MONTHS

FITZWILLIAM IN A PANDEMIC: THE FIRST NINE MONTHS

“Unusual”, “Extraordinary”, “Unprecedented” ...we quickly ran out of adjectives to describe the period we are now living through. Our collegiate way of life is seriously challenged as we endure lockdown, social distancing, face coverings and PPE. We have learned new words like Furlough, R-number and others have taken on new usage, such as “I will Zoom you”. In this reflection on the first phase of the pandemic, former Bursar and Honorary Fellow, Andrew Powell, looks back over how far we have come...

When we first heard at the beginning of January that a new virus had broken out in Wuhan in China it all felt very far away. We marvelled at the Chinese ability to lock down an entire city with a population of millions and reflected that such a strategy would never work here. Few appreciated the extent of the learning in Asia that had followed the outbreaks of swine flu in 2009-10 and particularly SARS in 2002-03.

By the end of January it suddenly started to become real at Fitzwilliam. The University’s Advisory Committee on Communicable Diseases (ACCD) issued travel advice to those travelling to and from affected areas - first Wuhan and then very quickly the rest of China and many countries in south-east Asia. Within the College, Dee Williams, the College Nurse was quick to appreciate the significance of the virus, and we found ourselves making contingency plans for students who had to “self-isolate”. The first cases in the UK were reported at the end of January - two Chinese tourists who had come from Wuhan; on the 8th February a ski party in France was the source of several infections including a party from Brighton, and then by the 23rd it was clear that there was a major outbreak in Italy. Coronavirus, shortly to be named COVID-19, was on our doorstep, and at the beginning of March the first case in the UK which could not be traced to a link with foreign travel was announced.

THE FIRST WAVE ARRIVES

By early March, as the pace quickened, the flow of confusing information from different sources was becoming very difficult to manage, so we took the decision to convene the “Gold” team of the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) on 5th March. This consists of the Master, Senior Tutor, Bursar, Domestic Bursar and those Heads of Department most directly involved in managing the crisis. Through March and the first week in April we met daily by telephone. The BCP log is a daily record of the issues we discussed. Government advice began to tighten with the Prime Minister’s speech of 12th March, the same day that we reported our first self-isolating student in Fitzwilliam.

At this point the prospect of students returning home at the end of the Lent term (21st March) became real. Varsity reported on 13th March that Trinity 17

18

College was planning to tell all Undergraduate students that they must leave College for the Easter vacation unless under ‘exceptional circumstances’. This gave rise to frenetic efforts over the weekend of 16th and 17th March to pull together, not just a common message on departure, but also a mechanism for co-ordinating communications across the Collegiate University going forward. The University declared that it was moving to “Red” status on 18th March, and the Vice Chancellor was able to say in his announcement:

“We are asking students – both undergraduate and postgraduate – to return home now, if possible. It is especially urgent for international students needing to make travel arrangements to do so as quickly as possible, as many countries are already imposing travel restrictions. Students unable to leave Cambridge will continue to be supported by their colleges, and college accommodation will be available if needed.”

Also on the 18th the Prime Minister made another series of announcements, including the closure of schools and the cancellation of exams, decisions which were to have a chaotic impact on our admissions process later in the year.

From a college’s point of view it felt impossible to plan ahead in any matter regarding students; the need to interpret Government guidance, which was very difficult to apply to specific circumstances, to take advice from Public Health England and the ACCD, to reach common positions with the University and across the 31 Colleges meant that we were unable to establish any sense of control of the situation, or indeed answer the myriad of questions coming from students. An open meeting for students was held in the Auditorium, and livestreamed on YouTube (there were about 30 students in the Auditorium and over 70 online), in which the Master, Senior Tutor, Bursar and Domestic Bursar took questions and responded to the best of our ability. Most often the answer was ‘we don’t know’. However inadequate we felt, this event was very well received by the student body and set the tone for a series of communications over the following weeks.

On the staff side we were able to do some planning. At an emergency meeting of Heads of Department on 13th March we had approved a two-stage response in terms of working practices. Stage 1 involved partial working from home, testing working from home arrangements, putting in place rotas that ensured single occupancy of offices at all times. Stage 2 envisaged everyone working from home who could do so, with staff on site being limited to those whose role made it essential that they attend. In the event Stage 1 was very short lived, going live on 19th and being superseded by Stage 2 on 21st March, but the two weeks of planning that preceded the move was invaluable in giving us, as a staff, a sense of confidence in our ability to manage and respond to the situation. I must pay tribute to the work of the Heads of Department, and particularly to the IT team during this period, who enabled us to manage the transmission to home working remarkably easily.

