JHU campus operations remain unchanged

May 14, 2020

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff:

You may have heard that Gov. Larry Hogan announced yesterday that the state will soon enter Phase 1 of the Maryland Strong Roadmap to Recovery, which includes lifting the statewide stay-at-home order, and allows limited reopening of small businesses and certain gatherings, subject to further local decision making. Today Baltimore City Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young joined several other local leaders in deciding that they will keep their city and county stay-at-home orders in place. After review of these directives, we have determined that the status of university operations remains unchanged. For the time being we are still only allowing essential on-campus activities.

As has been the case since March, employees should be on-site only when performing essential tasks, all on-campus research is limited to essential and COVID-19 activities, access to all campus buildings is restricted, and instruction is remote/online until further notice. Any in-person and residential academic programs that cannot be shifted to a remote/online format have been canceled through July 31.

Looking ahead, state and local decisions will inform the university’s planning and set a limit for allowable activities, but our progression through a multiphase process to gradually resume suspended on-campus and in-person activities will rest on our public health experts’ assessment of the COVID pandemic and the complexities inherent in protecting the health and safety of our students, faculty, and staff throughout our large enterprise over multiple campuses.

The university will announce additional details of our phased approach to resuming on-campus activities in the coming weeks as state and local orders and our internal assessments allow, and we will communicate changes to our operations as decisions are made. As we indicated in our message on May 5, we are aiming for the resumption of most in-person research in our first phase, subject to precautions and additional relaxation of state and local restrictions, and our research faculty have begun a comprehensive pre-planning process in preparation for that opening. We anticipate that most employees will continue to work remotely for quite some time, and you will be contacted individually if and when your work situation changes. For those who return on-site, we will make every effort to provide enough advance notice for employees to make arrangements for child care and other individual needs.

Details and updates about that process will be posted on the Hub COVID-19 information website along with the full range of issues related to teaching, learning, living, and working in close proximity.

We are all eager to be together again and to return to our full academic, clinical, and work activities. But we also are unwavering in our commitment to making decisions thoughtfully, taking into consideration not only the state and federal guidelines but also the advice of our public health experts as we determine the best approach for the safety of everyone in our community.

Thank you for the work you are doing every day as a part of the Johns Hopkins community. We appreciate your input and participation in this complex planning initiative and hope you will keep sending us your ideas and concerns.

Sincerely,

Sunil Kumar
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

Jane Schlegel
Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer