Dear CIRHR friends,
As the Fall term officially draws to a close on the first day of winter, I wanted to extend a note of thanks to all of you once again for your extremely generous spirit over the past four months.
To our resilient students, the patience you showed as we gradually opened up our library services and offered up more in-person learning options was amazing. Thank you.
To our wonderful staff, you once again stepped up and worked as a team even though many of you were working from home or physically distanced in your offices.
To our dedicated library, you were there every step of the way in thinking how the library and Centre could be there to help students and faculty as we gradually opened up in the Fall.
To our amazing faculty, who also met the challenges of a hybrid semester with aplomb and professionalism. It is interesting to note that thanks to our forward thinking instructors, only a single final assessment was affected by the cancellation of all in-person exams last week. That says something about our unit and the proactive way we have learned, as a group, to navigate Covid’s tricky waters these past 20 months.
As we also learned last week, U of T will be returning to full online learning to begin the Winter term. Some of you – in the MIRHR program – already knew this would be the case for a majority of your courses, but for those undergraduates whose classes have shifted to online learning, rest assured the quality of your educational experience will be our top priority . This will not dampen our spirits and if anything, after two years of virtual teaching experience, we are now more prepared than ever to deliver an online education in 2022.
On a final note, I want to say what a pleasure it has been to have worked alongside three amazing academic leaders who have shared the load in directing the Centre these past 20 months. I want to thank Professors Alicia Eads (Associate Director, Undergraduate) Frank Reid (Associate Director, Graduate) and Greg Distelhorst (PhD Coordinator) for their dedication serving their academic constituents.
All this to say…thank you again for all your hard work and do take time to enjoy this period of rest with family and friends.
Rafael
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Dr. Rafael Gomez, Professor
Director, Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources
University of Toronto