The UK went into “lockdown” on 23rd March. On 27th March Matt Hancock (Health Secretary) and Boris Johnson (Prime Minister) announced that they were self-isolating having tested positive for the virus. Boris Johnson went into intensive care on 6th April. On the academic side, the University Departments were working flat out to devise online examination systems that would be a fair test of student achievements. During this period we were monitoring student departures, closing buildings and furloughing staff. After the initial exodus, we had 133 students living in College accommodation of whom some 50 were on the main site. Gradually the numbers fell as students managed to find flights home, and by 10th June we were down to 117. We tried to keep a buttery service running for those who remained, but had to take the decision to close it on 6th April, as there wasn’t enough traffic through it to justify the risk and cost of maintaining the service.

It became apparent that the financial impact on the College was potentially devastating. The loss of income from Easter term rents and catering and from conference business, which was non-existent from March, amounted to some £2.3m - more than 25% of all our free reserves. Indeed it would have been, were it not for Government support through the furlough scheme, and intercollegiate support through the Colleges’ Fund, which was very quick to announce that this year’s grants could be taken to cover operating expenses. Fitzwilliam is always grateful to those Colleges who provide support in this way, but never more so than this year. 2019-20 still won’t have been a great year, but without the help from those sources it could have been very hard to recover from. The impact on 2020-21 is also very severe, with the certain loss of conference business in 2020, and its uncertain status in 2021, as well as the continued impact on other income streams, notably catering.

The Furlough scheme, properly known as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) was first announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on

20th March. The Master sent me a one-line email as it was being announced (5.21pm); it just said “This is huge” - and indeed it has been. For all the criticism of Government decisions across the period and the initial scepticism that some of us felt as to whether the scheme would work, this scheme was bold, timely and achieved exactly what it set out to achieve - to save jobs. Administered through HMRC, it delivered as promised and worked without noticeable problems. Furlough is a completely new concept in U.K. employment law. It was the turn of Sarah Rowland Jones, HR officer, to be challenged! The first set of guidance was issued on 26th March, and on the 6th April 104 staff went on furlough. A further 30 staff were working from home, leaving just 17 out of 134 attending College.

And so began the best part of three months of lockdown in College.

COLLEGE LIFE IN LOCKDOWN

For the month of April, when the UK infection and death rates were at their height, we operated on site with 24 hour single staffing in the Porters’ Lodge, just two gardeners, four housekeeping staff (Manager, supervisors and a house porter, cleaning communal areas only), and two in the Finance department. There were four maintenance staff operating on an “on call” basis. The entire Catering and Events teams and most of Housekeeping were on furlough as there was no work for them to do, and several other teams were operating at part strength. Those that were not on furlough were working from home.

Cambridge was never as badly affected by the virus in this phase as other parts of the country, notably London. However we did not escape; there were a number of severe cases across the University and I know of three people amongst the staff and Fellowship who suffered a severe incidence of COVID. For them it was a frightening and debilitating experience, one where you never know how the illness is going to turn next and which can take a long time to get over. Fortunately all recovered, but their experiences made the dangers very real for all of us.

For those students whose home was their college room, life was particularly tough with no facilities open. With the Library closed, operating only a ‘click and collect’ service, the options for study space were very few. Fortunately the weather this summer was glorious and the availability of the College gardens to relax and study was a major blessing. The students themselves accepted the restrictions with remarkable equanimity; most had some company in households of at least two, and those who were on their own were offered a move to a household.

After the first month, the long grass on the Grove lawn made it look as though students were studying in a hay meadow. College buildings and grounds require constant attention, otherwise they begin to deteriorate very quickly. We brought the Gardens team back in May, and the Maintenance team returned to work in June. One of the constant jobs was regular and frequent ‘flushing’ - the process of running the water in unoccupied buildings to prevent incidence of legionella - an even more serious risk in hot weather. The period whilst the College was largely empty was also an ideal time to complete small projects.

Out of sight of the Bursar, online supervisions and then assessments were being conducted. The Tutorial office were working at full stretch to administer an extraordinary number of different assessments devised at short notice by the various departments with different approaches for first and second year undergraduates

19

20

and finalists.

