December 15, 2020
Thoughts on the First Round of Face-to-Face Meeting Necessity Notifications
Since December 4, I have received hundreds of face-to-face meeting necessity notifications. I want to thank all of those for taking the time to submit these forms to me through the link located here: https://www.ksre.k-state.edu/employee_resources/covid-19/covid19.html.
As a reminder, these forms need to be submitted whenever we have an internal meeting with colleagues from outside our normal office environment and all external meetings. The purpose of these forms is about sharing information regarding face-to-face meetings, in particular, the strategic or educational justification for those meetings. It is not necessarily an approval process, although I hope that the advice generated from this process will be considered.
This process will be in place until March 31. We will examine whether the process needs to continue at that time.
Here are some quick-hit and not-so-quick-hit thoughts about the submissions to date:
1. Many are submitting the educational justification that face-to-face education is the best form of education. While this is true for many educators and learners, it is not necessarily true for all. Long before COVID-19 led us to engaging more via virtual means, we discussed the issue of more and more learners (farmers, ranchers, parents, young adults, youth, adults and seniors) preferring or needing to receive their formal and informal education via virtual means. We need to continue to reach out to these learners.
Another consideration regarding in-person education being the “best model” is that we, like all education institutions, have to balance our educational mission with public health and safety considerations. Because of our COVID-19 challenge, the “face-to-face education is best” argument is not a good justification for engaging face-to-face.
2. Many indicated that they were going to have virtual engagement as an optional delivery method for those who felt uncomfortable engaging face to face. Why not make the virtual method the primary method of engaging and the face-to-face the optional method? Whenever one indicates one method as primary and another as an alternative, it can lead those who are indifferent to choose the primary method. Advertising the virtual as the primary method could encourage more people to choose that option. The face-to-face option would then be for those who truly need to attend in person. Hopefully, having more people attend virtually and fewer people attending in person would mean greater safety for all.
3. There appears to be an over-reliance on masks, social distancing, sanitizing, and cleaning work stations. These protocols are great for reducing the threat of transmission when meeting face to face. They do not eliminate the threat. Meeting virtually or not at all is the only way to eliminate the COVID-19 threat.
4. Most had good protocols in place for meeting in person, but there were gaps. I do not believe carpooling to, from, and during activities is a good idea for our learners during COVID-19 even if they are masked. Keep carpools limited to family units as much as possible.
If conducting multiple stops during an activity, such as community service caroling, watch the social distancing between participants as you walk to the activity, getting set up, and departing the activity. People, particularly youth, like to walk close together and, in the case of some youth, rough-house with each other walking to and from activities. At least, I did when I engaged in such activities. Make sure that social distancing is maintained throughout the activity!
I had the opportunity to watch youth conducting a bell-ringing community service project. It was as I feared. They would be practicing good social distance until people approach, but, as is only natural, they would then close in and break social distancing protocols as someone deposited their donation. Once again, make sure that social distancing is maintained throughout the activity.
Some incorporated activities such as ice- or roller-skating in their educational programs. I know there are better ice- and roller-skaters than me out there, but, whenever I have gone, I inevitably crashed into someone. Sometimes this was intentional. Other times it was unintentional. Such activities are not a good idea this year.
5. I feel a bit like a Scrooge here, but I will be a Scrooge with the best of intentions. There were submissions of holiday parties that had poor strategic or educational justifications for doing so. If we bring people together, we have to have very strong reasons to do so. A lot of the recent increases in COVID-19 have been attributed to family and social gatherings at Thanksgiving. There are ways to gather socially and build teams via virtual means. If we have a group gather together for mainly camaraderie reasons without a strong strategic or educational objective and a cluster forms from that event, how would we feel about it? How would the public feel about it?
Keep the submissions flowing! I was able to respond in 24 hours with just a few exceptions. I would prefer to have submissions at least two weeks prior to the event. Whenever possible, please group submissions for similar activities.
Remember, this is a mandatory process. With that being said, it is a process that allows us to inform and mentor each other about planned face-to-face activities that will hopefully lead to safer engagement activities.