Please check your HR email and MyWdKA COVID-19 Information Page for detailed updates
Dear Students and Colleagues,
As we start preparing for the new academic year, we want to share with you our thoughts about art education during COVID-19: experiences, insights and challenges.
Art School
As COVID-19 started to affect us in the Netherlands mid-March of this year, we had to move to online teaching within days of having to close the academy. The transition sparked a lot of creativity, some serious rethinking and introduced us to all kinds of new platforms. In the process, we made some great discoveries about the resilience of art education, but it also showed us limitations. When regulations allowed us, we were happy to slowly open our Stations for all students, allowing them to go back to researching through making.
We start the new academic year with the essentials we re-discovered through this crisis, such as:
- social interaction is essential for learning.
- doing, feeling, smelling is essential for learning.
- being heard and seen is essential for learning.
- relating to differences, in people and contexts is essential for learning.
- being surprised, challenged and probed is essential for learning.
We have created both online and offline teaching based on these principles. We will try to find a balance with these two in the upcoming year. Our focus will be on offering you the best blended, or hybrid learning experience.
At the Stations, you will be introduced to researching by making, while online lessons will provide a theoretical base, teach conceptual development and research and give feedback on your work and development.
Safe
The academy building has been re-evaluated for teaching in corona times. We have ensured that you will always be able to keep a safe distance from each other in teaching spaces, pathways have been adjusted to avoid ‘heavy traffic’ and ventilation has been checked.
If we all keep to the measures that are necessary, we can make sure that both students, teachers and staff can work safely.
In order to maintain a healthy academy that can offer offline teaching consistently, we will have to adhere to the rules of the RIVM, that most have you been following all along:
- First and foremost: stay home if you have any symptoms like a head cold, coughing, tightness of breath, fever, sudden loss of smell or taste.
- Self-quarantine if any of your housemates have symptoms as mentioned above.
- In case you must quarantine you will be able to follow teaching online and catch up.
- When at the academy, follow the rules of distance and hygiene.
- Follow the current rules set by the Dutch government, both national and for Rotterdam specifically. You can find them here.
Stations
We are making sure that you can work at the Stations or in adjacent classrooms as much as possible in a combination of practical work, instruction and additional teaching. On top of that, you will be able to book individual work time in the Stations where possible. You will be able to book these spaces yourself, instructions will follow.
Keep in mind: The Media Library in the Research Station is closed, the library collection is available through online reservation and receiving through RUAS procedure, see MyWdKA for more information.
Master Courses
Master students have access to their studios on the 4th floor of the Wijnhaven building and the MFA at the Karel Doorman building during regular opening hours.
Time-slots from August 31, 2020
9:30 – 14:45
14:45 – 18:15 (students and staff members are not allowed to leave the building due to national guidelines)
18:15 –22:00
The Willem
The Willem will be open again and has a maximum capacity of people present. If there is no seat available, please wait in the lobby. Do not hang around after having enjoyed your lunch or coffee, but make room for the next person.
Opening times of ‘The Willem’, Wijnhaven 61: Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 15:00. At the counter, you can expect the normal range of food and snacks.
The past months have shown us that we are able to offer relevant art education in COVID times. If we work together on maintaining a healthy educational environment, we will be able to do so both offline as well as online.
HR email and MyWdKA
For being timely informed on lessons and assessments, it is imperative that you read your HR-emails and check MyWdKA or Microsoft Teams on a regular basis as those are the only means WdKA communicates official information. If you have not received any information on lessons, electives or assessments from your teachers, please contact them directly. All lessons and educational activities have started up online. Course leaders have informed everyone to the best of their knowledge about how specific lessons and events that will not be able to continue as planned are replaced by alternatives. Please act if you do not have the necessary information, check your email first.
Exchanges and Internships
- WdKA students who have been called back to the Netherlands and have been faced with extra costs (e.g. penalties for adjusting their flights, broken rental agreements) will have the possibility to get financial support. More information will be sent out to the students eligible for this support. Please apply for compensation with Cora Santjer (c.j.santjer@hr.nl).
- If your exchange or internship ended earlier than foreseen, leaving you with fewer credits than needed, we will help you out with a special assignment you can work on, on your own levels and with the appropriate time investment. This assignment is now being developed by a dedicated team, including our WdKA lectors and will be available next week. There will be (online) support for you while working on this assignment.
- Exchanges fall 2020. We have been actively monitoring the current global pandemic situation, and we sincerely regret that Willem de Kooning Academy had to make the decision to cancel the Fall 2020 exchanges (both incoming as outgoing) and internships, as advised by the Central Crisis Team (CCMT) of the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. This decision has not been made lightly and is a result of concern for the health and safety of our students as well as the significant challenges associated with international travel. We sincerely hope that we will be able to offer this opportunity again in Spring 2021. We will keep you posted about this.
Tuition Fees
We sympathise with the Dutch and international students who have lost their part-time jobs due to the corona crisis. We understand that this affects your financial situation and might even create difficulties. As an institution funded by the national government, we are not at liberty to waive tuition fees. If you really get into serious problems, we refer you to contact the student counsellors.
Teacher Support for Online Assessments
Both WOLT and our Education Station will offer support and manuals for teaching staff in the field of assessment tools online. Please check the online magazine published on Hint and WdKA Education support.
The members of the Academy Management Team want to express their respect, admiration and gratitude to all the teachers, support staff and our students who have adapted to these strange circumstances and have turned to online education with such spirit and resilience. We already have seen great examples of online education. They will be published in the next update and may serve as a source of inspiration to everybody.
More questions? Students and staff can find answers on MyWdKA COVID-19 Information Page and Coronavirus Information page of Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences or direct their questions related to the coronavirus to the Informatiepunt Coronavirus corona.info@hr.nl
Additional information about the Coronavirus is available on the websites of National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, and the GGD Rotterdam-Rijnmond.
