Corona-News

This winter semester will be held face-to-face. This means that courses and events will generally be held in person. However, the deans of academic affairs may allow exceptions to this rule. Please note that individuals with cold symptoms that have not been clarified by a doctor are still not allowed to enter any RWTH buildings.

Furthermore, I would like to remind you of the urgent appeal of the Rectorate and AStA: We Are Still Wearing Our Masks. We urge you to continue to wear a mask in all corridors in University buildings, but also in lecture halls and seminar rooms where it is not possible to keep a safe distance from others. This spirit of solidarity will be critical to how well we will cope with the COVID-19 pandemic this fall and winter. Let us do all we can to keep the pandemic at bay.

However, it cannot be ruled out that individual courses will have to be held remotely for a limited period of time due to coronavirus infections. We want to avoid this situation and our collective behavior has a considerable influence on how effective we can be in preventing this.

Due to the current legal requirements, the special COVID-19 regulations for exams no longer apply. If students wish to be granted an extension of the deadline for the submission of coursework or their final thesis due to illness, for example infection with COVID-19, or the ban on entering the University due to cold symptoms, they must submit an application to the relevant examination board. The examination boards are authorized to pass so-called anticipatory resolutions, which can then be adopted by the chair or authorized individual without delay.

It is currently too early to decide upon and inform you about regulations effective during the exam period. Our decisions will depend on how the pandemic evolves over the coming weeks.

Before closing, I would like to address another particular issue that you will have heard of by now: We all need to save energy. Please be prepared for lower temperatures than usual in the lecture halls and dress appropriately. We hope that these measures will be sufficiently effective; at this time, we are not planning to switch to full online teaching to save energy on campus. However, we are considering reducing the opening hours of University buildings in the evenings as well as during the Christmas break. We will provide you with further information in due course.