3 days turn around.  We can expect the first MIT COVID-19 case in the next few days.

Physics Department

Other things – with the research scale-down underway and set to be largely done by the end of the week, we are starting to work on the longer-term thing, such as:

• Career disruption – tenure clocks, thesis defenses, promotions, job offers are all being worked on and discussed at several levels.
• Oral exams – we hope to have uniform Departmental guidance next week
• UROPs – we plan to continue UROPs during the term.  If you have a UROP, there is a form you should have filled out
• Student-workers – we plan to continue those already employed, we will certainly need the help
• Graduate student support – the first-year graduate students will need help finding support for the summer and fall and we are starting to figure out how to do this
• Regular contact – we need to establish regular contact with everyone in the community so we know where everyone is and how they are doing
• Connecting with emeritus faculty
• Community events – faculty lunch, colloquium, other things
• Remote teaching

These are certainly other things – please let me or your Division Head or Lab Director know. MIT and the Department leadership meets daily with the sole object of keeping the community together and well during this very difficult time. I think it is safe to say many of us feel we are trying to do something harder than we have ever done before.

Peter

P.S. I am posting these messages in my blog roll here and I have been accumulating useful links that have gone by here. In particular, I am trying to keep a list of MIT policy communications.

Thanks to Physics Council, Cathy Modica, Vicky Metternich and Christina Andujar for input and comments on these messages.

Dear Physics Community,

I am posting these messages in my blog roll here and I have been accumulating useful links that have gone by here. In particular, I am trying to keep a list of MIT policy communications.

Physics Department

Tomorrow will be our first day working largely remotely and we will have to be patient as we learn to use zoom, slack and other new things.  I would adjust overall expectations to 25% operations by the end of the week.  We can build from there.

One element we need to pay attention to from the start is isolation.  Some will be alone for long periods or with the same few people.  Please reach out to each other via phone calls or skype, i.e. where we can hear each other.  Please do not be afraid to reach out for help.

Academic Continuity Committee

Undergraduates – DSL reported that 60% of our undergraduates have left and all should be out by Monday, except about 350 who have exemptions.

Graduate students – MIT posted “What graduate students need to know” here.  Following several comments I received yesterday, it does say, “…graduate residents are not required to depart campus, however, we strongly encourage you to seek alternate housing.”  My guidance to Physics graduates students is that you should locate yourself where you are safest as a first priority and able to pursue your studies as a second priority.

Research – with the departure of the undergraduates coming to the end, this is out next big focus.  A draft statement is circulating right now and will go out later today.  Main points:

• The goal is to minimize density on campus AND minimize T trips by winding down research.
• Some equipment, computers and animals will need tending
• MIT will remain open, but at the lowest possible density.  MIT is winding down on-campus work, not stopping.  The distinction has to do with how money can be spent and who can be paid.
• Extensions of tenure clocks and thesis deadlines for those effected by the wind-down is “on the table”, according to the Provost.
• ISO will continue processing visas for new faculty.
• Please make wind-down plans by end of the day Monday and carry them out as soon as possible, end of the week at the latest.

Several PI’s have been in touch with me about their needs for access during the wind-down.  Please assume your plans are okay and carry them out.  If you feel they conflict with the guidance Marty and Maria send out later today, please let me know.

The spirit of the situation is to get as many off campus as possible as a public good.  In that spirit, it is okay if you need someone in a lab 5% of the time to keep an expensive piece of equipment from breaking, but not okay to have someone in the lab starting a new experiment, no matter how exciting.

Maria Zuber (VPR) has been in contact with federal agencies about grants and spending in the coming months.  She reported that the NIH has posted guidance that is very favorable.  She reports and I have observed that the federal agencies see the NIH and NSF as policy leaders, so this is good news.  You can see their guidance here.

Emergency Academic Regulations are posted here.  Some highlights:

• No exams or assignments before March 30 (end of Spring break)
• Classes may be synchronous (live streamed) as scheduled now
• Classes may be also/or asynchronous (recorded).  Synchronous classes should also be asynchronous
• Emergency grading is in effect – PE/NE/IE
• Remote final exams will be held on the current schedule
• Thesis defense (and Part II orals) will be done remotely

Special Note to Graduate Students

What does the scale-down mean in the context of the other communications with graduate students? At the top level, our we expect our Physics graduates student will continue to work toward their degrees, help teach our classes and receive their tuition and stipends. As much as possible, we would like graduate student life to continue as much as it was before.

However, access to campus will be limited to only to most critical maintenance of equipment and care of animals.  The only experimental work that will be continue will be for experiments whose disruption would cause the loss of irreplaceable data.  This means that, like faculty and staff (which includes post docs and post doctoral fellows) at MIT, graduate students may only come to campus to perform essential functions.  This includes offices, labs and common areas.

This goes into effect over the next week.  You should make as few trips as possible early in the week to get what you need from your office or lab.  After that, plan to work from where you are living.  I do not know for how long, but the guess is 6-8 weeks.

This will be extremely disruptive to our research enterprise, including the progress of our graduate students.  This will be true of graduate students across the world.  Many will put the time to good use writing thesis chapters, reading papers or planning new experiments, but these cannot replace the work that can only be done in our labs with experiments built up over years or by the personal interactions with colleague that will now be mostly electronic and remote.

However, you will be critical to keeping the research enterprise going in the coming weeks.  We will have to learn how to learn from each other online and, while we cannot do the things we really want to do, we can still make progress, learn from each other, and maybe make some discoveries.

I will reach out to your faculty advisors for help.  Please look to them or me for guidance, information and comfort.

For our graduate TA’s, you will be very important in the coming weeks.  Online education has floated along for fifteen years with a few first steps here and there.  Now, the entire US university system will dive into in two weeks.  Will all these things work? Will there be enough bandwidth? Will we be reduced to soup cans connected by string?  Will it work great and everyone will realize we do not need courses in universities anymore? We are going to find out and you will be in the vanguard.

Tomorrow we start coping with the new world we are in.

Peter

Dear Physics Community,

I am posting these messages in my blog roll here and I have been accumulating useful links that have gone by here. In particular, I am trying to keep a list of MIT policy communications.

Big Picture for MIT

MIT remains open, but everyone is strongly encouraged to work from home.  MIT is NOT closed and remaining open means that services will continue at a certain level and has HR meaning.  Please be very conscientious about not coming in unless you need to.

The last week has been completely reactive.  Right now, it is most useful to think in terms of,

• What needs to happen by Sunday?
• What things are for next week, as we being working together remotely?
• What things are for the week after, as we begin rehearsal for online teaching?
• What things are for after March 30, when we are teaching online and working to operate in a new normal.

To our staff – I want to thank all of you for your patience int he last week where the focus has been in students.  On Monday, we will begin to work on how we work together.  I think we need to meaningfully check in on each other daily, so please start thinking about how to do that in your area.

Academic Continuity Phone Call

From Susan Blake, MIT’s emergency Coordinator, the priorities right now are

1. Vacate students
2. Develop social distance – Peter’s note: this is 6 feet and hard to maintain.  When we are together, we like about 4 feet.  We start sat 6 feet and gravitate closer.  We need to learn not to do this.

Undergraduates – Students are moving out well and petition process is nearly done.  Their statistics are

• 691 petitions received
• 396 approved (39 plan to leave at the end of the month, 20% decided to leave after approval
• 257 worked with DSL to find alternative to staying
• 38 denied
• 1 appeal has been filed, will probably be approved, expect a few more

About 300 undergraduates will remain on campus and will be sorted into new spaces.  There will be rules developed about access to campus, checking, etc.  Life will be very different than during term.

Graduate students – the messaging have been ambiguous and there should be a communication out soon.  My guidance is that graduate students should work from their MIT residence and only come on campus if absolutely necessary.  There are no instructions for graduate students to leave.  About 30% have left for their own reasons.

Graduate students may be seeking guidance from their advisors on what to do, attending to experiments, etc.  My guidance is to try, but recognize many faculty are taking care of various family things on the week.  I will give guidance by Monday on getting advising going again.

Research Continuity – MIT has not decided on its policy.  Harvard has issued instructions to wind down by Wednesday and then expect 6-8 weeks with all research shut down and no access to labs.  Other places have less restrictive policies.  Marty Schmidt (Provost) and Maria Zuber (VPR) are working on MIT policy, hopefully out later today.  In the meantime, my guidance is,

• Have a plan for safe mode by Wednesday.
• ALL meetings are remote
• No one in labs unless essential from a safety point of view
• Buddy system in labs

Keep in mind that even minimum lab operation needs support people to come to MIT, ride the T, etc.

Cecilia (MIT medical) – best estimates right now are that the infections will peak in late March/early April.  How long the tail lasts will depend on how well we do with social distancing and hand washing.  MIT Medical will begin testing Monday – only those with symptoms, not screening.

Final Note

Please think about who from the Department you might know who might need help or to talk with someone and check on them.  The news is all over the place and some might just needs some contact.

Peter