This is a difficult time for everyone and certainly a challenging end-of-term for our students. Ideally, the online measures we have put in place work for our students. However, there can be technical difficulties caused by the range of computing resources which students can access. In addition, some of our students are dealing with child care or other social challenges, such as loss of housing, job/income losses, or lack of computing infrastructure, making an already challenging situation even more difficult.
Please do not hesitate to reach out to your instructors if anything is preventing you from effectively accessing your courses. We have already begun working on accommodations for several known problems, but we want to make sure that students know they can ask for help. We recognize that the sudden switch to online delivery has sometimes created unintended challenges. It’s important for students to understand that instructors have tried to make this transition to online teaching as seamless as possible.
However, if you find yourself unable to keep up with the revised delivery methods, please contact your instructor about these issues as soon as possible. Your department and your instructors are here to help.
No doubt there will be glitches and challenges, but we hope these are short-term blips and quickly resolved. Again, please feel free to reach out for support from your department or from your instructors. As a department, our goal is to provide the support students need and to get through this together.
We remind everyone that COVID-19 information is constantly updated at Carleton’s Coronavirus Information page. Information and resources relating to mental health and well-being are listed on Carleton’s Mental Health and Well-Being website. Students can also access Empower Me, which is a free, confidential counselling service that can be reached any time by telephone, video-counselling or ecounselling, and TAO Online Therapy, which is designed to address issues related to anxiety and depression. Information about Health and Counselling Services (HCS) will be available on the HCS website.