Comunicat de la Hochschule Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences 19-03-2020

Dear partners,

As you know, Germany is dealing with an increasing number of COVID-19 cases and the Robert Koch Instutite has declared the risk to be high. At the moment there are no classes and no other events taking place at h_da. As a precautionary measure, many colleagues, including some members of the International Office, are working from home to help flatten the curve. As you will have guessed, the last two weeks have not been easy for us.

The start of the lecture period at h_da has been postponed until 20 April, but I have to inform you that it is unlikely that there will be in-person classes, and, unfortunately, it will most likely not be possible to teach every single class online, either. It is even possible that the entire semester will be canceled; the final decision has yet to be made. Sadly, this means that h_da cannot guarantee that international exchange students will be able to take part in the classes they need.

For the safety and well-being of your students and given the academic uncertainty mentioned above, we strongly recommend that your students return to their home country and cancel or postpone their study abroad stay with us. We are happy to accept each and every one of them in the winter 2020/21 semester (or at a later semester).
Of course, we will help your students sort everything out (deregistration from h_da, terminating the tenancy contract in the student residences, cancelling their health insurance plans). If they haven’t done so yet, they should write an email to incoming.int@h-da.de and discuss the steps that need to be taken.

Should there be a student of yours who absolutely needs credits from h_da for the spring semester to be able to graduate in time (or for other important reasons), please let us know as soon as possible. Please provide us with specific information on which classes these students were going to take and how many credits they require. We will do our absolute best to ensure that they can receive the credits they need by means of individual assignments, projects etc. created by our teaching staff or taking part in an online-taught while being in their home country. In this case, your students should stay enrolled at h_da, even though they would not be physically present in Germany during the semester.

 
Best regards and stay healthy!

Marina

Marina Zielke
Incoming Students Advisor, International Office

h_da
Hochschule Darmstadt
University of Applied Sciences

Phone: +49.6151.16-38014; email: incoming.int@h-da.de
Website: http://www.international.h-da.de

Comunicat de laTechincal University of Darmstadt

Dear Partners, Colleagues and Friends,

Greetings from Technical University of Darmstadt. We hope this e-mail finds you in good health.

Let us first thank you for your continued support to Technical University of Darmstadt and our collaboration to-date. We thank all of you for keeping us informed about the evolution of Covid-19 developments. Thank you also for taking care of our students who are currently studying in your universities, at such difficult moment.

This is indeed a challenging start to the new decade with the ongoing development of COVID-19.  Surely every one of us is closely monitoring the impact as it unfolds and taking all possible steps in response to prevent further spread of coronavirus among students, staff & faculty. The health, wellbeing and safety of students and staff are always the top priority for Technical University of Darmstadt.

At the moment, there have been no declared cases of the virus amongst the staff and students of TU Darmstadt.

In the past couple of weeks, we have been dedicating our efforts in the fight against this pandemic, and doing our best to minimize risk of its transmission while maintaining learning and research activities as well as other university services deemed necessary.  TU Darmstadt has established a coordination team some time ago to coordinate developments related to COVID-19 in consultation with medical experts and the authorities. In particular, TU Darmstadt’s Executive Board has taken the following measures:

Ø  All upcoming exams will be postponed until further notice.

Ø  All attendance/face-to-face courses (such as group practical trainings and labs, colloquia and excursions) scheduled until 19 April 2020 will be postponed until further notice as well.

Ø  The upcoming summer semester was postponed for one week and is scheduled to begin on 20^th April 2020.

Ø   

è All information are compiled and continuously updated on the following website: www.tu-darmstadt.de/coronavirus-info-en

All our students, staff & faculty are given regular up-to-date health advice and appropriate guidance during this critical time.

Although exams and attendance events have been cancelled, the university campus and the dormitories of the Studierendenwerk remain open. Students can stay in their dormitories and the shops are open and well stocked as usual. For those who decide to leave Darmstadt and return to their home countries, we will provide all necessary information and support.

As we face this global public health challenge together, our thoughts go out to all those communities affected by the current outbreak. I hope that, through our concerted international efforts, this dynamic situation can be brought under control sooner. TU Darmstadt is committed to maintaining our existing partnership and supporting fellow colleagues around the world in solidarity. We very much look forward to resuming/continuing our mobility/joint activities and to further developing mutually beneficial collaboration with your university.

Please do not hesitate to contact us, if you have any questions.

Taking this opportunity, the TU Darmstadt International Relation and Mobility team wish you, your family, colleagues and students Good Health.

Let’s stay in touch – take care and keep well!

With best wishes

Jana Freihöfer on behalf of the International Relations and Mobility Team