COVID-19 President's Advisory Group

The COVID-19 global pandemic has presented a challenge to decision-making at King’s, inserting a high level of uncertainty about what to expect in the coming academic year. As a result, there are a variety of scenarios and plans being considered to make sure that King’s responds to this crisis in an effective manner that will both protect its mission as a university and ensure its long-term sustainability.

To plan for the upcoming academic and fiscal year, King’s needs each department to consider the implications of various scenarios and the impact of those scenarios on how they can continue to effectively operate and serve the community. The challenge in asking each department to make these considerations is that the resulting plans have the potential to be isolated from each other and lack a holistic approach to solving the problems at hand over these next few months. 

In response to this challenge, the COVID-19 President’s Advisory Group (“COVIDPAG”) will coordinate the disparate kinds of information and assumptions gleaned from each of the academic and administrative departments to consider a unified King’s COVID-19 Response Plan. The Response Plan will be a dynamic, nimble document that will be a phased approach to how King’s can be proactive in facing the myriad and uncertain effects of the global pandemic.

The President will rely on the six areas of focus to develop plans based on the identified scenarios. Each area of focus will provide updates to the President and the COVIDPAG. The six areas of focus are:

  • Academic & Student Support
  • Moving Online Working Group
  • Residence & Campus Life
  • Finance
  • Facilities Management
  • Enrolment and Partnerships

The COVIDPAG will be composed of members from each employee group as well as students.

Duties:

To fulfill the twofold purpose of a) providing feedback and recommendations to the President regarding the King’s response to COVID-19 and b) providing regular communications to the Community, the COVIDPAG will:

  1. Collect relevant data, information, and resources that will inform its discussions and advice;
  2. Meet twice per week (one of which will be with the President’s Group) to discuss updates on internal and external factors influencing the response to COVID-19;
  3. Make regular recommendations to the President regarding areas of concern, potential opportunities for King’s, and developments for the Response Plan; and
  4. Maintain a web presence and bi-weekly newsletter that will provide updates to the community on the progression of the overall Response Plan.

Committee Membership

  • Carrie Arnold
  • Mary Kay Arundel
  • Graham Broad
  • Phyllis Fidler
  • Trevor Hunter
  • Ben Kitching
  • Cliff Levy
  • Kathy Mitchell
  • Vidya Natarajan
  • Wendy O'Toole
  • Jim Panchaud
  • Marcie Penner
  • Courtney Santaguida
  • Derek Silva