Anticipated re-opening and Town Hall

Message from Fabrice Labeau, Co-Acting Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic), Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) and planning chief for the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) on behalf of the EOC

Dear members of the Macdonald Campus community,

I am sure many of you will be happy to hear that we anticipate reopening the Barton building and most of the Macdonald-Stewart building on Tuesday, March 14, following the completion of thorough cleaning in accordance with asbestos safety protocols and post-cleaning air testing. The same day, we will be holding a Town Hall for the Macdonald Campus community (details below).

Upon re-opening, all regularly scheduled classes and activities in these spaces will resume as usual.

We are sharing this information with you today so that you can plan accordingly. We have been conducting air tests as specialty cleaning is completed, and all tests performed to date were compliant with the regulatory threshold.

However, please remember that we cannot re-open until all air tests are completed and results received, which we expect to have in hand on Monday. Therefore, we’ll confirm by Monday, March 13 that re-opening will proceed as planned.

Re-opening of Barton and Macdonald-Stewart (Phase 1)

This initial phase of reopening includes:

• all areas of Barton, with the exception of a mechanical room that recently tested positive and a storage space closed in November 2022
• all public spaces in Macdonald-Stewart
• closed MS rooms (laboratories and offices) that did not have any positive tests for asbestos.

As the asbestos cleaning process is more complex in laboratories and offices than public areas, rooms that tested positive for asbestos in Macdonald-Stewart will remain temporarily closed and sealed off from the rest of the building. Members of the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences have been engaged to help inform the sequence of the remaining room re-openings, and we are prioritizing laboratories and other spaces needed for activities that cannot be done remotely.

For your ongoing reference, a complete list of closed rooms has been posted to the FAQ, which will be regularly updated to reflect re-openings.

We want all students, faculty members and staff to feel safe in returning to the buildings. To this end, we have put in place enhanced ongoing measures that will provide additional assurance that re-opened areas will continue to meet all health and safety regulations.

Register for Town Hall

To share information about our safe re-opening approach, answer your questions and hear any concerns you may have, we are holding a Macdonald Campus Town Hall meeting.

Date/Time: March 14, 2023. 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.

Registration: Please register for the in-person or virtual event here. To access the registration form, you will need to sign in with your McGill ID. Please note that in-person capacity may be limited due to the size of the space and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Those registering will receive an email in the coming days with location (TBC) and a link to the virtual event.

Submitting questions

Both in-person and online participants in the Town Hall will have the opportunity to submit questions live. You can also submit questions in advance through the registration form.

Many people are anxious for news of the Raymond building, which is where the large lecture halls are located (classrooms beginning with R located in the Octagon). We are happy to report that all dust samples collected in the Octagon are negative. We will provide a full update on test results, with floor plans, before the end of the week.

We understand that the building closures have not been easy for anyone, and we thank all members of the campus community for your continued patience, cooperation, and perseverance. The Emergency Operations Centre team continues to be focused on safely re-opening the remaining areas in Macdonald-Stewart and Raymond as quickly as possible.

As the situation is resolved, please continue to send your questions or comments to macbldg.closures [at] mcgill.ca and refer to the FAQ for information previously shared.

Fabrice