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Preparing for H1N1

September 4, 2009

As you know from a recent update sent to all members of the Brown community, the University has been preparing for a potential widespread occurrence of the H1N1 flu virus during the coming academic term.  We are writing now with ideas about managing your teaching and research.

MANAGING YOUR TEACHING

We anticipate that a significant number of students will contract H1N1 this year. Students will be advised to stay in their rooms while they are symptomatic and until 24 hours after any fever has abated.  If you are teaching in the fall, you should plan for how you will adapt your courses in the event that a substantial number of your students miss a week or more of school, or if you yourself, or members of your family, fall ill for an extended period. 

For example, you should consider what alternatives you might use if a pandemic made it impossible for you to administer midterm or final exams. You might want to establish a communication plan with your students (using MyCourses or other tools), or set up electronic means for disseminating course content. Please keep in mind that the staff members who normally support you could also be absent. The Academic Technology group within CIS stands ready to help with alternative solutions as the term gets underway. You will find information about resources at http://brown.edu/web/pandemic.

STUDENT ABSENCES

You can expect student absences to come in waves.  We are asking for your cooperation in not requesting either a dean’s note or a note from Health Services to verify an illness.  Students will be instructed to report their influenza-like illness through an online system.  The system will allow us to record when they reported their illness, and deans in Student Life and the College will check in to make sure they have appropriate arrangements for classes, meals, and health care. We will be able to report to you, before the end of the semester, which students from your classes reported influenza-like illness and the dates of their illness.

Given the numbers of absences the University may be managing, we ask that you excuse the absence if a student informs you that he or she had H1N1 and reported their illness to the University.  If you have a particular concern because a student missed more than a reasonable number of classes (typically 3-5 days with symptoms for H1N1) or missed a significant assignment, you may speak with a dean in Student Life or the College about your concern, but we ask that you not make this inquiry except in exceptional cases. 

Midterms and final exam absences will be handled separately from this system and according to the normal procedure for exams.  If students are unable to attend a midterm or final exam, they will be expected to contact either Dean Stephen Lassonde or Dean Kathleen McSharry in the Office of the Dean of the College prior to the exam date.

MANAGING YOUR RESEARCH

To maintain continuity in your research, you may want to plan for what would need to happen if you were unavailable to direct a research project for a significant period of time, if graduate students or staff were unavailable, or if essential equipment were inoperative due to the absence of key members of the research team.

We will of course be providing updated information as it becomes available. Meanwhile we would remind you that the University is maintaining a website with flu-related information and advice at www.brown.edu/h1n1.