By Evan Lee
News Editor
Framingham State administrators have created a COVID-19 Emergency Working Group to discuss and recommend solutions to challenges the University faces due to the pandemic.
Meeting daily at 8:30 a.m., group representatives come from a range of offices around campus, said Dean of Students Meg Nowak Borrego, who also leads the group.
“Due to the variety of points of view and specialties of the members in the working group, many different topics are discussed, vetted, and then moved to recommendation and implementation,” she said.
These range from basic adaptations, such as the language of signs placed on the doors of now locked campus buildings, to complex and large scale changes, such as requiring students to move out of residence halls and updating the University’s emergency public health preparedness plan, she explained.
As a sub-committee of the University Emergency Planning Committee, the group began formal meetings March 1, Nowak Borrego said, though informal discussions began earlier in February.
Included are sub-groups dedicated to domestic and international travel policies, academic operations and policies, campus events, virtual student engagement, and promoting excellent student, faculty and staff remote work, she said.
More will likely be added as the pandemic evolves, she added.
Regarding University operations, the group provides recommendations to executive staff, who make the final decision, according to Nowak Borrego. The group is also in communication with and receiving guidance from local, state, and federal agencies.
“I am forever grateful for the amazing reports that this group has undertaken in planning for and responding to this public health emergency,” Nowak Borrego said.