Dear Physics Community,

Adjusted Syllabus – Cathy Modica sent this story about a professor adjusting his syllabus for remote instruction.  Here is the syllabus itself: 

Grades – MIT is getting some good press in the Globe for going to PE/NE/IE grading.

The are many efforts going on around MIT to collect and donate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), make and sterilize N95 masks and face plates, and build ventilators.

Physics Department Events

• Thursday, April 2, 2020, 4-5 pm – Colloquium – Prof. Alan Guth, MIT, “Inflation”
• April 1-3, Admitted Graduate Studnet Open House, details to come.
• Thursday, April 2, 2020, 12-1:30 pm – Faculty-Staff-Student lunch, “How we are doing with Remote Teaching So Far?”
• Thursday, April 9, 2020, 12-1:30 pm – Faculty-Staff-Student lunch, “Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing”, David Kaiser and Julie Shah
• Thursday, April 16, 2020, 12-1:30 pm – “Grading and Exam Guidelines for the Spring Term”, Nergis Mavalvala
• Thursday, April 23, 2020, 12-1:30 pm – Nikta Fakhri

All events are open to the entire Physics Community.  The zoom link for all lunches is https://mit.zoom.us/j/514440037.

Physics Department

Cecilia Stuopis, Head of MIT Medical, has been talking about using more empathetic language as we begin to know people who have COVID-19.  I exchanged emails with her with a couple of examples:

1. Upon hearing that a colleague has COVID-19: “I am so sorry that you have contracted this disease.   I know you must be concerned about how this might affect you.  If you’d like to talk please let me know.”
2. A colleague expressing fears at contracting the disease: “I know you are scared and worried about how this might affect you and your family.  The best thing you can do is to follow the guidelines about hand washing and social distancing.”

You get this idea – acknowledge the person’s (and your own) fears rather than telling them it is unlikely they come to harm.  While the latter may be an attempt at reassurance, we cannot know what is going to happen and should honestly face the reality of this situation.

Academic Continuity Meeting

Advisories

• Welcome back message to undergraduate students
• Welcome back message to graduate students
• Academic and personal support
• Tenure policy – I have heard from junior faculty in the Department that more useful than a tenure clock extension would be additional teaching relief to finish papers, gives talks, etc.  I hear you and agree this could be valuable.  This is something we can do at the Departmental level and we will see what we can do to help.

Zoom – three questions about zoom and privacy have come up:

1. Can zoom sell my data? No – the MIT site license does not allow this.  Thank you Mark DiVincenzo and the OGC.
2. Who can see videos on the zoom cloud? Only those allowed by the poster, also part of the site license.
3. How do I prevent “zoom bombing”? Zoom bombing is distributing a zoom session by rude comments, gestures, etc.  MIT has set up zoom so by default, only those with MIT Touchstone credentials can connect.  If you want to use zoom to connect with people outside MIT, you have to turn this off, as shown here (fourth button) in the session setup.  If the zoom bombers are within the MIT community, the proper course is the COD or HR.  Details to follow soon.

State of Emergency – the State has not declared a State of Emergency, a.k.a. a lock-down and does not plan to.  If this were to happen, access would be further restricted to those keeping animals alive, maintaining irreplaceable equipment, and carrying out COVID-19 research with near-term application.  Facilities are starting to build these lists, just in case.

Note: there are no planned Academic Continuity Meetings planned for the weekend.

I have received heartfelt thanks from many of you for these messages and I really appreciate it.  In the early days, I felt the best thing I could do to lower the stress level is to tell everyone as simply as I could what is going on and answer any questions I can.  I’m glad it has helped you and I will continue to write these until it is time to stop. Comments always welcome.

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.