- I want to take a moment
to share my gratitude and my appreciation
for everyone in the Stanford community
in these extraordinary times.
In the past few weeks, we've provided you
with a lot of written
information on the coronavirus,
but I also wanted to
speak to you directly.
Our world is facing a
challenge of enormous magnitude
with the spread of the virus.
As you know,
at Stanford we've taken a
series of escalating steps
to respond to the threat.
We recognize just how disruptive
and very difficult this
has been for everyone.
We've all been asked to make
unprecedented sacrifices
to ensure social distancing to help slow
and reduce the spread of the virus.
This is especially important
to help protect the
most vulnerable members
of our campus community and
our surrounding community.
The difficulty has been
taken to a new level
with the announcement of
the shelter in place policy
in the Bay Area.
But as challenging as this has all been,
I'm so heartened by what I've seen
and heard from you.
In this time of incredibly rapid change,
people have been responding
with understanding,
with resilience, and by
showing genuine compassion
for each other.
Whether you're caring for patients,
moving home from dorms,
feeding our students or
cleaning our facilities,
redesigning courses to go online,
or in the case of our alumni,
opening your doors to
students who can't go home,
you've inspired us with your strength,
your resolve, and your empathy.
I know you have many questions
about where we go from here.
As the situation continues
to evolve rapidly,
I want to assure you,
we will be pushing hard
to make thoughtful, informed decisions,
and will continue to consult
and communicate with you
as directly as possible.
I want to close by expressing
my thanks to all of you
to the teams of people
who are working tirelessly
to respond to the situation,
to those of you who have shared your ideas
and suggestions on the path forward,
and especially to all of you
who are helping to advance
the wellbeing of our community
in the face of your own
difficult personal challenges.
No matter where we each find
ourselves at this moment,
we are still a community
and I wanna reassure you,
by standing together, we will
get through as a community.
I deeply appreciate
everything you're doing,
we'll continue to be in touch,
thank you so much.
