Thames Memorandum on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
March 12, 2020
Dear Thames Community,
Over the past few months, our leadership team has closely monitored the growing impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak both internationally and locally. Our first priority is to ensure the health and well-being of our community, while also making sure that our students are able to complete their courses and advance their progress toward graduation, while preparing contingencies to ensure the functioning of our campus operations.
Due to the increased spread of the coronavirus throughout the National Capital Region and the announcement today by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Disease to suspend classes until April 12, 2020, we have decided to implement the following changes.
- Face-to-face classes will be suspended in all undergraduate and postgraduate programs BUT will shift to full online learning. The management met with the faculty and discussed how content and instruction will be moved to online. A separate email will be sent to the students on the implementing guidelines of our online delivery.
- The institution will only allow virtual meetings among students, faculty and staff during this period.
- All planned domestic and international study yours by faculty and students are suspended.
Disruption in the academic journey of our students is the price we have to pay for the sake of the welfare and safety of the community. We are however fortunate that discontinuing in-person instruction is something that Thames International has been preparing for when we saw the trend overseas. The institution has also been piloting our Blended Learning Programs (online and face-to-face classes) in the past few trimesters. The transition to full online teaching is a challenge, and we are committed to providing the necessary resources to equip all faculty for success in this mode of delivery and to assist students adjusting to this mode of learning.
At this time, we are planning on how to ensure that the school operations will proceed normally given the global scenario. Additional information about the impact to other school operations will be communicated in a separate memo.
We will provide regular updates to the these plans over the coming weeks. Well in advance of April 12, we will announce to the community the plans for the remainder of the semester.
Finally, we are developing and will shortly distribute a set of Guidelines for September Completion to help faculty, staff, and students to think through how to ensure we are able to complete the academic requirements this semester.
I would like to have a zoom call with parents and students next week to discuss individually how we can ensure each student’s success in this time of adjustment. Please schedule with Emman Santos at essantos@thames.edu.ph
We appreciate all the work that has already been done to prepare our community for this possibility. We are grateful for all that each of you will do over the coming weeks to adapt to these changes. We are convinced that Thames International community will come through this trying period stronger than ever, and we look forward to having everyone back on our campus as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Jaime Noel Santos
President
