Letter from the Rector Back to the classroom – with caution
Responsible approach to the pandemic and getting back together as a community: Rector Professor Martin Paul talks about what’s important in the summer semester.
Dear members of Ruhr-Universität Bochum,
The 2022 summer semester is about to start. When the lecture period begins next Monday, 4 April, and our campus gradually fills up again, we will have to be extra careful with each other to ensure that no one is put at risk. But above all, and this is a particularly important concern for me, our community must not suffer even more from the ongoing pandemic. This is especially true for people with care responsibilities, but also for all those who are ill and/or increasingly suffering from mental health issues as a result of the pandemic. In spite of the ongoing pandemic, we will therefore do everything in our power to ensure that we can all get together as an academic community once again – also on our campus.
As previously announced, RUB will offer more in-person classes and our employees will be increasingly returning to their workplaces. A new service agreement has been passed for employees, for which a transitional period will initially apply from 1 April to 30 June. Dear employees, please refer to the RUB service portal (see below) for the exact regulations – especially on sharing offices with your co-workers and on attending meetings.
Dear students and lecturers, as far as teaching and your courses are concerned, in-person classes will be the norm. We are all looking forward to the university once again becoming what it should be: a place of dynamic exchange and community. In order for this to work out, however, there are a few rules to follow and significant changes from previous semesters to consider. The most important points at a glance are:
- Masks are compulsory in RUB buildings, in all communal areas (corridors, common areas) and during all lectures, courses, meetings and other events (medical mouth-nose mask: surgical or FFP2 mask).
- 3G checks are no longer required to attend courses.
- Vignettes are no longer issued and checked.
- Purely online formats only take place in exceptional cases, for example in the context of large events designed to impart knowledge (lectures). Classroom teaching should always be accompanied digitally (for example by using online-based materials) – all deans of studies have already been informed about details by the Vice-Rector for Teaching, Professor Kornelia Freitag.
As rector, I would like to appeal to each and every one of you once again: Everyone who can get vaccinated, and who is not prevented from doing so for health reasons, should urgently take advantage of the numerous vaccination opportunities to increase their own and each other’s protection with a booster shot! Vaccination and a mask wearing, especially FFP2 masks, offer optimal, easily accessible protection in our daily lives. They allow us to work and study on campus once again. We sincerely ask you to do this for our community.
Looking ahead to the coming semester and summer, I, on behalf of the entire Rectorate, would like to make a personal and emphatic appeal to all of you: By exercising caution, showing mutual consideration and following a few familiar rules (airing, distancing, wearing masks), we should be able – at last – to enjoy a fairly “normal” semester together.
With very best wishes, stay healthy!
Martin Paul on behalf of the RUB Rectorate