On that fateful day, Wed Mar 17th, I was so tired of telling my Mac “Try the OS update tomorrow”, I gave in and pressed the button to run the update! I have so much respect for and trust in Apple in terms of user experience that I expected such a major upgrade to proceed smoothly. It turned out to be a mini disaster.

It took forever to download, because it is a pretty large one. Then it began installing and long story short, after an hour and a half, nothing was happening. No error messages. I was using my phone to attend to emails in the meantime and looking up the various fora for Big Sur upgrades. So many complaints, I wish I had checked them before I began…

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We all were following the story of the new virus creating havoc in China in the news and social media early last year, but, it didn’t hit us as something that will turn our own personal and professional lives upside down until late February and early March. At the College, President Johnson convened a group of us to think through various likely scenarios and how best to respond to each. As a physician and public health expert, she was able to provide authoritative information based on her understanding of the seriousness of the issue and in consultation with some of the world’s experts in this area. It became clear quickly that we had to make some tough choices for the sake of the health and safety of the community.

Despite the various scenario planning, by the 11th of March, it was quickly becoming clear that we were trending on closing the College and going remote. The final decision was made on the 12th, a year ago today, and the president sent the painful message to the College Community where she said:

Up until this morning, we had planned to continue classes through next week and begin spring break on time. However, in light of the newest information about the escalation in the number of cases and increased risk to our students, we have decided to accelerate our timeline.

• Spring break will begin on Monday, March 16, and remote instruction will begin on March 30. Remote instruction will continue for the rest of the semester.

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