Regulations for the CAU from February 15

Dear members of the University,

Another round of decisions by the federal and state governments is behind us. The current lockdown will be extended until March 7, and at the same time there will be initial relaxations in some areas. However, the CAU is not directly affected by this, even though the announced return of primary schools and day-care centres to "normal operation under pandemic conditions" from February 22 is a good prospect for all members of our university with young children.

We expect that the currently valid Higher Education Corona Ordinance will be extended beyond February 14 without any changes. For university operations, this means that there will be no immediate changes for the next three weeks. The past months have demonstrated that we have been able to make our contribution to protecting the health of university members, with our precautionary planning for the upcoming examination periods and digital teaching, as well as with the flexibilisation of home office and working time regulations. The university board, in consultation with the faculties and interest groups, therefore expressly continues to adhere to the existing measures in order to provide you with steady planning. The existing regulations on masks, libraries or reporting chains also continue to apply unchanged. Please inform yourself here at the corona website of the CAU.

The majority of examinations are conducted digitally or without attendance, just as we planned. For the few, expressly approved cases of examinations on site, strict distance and hygiene measures apply in accordance with the university's framework hygiene concept and the more extensive regulations of the individual faculties.

Please also note the regulations on the conduct of online examinations, on free attempts and disadvantage compensation as well as on the free semester.

If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to contact the following general contact points at any time:

• Employees corona@uni-kiel.de
• Students coronaberatung-studium@uv.uni-kiel.de, 0431/880-5931.

At the present time, there are no plans to postpone the start of the summer semester. The currently valid semester times can be found here (German only).

Teaching will continue to be conducted online in the summer semester 2021 wherever possible. Only in the known exceptional cases teaching on site be possible, if the respective infection situation permits this. Your faculties will inform you about this in good time before the start of the semester in the usual way.

Moreover, there is an urgent appeal to supervisors and employees of the University to work from home wherever their activities can be conducted from there. Where this is not possible, all supervisors are urged to make arrangements with their employees that take appropriate account of health protection and personal circumstances such as childcare or caring for dependents. Where working on site is necessary, use flexible working, shift work and physical barriers to reduce employee contact where possible.

For all facilities where work is conducted in presence, supervisors must continue to prepare risk assessments. For this purpose, updated forms are available on the website of the Safety Engineer's Office (www.sicherheitsingenieur.uni-kiel.de/de/themen/corona), which take into account the regulations of the Federal SARS-CoV-2 Occupational Health and Safety Ordinance of January 21. The risk assessment also includes a form for ordering FFP2 masks. These are provided by the university if the risk assessment shows that all other protective measures at the workplace are not effective.

In case of questions or problems, please contact your supervisor or facility management. In addition, the following persons are available to advise and support you:

• the Safety Engineer's Office, mhefner@uv.uni-kiel.de
• the coordination team of the crisis unit, corona@uni-kiel.de
• the interest groups

The challenges of the Corona pandemic affect each and every one of us, in our private and professional lives. For many of us, these stresses also mean personal crises. Please take advantage of the counselling and psychological support available to help you and your family get through this time in good health, and not just physically. We will soon make the available services more visible on a separate information page on the Corona website of the CAU. However, we would like to draw your attention to some of the services offered by the CAU as well as independent services. Although these are unfortunately not available to you in presence, you can still receive personal support via telephone or digital formats:

• CAU contact point for students: coronaberatung-studium@uv.uni-kiel.de
• CAUrona telephone of the AStA, Mon-Fri: 5-8 p.m., 0160/1678200
• „Corrente“ counselling service for CAU employees and their families - counselling on professional and private challenges
• Contact for CAU‘s international students and guests
• Overview of CAU counselling centres: www.beratung.uni-kiel.de (German only)

With this in mind, we wish you to get through these further challenging weeks well and in good health. Together we will manage to keep the university running in the best possible way, even under the adverse circumstances. On behalf of all members of the University Board, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again for your personal commitment, your flexibility, your talent for improvisation, your solidarity and, last but not least, your patience.

Yours sincerely
Claudia Ricarda Meyer, Chancellor