Dear students,

September 14, 2020

As you may know on university’s website, part of classes for fall semester, 2020 will be conducted face-to-face on campus. In so doing, however, we have decided to implement the system to use the thermal camera to monitor your temperature as you enter the campus in order to thoroughly observe the entrance conditions(*) to the campus in addition to the current such measures as periodical disinfection for classrooms and facilities and placement of antiseptic solution at a number of locations on campus. You are also required to put your mask on as you enter the campus, so please make sure of it.

According to the entrance conditions (*) to be set at this time, please be aware that the entrance will be denied not only when you are tested positive against COVID-19, but when a number of cases, in which there may be potential risks to spread COVID-19, are recognized. So, I hereby ask you to pay enough attention to what you are required to do.

With regards to face-to-face classes for fall semester, it is university’s policy that we make sure to treat you equally in terms of the evaluation of academic grades, so this policy will be applied even if you may not be able to attend the classes on campus for a variety of reasons including suspected cases, in which you may be infected with COVID-19. Therefore, if there are any cases, when you think you might be infected with COVID-19, including having a fever or feeling sick, please do not enter the campus, contact your instructor immediately, who teaches your face-to-face classes, and follow the instructions.

In resuming part of face-to-face classes for fall semester, we will thoroughly take the measures above to prevent the infection of COVID-19, but we are in need of your understanding and cooperation from each one of you to prevent its inflection on campus. May I remind you of the importance of following preventive measures, such as putting your mask on and washing your hands frequently while you are on campus. Also, such social behaviors, which take place off campus as group dining or meetings in a closed and tight environment should be discouraged and avoided as they are considered risky for you to get infected with COVID-19. Please understand that conscious efforts mentioned above will be very important to you as well as your family and friends, so that they may not get infected by you.

I want you to understand that our decision to resume part of face-to-face classes has been made to reflect our maximum consideration to students, so that you may recover your normal campus life as much as possible under the special circumstances, where the inflection of COVID-19 hasn’t been completely suppressed. Should there be a case, in which we may experience the clusters on campus, we would have to suspend this and prohibit your entry to campus, while shifting back to all the classes online as this past spring semester. Let me repeat to emphasize that your conscious efforts are essential and important in order to avoid the worst case scenario.

There have been a number of discussions as to how to deal with COVID-19, but we haven’t found any social consensus yet. For the time being, we have only to continue to find the best solution. As to our “new normal,” I think we would like to establish education of higher quality than before, working together with our faculty and staff and you. Let us create our new normal to live with coronavirus, which should be suitable for Rikkyo University.

Yangchoon Kwak

President

Rikkyo University

＊ Note: please refer to the following link as to the details of the entrance conditions: