Re-Opening Plans for Academic Year 20-21

Dear Members of the Albertus Magnus College Community, 

I write today to announce initial plans and details for the College’s upcoming 95th anniversary year, which begins with our fall 2020 semester.  In 1925, Dominican Sisters journeyed west to New Haven to found Albertus Magnus College as the first Catholic, residential liberal arts institution for women in New England.  The Sisters founded the College on a shoestring budget during a time of scarce resources, but did so with a spirit of innovation and purpose to provide opportunity to women who otherwise wouldn’t have had it at that time.  As Albertus enters its milestone anniversary year, the Coronavirus pandemic is requiring colleges around the country to adapt and to innovate.  This type of challenge is not new to Albertus.  The College exists today because of the vision of the Sisters and what now is a 95-year history marked by bravery and a steadfast, mission-centric commitment to bringing distinctive, values-based education opportunities to students, regardless of challenging times and achieved through maximizing limited resources.

Since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, the Albertus community has faced its challenges with a fierce commitment to assuring the College’s students are able to continue their education journeys toward degree completion.  Today, with an unyielding spirit of purpose and innovation, our faculty and staff are in continuous planning and preparations for the fall 2020 semester, with a focus on delivering the values and liberal arts-based education in the safest possible environment for our 1,500 traditional aged and adult learners and our faculty and staff.  That essential work is being informed by guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), the State of Connecticut, and local health departments.

In the included document, initial plans for the fall 2020 semester are detailed.  Our plans focus around prioritizing the health, safety, and well-being of our students, faculty, and staff.  Our plans emphasize and support our commitment to intimacy of size and experience. Our plans include delivering classes using a variety of strategies that promote student-preferred, faculty-student interaction, and they include our tradition of innovative teaching pedagogies, with face-to-face, online, and hybrid formats.  Our plans also include a revised academic calendar, responsive to the circumstances and aforementioned guidance.

We all must remember that the year ahead will be marked by unique and, very likely, evolving, challenging conditions.  In my now three years serving as President, time and again I have marveled at, been inspired by, and felt deep gratitude for your dedication to delivering on our Dominican mission.  Three years ago, I shared in my inaugural remarks it was my conviction that there never had been a time in the College’s history where the need was so great for a values- and liberal arts-based education such as that offered by Albertus.  As the spring 2020 semester unfolded in the pandemic environment, compromising the education dreams of students of all ages, and with the recent, harsh reminders that our country remains plagued by racism and injustice, we may now indeed be at a point where an Albertus Magnus College education is most needed and relevant. Our shared call and purpose is to do all we can to deliver that education, and the plans emerging for the 2020-21 95th anniversary year focus on doing just that.

Further details will be provided by appropriate offices and personnel across campus.  I, too, will continue to provide updates throughout the summer months as more information becomes available and as details are further fleshed out.  Please know just how grateful I am for all you do.  Each of you, and those you love and cherish, are in my constant thoughts and prayers.  I look forward to working alongside you as we continue fulfilling the vision first laid out by the Dominican sisters in 1925.

In gratitude and faith,

Signature

Marc M. Camille, Ed.D.

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