College business went on. We discovered the variety of video conferencing tools. No longer is Skype synonymous with video conferencing, as once was the Hoover to vacuum cleaning! Now we had to grapple with Google Meet/ Hangouts, WebEx, Teams and Zoom. Zoom quickly established itself as the system of choice, simple to use and versatile enough to handle large meetings. Our days were filled with back to back Zoom meetings. “Shall we Zoom?” became a common phrase as noun turned to verb. Over time it was entertaining watching colleagues and oneself (because you can see yourself on Zoom!) grow progressively hairier! Some indeed have taken the opportunity to make a permanent style change!

Committee meetings on Zoom turned out to work really well. They are somehow more disciplined, and fairer to all participants, and it has been noticeable that attendance has been higher as people have not had to factor travelling time into their schedules. The first-ever Governing Body to be held on Zoom took place on 6th May. The Arrol Adam Lecture was delivered on Zoom by Professor Giles Oldroyd to a far bigger audience than would normally have made the journey to attend.

The MCR and JCR presidents and committees worked tirelessly throughout this period to maintain the student community, putting on virtual events, and keeping close to the mood and concerns of their members, most of whom were by now far from Cambridge. 2020 was to have been a Winter Ball year, but the Ball committee, who were just getting into their stride when COVID struck, took an early decision to postpone this year’s event to March 2021 in the hope that the current Committee would be able to see their plans through. (Ed. Given current restrictions this has been postponed now to 2022). This was sad, but the biggest sadness was the need to cancel graduation ceremonies, thereby depriving our finalists of their opportunity to celebrate and savour their achievements and to say farewell to the College that had been their home for at least three years. We have promised them that we will not forget, and will organise a suitable event as soon as conditions allow, but it will not be ‘in the moment’.

RE-OPENING THE COLLEGE

It has been said many times this year that it is much easier to close operations down than to reopen them. The first challenge was reuniting students with their belongings, as most students did not have the time or the transport available to make an orderly departure when the lockdown was called. Whilst many had managed to pack up their things in boxes ready for collection, other rooms had the air of the Marie Celeste about them, as though the occupant had just popped out for a few minutes intending to come back and tidy up! Travel restrictions were eased slightly in June, allowing collection, but we were still under strict lockdown conditions and those who were able to get back to College had to do so under a managed booking regime and without interacting with anyone else in College. For international students return was not an option, and other arrangements had to be made. Throughout the month of July our housekeeping staff were busy, packing, shipping or storing belongings of those who could not return, and giving all the bedrooms a thorough deep clean so they could be reused when needed.

The other issue that preoccupied much of the University at this time was the return of Research Students, especially those who were laboratory-based and had left their experimental work in a suspended state. This proved to be a very complicated matter, depending first on University Estates to prepare the building, then on the academic Department to implement safe working practices, and then on the College to confirm availability of accommodation and appropriate living conditions. In practice very few students returned until July. We were also anxious to prioritise the needs of some of our medical students who were on stand-by to help out in the hospitals, and needed to be in selfcontained accommodation so they could be kept as safe as possible from external exposure to the infection.

The Prime Minister’s announcement of 23rd June paved the way for substantial relaxation of the lockdown restrictions, and reopening of many businesses in a fashion. It was too late by this time to save any of the conference business on which the College is so dependent, but we were able to reopen some College facilities in a limited way. The restoration of a service in the coffee shop, albeit on a take-away only basis with limited hours, was an important signal to the small College community in residence. 2m lines were marked on the floor to keep queuing to a safe distance and a perspex screen was installed to protect the staff. The MCR was opened under strict physical distancing rules implemented by the MCR committee, and a number of meeting rooms were re-purposed as private study rooms, to alleviate the sense of confinement experienced by students who, up to now, had only had their bedroom or the garden as an option.

On 25th July we were able to follow this with a controlled reopening of the Gym, and (an important moment for this Bursar) Oxford Road reopened for cricket. Single sculling was permitted on the river.

More staff were steadily coming back to work. The housekeepers were brought back in numbers to deal with the accommodation challenge. Tutorial, Finance

and other administrative staff began to reappear on site with safe distancing and perspex screens built by our Maintenance team - these will be around us for a long time I think. Sadly, there was still no work for the Catering staff who will have endured the longest period of lockdown, and very little for the Events office, although as the summer went on and new challenges arose we were able to redeploy a number of people in essential jobs elsewhere.

The BCP team continued to meet. Every decision to open up a facility required careful consideration, based on ever-changing guidance, risk assessment and wider practice across collegiate Cambridge, and detailed drafting of rules and procedures. Topics at this time were reopening the SCR, Fellows’ use of their offices, and hosting Admissions visits to the College.

