Univ and the Coronavirus: Meeting the Challenge

To outward appearance, we are a ghost college, closed for the coming term and for much of the long vacation. Only a small number of students who are unable to go home have stayed on in our residential annexes, and a skeleton staff comes in for maintenance and security.

Having to stay away for all of Trinity Term is a huge disappointment for our students, especially for the Finalists and Masters students in their last year.

But Univ continues as a serious scholarly enterprise, albeit in a new dimension for a time. Tutorials, seminars and supervision will be given remotely; the University has guaranteed the award of classified degrees, based on online examinations; Governing Body will meet on schedule; and the Chapel Choir will rehearse via Zoom.

The College will emerge even stronger from the crisis. In that mid-March week when the Univ community had to separate each from each other, it came together in a spirit of solidarity, resourcefulness and determination that is reflected in the contributions that follow in these news stories. We shall weather the storm, as we have survived the plagues and wars of the past 770 years, and gone on to prosper: Floreat Collegio Magnae Aulae Universitatis!