An MIT Town Hall on Tuesday, April 7

To the members of the MIT community:

Amid so much uncertainty, the best antidote we can offer is clear communication and the comfort of connection. In that spirit, we are launching what I hope will be the first in a series of virtual gatherings – an MIT Town Hall – open to students, staff, postdocs and faculty. We expect to host future sessions, including for alumni.

MIT Town Hall: A virtual community gathering
Tuesday, April 7
4:00 – 5:15 pm Eastern time

For this first session, I will host a virtual panel of MIT leaders and content experts; we will announce the panelists on MIT’s Covid-19 website in advance. To help us determine the topics, however, we need your help now:

Please use MITtownhallQs@mit.edu to tell us, by Wednesday, April 1 at 1 pm, what topics you would like us to address.

You may have questions about how the Institute is coping with Covid-19’s immediate medical, operational and academic challenges, or about how MIT researchers are striving to address the larger crisis by developing inspiring new solutions. Other questions may flow from concerns for classmates, colleagues, coworkers, faculty, friends, family or yourselves. We will try to address as many topics as we can in this first gathering. Whatever may be on your mind, don’t be shy to raise it.

If you have immediate questions about your personal situation, please see the list of resources at the end of this note.

As your suggestions for topics come in, we will map the big themes and choose a range of MIT panelists who can help. There will not be time for every topic, but we hope to address the most common and most pressing ones. During the event itself, we will collect further questions through the Q&A function so we can follow up with answers afterward, either through an online FAQ or in a subsequent town hall. 

Though we are physically separate, I take great consolation in being part of a community of people finding new ways to work together and to help each other every day. And I look forward to exploring with you this new approach to connection and community.

Sincerely,

L. Rafael Reif

P.S. The Town Hall video will be available to watch afterwards anytime, on demand. For hourly employees, please see the Pay Policies information page.

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Helpful resources

MIT Covid-19 site
MIT Medical Covid-19 Updates
Information for staff
Information for students
Covid-19 Related Information for the MIT Research Community
Covid-19 stories on MIT News