PREPARING FOR THE NEW ACADEMIC YEAR

Throughout this period the Bursars collectively had been worried about the availability of accommodation for returning students. Early views of the implications of having to manage students in “households” suggested that colleges would have to operate well below their normal capacity, and this was coupled with an expectation that the cancellation of A-levels and the use of other forms of assessment would lead to a significantly higher intake of undergraduate freshers. There had been much speculation about the likelihood of attrition in overseas student numbers, but no evidence had emerged that this was occurring. A system was put in place to share capacity estimates with the idea of optimising accommodation across colleges, or perhaps even opening discussions with other institutions in Cambridge who might be expected to have spare accommodation. So we were waiting with bated breath for the arrival of the A-level results and the conclusion of the Admissions round!

In normal times the A-level results arrive in College on the Saturday before they are publicly released on the following Thursday. This gives a short time for the Admissions teams to confirm offers and review marginal cases so that offers can be confirmed on the day. In the absence of A-levels, student grades this year were awarded on the basis of an algorithm which took teacher grade predictions and rank ordering from schools, and then “normalised” them by reference to a number of factors, including the school’s past performance at A-level.This algorithm produced our usual numbers of candidates achieving their offers. After going through our normal process of reviewing the files of near miss applicants, and reprieving a number of widening participation candidates, we reached our target number of 140 undergraduates. But across the country there was an outcry, as 40% of pupils turned out to have had their results downgraded, including those at schools with long experience of predicting grades. Between Saturday 15th and Monday 17th August the Government changed its methodology twice, eventually ending up with results based solely on teacher assessed grades. Twice more our Admissions tutors and staff ran the review process. In the end we fetched up with 152 confirmed offers. Not as dramatic a change as experienced elsewhere - and a justification of our system based on moderation, tests and interviews.

Once we were through the Admissions period, the need to get ready for the next term suddenly made the planning much more urgent and tangible. As we began to plan for students’ return for the new academic year, we realised that the BCP group had become too unwieldy to act as an effective decision-making body for some quite complex issues, such as how and when to open up the catering activities. We convened a separate weekly senior decision making group, comprising the Master, Senior Tutor, Bursar, Domestic Bursar, Graduate Tutor and Director of Development & Communications, which took one or two topics each week according to the priority of the moment and worked through them in detail. This worked well, and the BCP meetings became the vehicle for sharing information and decisions that came out of the senior group. The structure was agile enough to cope with changes of direction as well as structured planning.

We were anxious to encourage students to return early wherever possible, so we could allow for two weeks of quarantine, where necessary, before the start of term, and also avoid the congestion and intense social interaction that normally occurs when students assemble at the start of the year. One of the big issues at the time was how to manage quarantine - should we separate quarantining students from those who were not required to do so, or was it acceptable for students to quarantine in their allocated bedroom? The logistical implications of the first strategy made it unrealistic, and in the end it was also the students’ expressed desire that quarantine should be served in the student’s chosen household.

The Porters’ Lodge resumed normal opening hours on 1st September, we reopened the Buttery on 14th September and the Library on 28th September, all with new and appropriate physical distancing measures in place. New policies had to be debated, decided and drafted on matters such as the use of face coverings, the extent to which normal disciplinary procedures should apply, on visitors and on the conduct of supervisions. We were anxious to preserve as much of the collegiate experience as possible during a Michaelmas Term which was inevitably going to be severely constrained. So we had many debates about formal dining. An experimental Formal Hall at the end of August indicated 21

22

that physically distanced dining was feasible, and that became the basis of our plans for the Term, although by this time the level of infections nationally was rising again and we were all aware that it wouldn’t take much for all our plans to have to change again.

The other matter that occupied our time, especially towards the end of the month, was preparation for the introduction of the University’s asymptomatic testing programme, which was expected to be an important tool in managing the University through Michaelmas term. The principle was that all students were allocated to a household - between 4 and 12 people. Each student would take a self-administered test, and then the samples would be pooled within each household and a single test run on the pooled sample - in this way the volume of tests to be analysed was reduced significantly. Self-testing would take place on a particular day each week, with each College being allocated its own day. If a household returned a positive test result then all members of the household would then be tested individually. The College’s role would be to receive the test kits, to arrange for them to be delivered to the households, and then to receive back the completed tests for collection by the central test team.

