President Wippman’s Writings & Remarks

COVID-19 Task Force

March 16, 2020

Dear Members of the Hamilton Community,

I want once more to thank everyone across campus who so quickly and compassionately helped our students adjust their plans for spring break and begin to prepare for distance learning. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended all our lives in extraordinary ways, but our community has responded with great care, dedication, and thoughtfulness despite the uncertainty we all feel.

Over the weekend, the College’s senior staff and HERT turned our attention to how we can best modify operations in order to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on our community. Four primary goals will guide our near-term response: 

• Protect the health and safety of our employees and the students remaining on campus
• Prepare and deliver remote education to enable seniors to graduate and all other students to make appropriate progress towards their degree
• Preserve facilities and grounds
• Bring in next year’s first-year class

HERT has demonstrated exceptional leadership over the past several weeks, and I would like to recognize Jeff Landry, in particular, for guiding the response team through a series of critical decisions to get us to this juncture. HERT will continue to play an important role in addressing the wide range of issues raised by the College’s response to the pandemic.

However, moving the College through the remaining phases of this global health crisis will require a smaller, more streamlined decision-making structure. I have therefore appointed a COVID-19 Task Force to take the lead on our pandemic planning and implementation. The Task Force will be chaired by Vice President for Administration and Finance Karen Leach. Other members include Barb Fluty (health center), Jeff Landry (student life/HERT), Tara McKee (academic affairs), Melissa Richards (communications), Joe Shelley (LITS), Steve Stemkoski (human resources), and Roger Wakeman (facilities management). The Task Force will report to me and I will meet with it regularly.

You will hear shortly from Karen about new guidelines for College operations in the coming weeks. Thank you for your flexibility and patience. Please continue to take care of yourselves and one another.

David