Campuses continue to monitor and adjust plans for dealing with COVID-19 and its potential impact on their facilities, programming, staff, and students. While recreation professionals will always turn first to their campus policies and procedures, many also find it helpful to turn to their network of colleagues to share questions, ideas, and experiences.
While the NIRSA Connect community is always an available option for such discussion, NIRSA is offering some additional opportunities for members to network about this emerging, and quickly evolving, topic.
NIRSA virtual roundtable
Join NIRSA President Leah Hall Dorothy as she leads a virtual roundtable focused specifically on preparedness efforts and considerations for campus recreation departments. This event will be held on Monday, March 16 at 9:00am PT/Noon ET. Register today to reserve your spot in the conversation!
Please note, this event is capped at 100 participants. It will be recorded and shared afterwards as a resource for all members. Whether or not you can join us live, know that a recording of this discussion will be made available after the event.
Members are also encouraged to submit questions in advance regardless of their ability to join the live event. They can add these questions to a recent Connect post from Stanford Executive Director and NIRSA Board member Alex Accetta. The post shares a Google doc, in which he and several NIRSA members have collectively begun sharing some suggested best practices to proactively address the coronavirus.
NACAS & NIRSA virtual roundtable
NIRSA was invited to contribute to a NACAS virtual roundtable on emergency preparedness. Individuals from the University of Utah, Princeton, Duke University, UC Davis, and more will share ideas from their campus’ pre-existing continuity planning procedures as well as discuss different matters campus professionals might consider and plan for.
NIRSA members George Brown, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and Bill Crockett, University of Maryland, Baltimore, are generously contributing to this virtual roundtable. Both of their campuses have helpful toolkits online as well. The University of Minnesota’s CIDRAP COVID-19 Resource Center and the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s Novel Coronavirus page are great places to gather resources.
The event will be held on Wednesday, March 11. Registration is free for NIRSA members. The registration is currently full, but those interested are encouraged to sign up for the waitlist. The roundtable will be recorded and made available a few days after the event.
Other resources
In addition to the great information offered by the University of Minnesota’s CIDRAP COVID-19 Resource Center and the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s Novel Coronavirus page, the CDC has put together Interim Guidance for Administrators of US Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) to Plan, Prepare, and Respond to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Our partners at the American College Health Association (ACHA) also have several helpful resources. Their COVID-19 page has embedded CDC content that updates daily, as well as some college specific resources. ACHA also released their own set of guidelines for campuses preparing for COVID-19 in early March.
Erin O'Sullivan is currently the Director of Advocacy & Strategic Partnerships at NIRSA.
