From: Daniel Todman
To: all students

 

Dear fellow historian,

 

I hope that this finds you well and looking forward to the new year. We are certainly looking forward to seeing you. I am writing in response to a request from your course reps about the School’s expectations around the wearing of face coverings. This is quite a long email because we want our guidance to take everyone into account, so I have put the key points in the next two paragraphs. If you have concerns or questions after reading those, please read through the rest of the email, and then contact your advisor.

 

The key message is this. Please make sure that you have a face covering with you when on campus if you are able to wear one. Face coverings are not mandatory for meetings or seminars but there are times when you might be asked to wear one (if you are able to) because it will help other people. We pride ourselves on being a kind and supportive School: if you’re told that someone else would like face coverings to be worn and you’re able to do so, we expect that you’ll want to put yours on.

 

Queen Mary provides three washable face coverings for all students and staff. Further guidance can be found here.  If you cannot wear a face covering and would like to let other people know that you are exempt, you can print out an exemption from face covering badge by clicking this link to the government backed ‘please give me space’ initiative here, mobile phone version here. If you would like a ‘give me space’ lanyard, please email your advisor – we have a stock in the office and we will distribute them through advisors.

 

Context and Guidance

In accordance with the government’s Higher Education COVID-19 Operational Guidance (updated 6^th July 2021), since 19^th July 2021 face coverings are no longer required for students, staff or visitors either in teaching and learning settings or in communal areas at Queen Mary University of London. The School cannot therefore require anyone to wear a face covering. The government guidance may change in the future and if this happens staff and students will be informed and the School guidance updated.

 

Where teaching rooms have been checked for ventilation and in offices with opening windows, face coverings are not currently required as a mitigating measure against COVID-19 spread under QMUL’s risk assessment. Alongside vaccination, regular asymptomatic testing and enhanced hygiene, however, face covering is something that individuals can do to reduce their risk of passing on the virus to other people. QMUL therefore encourages staff and students to continue to wear face coverings when moving around inside buildings on campus if they become crowded. The university’s Covid Code explains that ‘Students and staff who prefer to continue wearing a face covering are welcome to do so. This is a personal choice which, in line with our University values, we all respect.’

 

Students and staff have requested additional guidance from the School about how they should make this choice and in particular how they can support and respect others without requiring them to divulge potentially sensitive personal circumstances. This guidance was discussed and approved by the School’s Management Committee on 13 September 2021.

 

There are a range of reasons that students and staff in the School might want not just to wear a face covering themselves, but to prefer that others wore them in settings where they are not required to do so. These include health conditions, concerns for vulnerable family members and the need for additional reassurance to facilitate a return to in-person teaching and learning. Face coverings also however affect the ability to communicate with other people, particularly for staff and students who rely on lip reading. The School guidance is as follows.

 

• Where staff in individual or shared offices would like visitors to wear face coverings if they can, they should indicate this with signage.
• The School Office is a space which staff work in for more than 8 hours per day and it can become crowded. If you are a visitor, please help to protect others and keep cases down by wearing a face covering if you can.
• Where students would prefer that others in their seminar wear face coverings where they can, they are asked to let their seminar teachers know either in person or by email.
• Where students have communicated this to a seminar teacher, or where seminar teachers would themselves prefer students to wear a face covering, the teacher will communicate with the whole seminar to ask them to wear face coverings if they are able to do so. There is no need to divulge personal circumstances – the message is simply that someone in the room needs this support and we should all help if we can. Advance communication by email is preferable but may not always be possible, and a verbal request can be issued at any point in the class.

 

Those not wearing a face covering in these circumstances will be presumed to be unable to do so, and not asked to explain their circumstances. We will not process or monitor student requests to seminar leaders centrally within the School. The School recognises that feelings about face coverings will vary significantly by context (including the size of rooms) and over time: it is all right for staff and students to change their minds in either direction on this issue and seminar leaders should check in with students about how they are feeling about it during the semester.

 

With the assistance of the QMUL’s Dyslexia and Disability Support (DDS) centre, we will make contact with students whom we know to have a disability that may mean that their learning will be disadvantaged by others wearing face masks. If this applies to you, a representative of DDS will email you in the coming days and we will make reasonable adjustments to suit your circumstances. If you have a disability that you have not told the university about but you now wish to do so, please contact your advisor and they will help put you in touch with DDS so you can be appropriately supported.

 

All staff and students will also be reminded of the ways in which it is necessary to enhance communication by other means when some people are wearing face coverings. These include enunciating more clearly, making more use of other signs or body language to engage with others, deliberately pausing discussion to allow this to happen, writing out key words (on a whiteboard and/or on a Teams chat for those participating remotely), and facilitating other forms of showing reactions. Guidance on how to do this in seminars will be issued to staff during Welcome Week.