LEARNING POINTS

The most heartening aspect of the last seven months for me was the way the College pulled together in the face of the crisis. Everyone - staff, students and Fellows - played their role, whether it was to lead, to implement, to advise, to communicate, to help out, to provide personal support or to accept a period of furlough. They did so willingly, patiently and without complaint, and despite the frequent and frustrating changes of direction coming from Government and the University in the face of this unknown and unpredictable situation. People volunteered their time and/ or their expertise in many different ways. For some this meant putting in hours which were way beyond the call of duty, often to prepare documents and materials which had to be rewritten a day or two later. For others it meant working in unfamiliar areas, and for many it meant accepting suspension of normal day to day working activities in the greater interest of the College. It was a testament to the strength of the Fitzwilliam community, founded in the shared commitment to our still-young institution that is such a strong feature of the culture of the College.

It is most important to have a plan - a plan gives a framework for decision making, a way of anticipating what might be to come. A plan should never be thought of as a prediction of the future, indeed its very purpose is to enable change of direction as circumstances develop. In the face of the unknown, a staged plan which can be quickly escalated as the situation develops, is a good tool. We used this for staff planning in the early stages before lockdown and the University deployed the same technique; it really helped to bring sense of stability and feeling of control to develop which helps give everyone, including the leadership team, a sense of confidence in managing the unexpected.

The fact that we already had a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) structure in place for dealing with emergencies meant that in the early stages there was a framework for managing the situation. When the BCP was designed, we did not envisage an emergency that would last as long as a term, let alone a year or more, but we were able to adapt the framework as we went along. By and large it worked well. Actions continued to be recorded throughout the seven months that I ran it; we had no systematic review of the actions, but they proved to be a very useful reminder of the pace at which things developed - I was quite surprised to be reminded of the sequence of events when I went back over them for the purpose of writing this article. Memory plays strange tricks!

When the time comes to review the experience, the biggest learning points will be around communication, which is the most difficult aspect of handling an

Even with restrictions in place, we were able to hold an impromptu, COVID-secure send off for the Bursar, in the Dining Hall.

emergency to get right. Everyone knows it is important, but there is an embedded tendency in all of us to focus on action first, and then rely on those people most involved in the action to shape the communications as well. The BCP structure recognises that the communications function must be involved at all stages, but the role was implicitly seen as being reactive and supportive. A key lesson of COVID for me was that there needs to be someone on the Gold team who can take the load away from those leading the action. We eventually got there with the appointment of the Development Director to the role of Director of Communications, but it took time and it would have been better if she had been more centrally involved from the beginning.

It is easy to underestimate the extent to which the regular systems and predictable routines which shape our daily lives enable us to take decisions without having to think or consult too much, because we instinctively “know how things work”. In a crisis, when normality is suspended, everyone even remotely connected with the incident needs information on which to base decisions, just at the moment when reliable information is not available. In the absence of a trusted source, rumour and gossip take over, especially in the world of social media. This is compounded by the journalists, be they student or otherwise, who are all on the hunt for a story, a scandal, and a unique angle. You cannot afford to ignore them because, if you do, sooner or later the situation becomes unmanageable.

Good crisis communication therefore requires visible leadership, a trusted source and system of providing up to date information, and a team that is able to update that trusted source in near real time. We found the use of a “Frequently Asked Questions” (FAQ) document, published on a dedicated page on the College website was the best way in the early stages. It provided a single reliable source of information which people could get used to referring to, and which was easily updated when things changed and could be cross referenced from multiple channels.

FINAL THOUGHTS

From a personal point of view I have been lucky, firstly to live in an area where countryside exercise has been easily available, and secondly that the Bursar’s job, at least on a day to day basis, can be done online. I missed the human interactions, as well as the natural break in the day which happens when you have to leave the office. On the other hand I have benefitted greatly from enforced daily exercise and the absence of College lunches and dinners! A number of people have remarked that the Bursar has changed shape and lost weight!

Infection rates in the UK have been rising steadily since the beginning of the month, mostly in the north of England where local lockdowns have been reinstated. In Manchester and Leeds and Newcastle groups of students have become infected following start of term parties, and are in isolation. The news scandals are of students locked up for 10 days without food. In Cambridge we are fortunate that the infection has taken time to reach us and incidence is still low. The University has set up its own testing centre and plans are well advanced to introduce the asymptomatic testing of all student households. Our plans e.g. for freshers week and for formal dining are still having to be changed on a daily basis.

As I prepare to hand over to my successor it feels as though we have just got through the first chapter, and we are preparing for the next. The return of students is a moment of high risk, and Government is planning for a resurgence in November through to March. However this time we expect College life to go on.

Andrew Powell

30th September 2020 23