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Mark Coté '83, Acting Provost/Academic Dean, Professor of Engineering: I started hearing about the coronavirus in January, and we first started discussing it at leadership meetings in early February. Those talks increased in detail during February and included teleconferences during Spring Break, the first week of March. Once we returned to campus in March, the virus had made it to the U.S. and we began having daily meetings to address the potential impact on the campus.

On March 4, I asked all faculty to look at their classes and start preparations to move to remote instruction if required. We also asked that any required in-person assessments be moved forward in any class where that was possible.

Early in March, COVID was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. On the weekend of March 14, the first positive case was detected in Hancock County. Due to a lack of understanding at the time of how the virus spread and the fact that it could be asymptomatic in people for several days, we realized that the virus could be on our campus or in our local communities without us being able to detect it. This, combined with orders from the Governor and the closing of local K-12 schools, led President Brennan to decide on March 16 to close the campus to normal activities as of March 18.