Response to COVID-19 & News of MIT Policies
With the coronavirus spreading throughout the US, MIT is taking precautions and providing guidance to the community. Based on MIT's response to coronavirus developments, we have adjusted our policies to protect the health and safety of VMS mentors, entrepreneurs, and staff without creating unnecessary disruptions to the normal pursuit of our educational and research mission.
This webpage provides the latest updates and changes on our response to MIT's guidance. You may also refer to mit.edu/covid19 at any time for the most up to date information from MIT.
June 29, 2020
In order to help limit the number of people traveling to campus, VMS is continuing with remote operations until January 2021.
May 26th, 2020
The Office of the Vice Chancellor of MIT just released important information regarding remote international student appointments, impacting a percentage of our entrepreneurs. This information is particularly pertinent if you are an international student that is currently outside the US or if you plan to leave the US in the coming months.
Please see the OVC's guidance here: https://ovc.mit.edu/ovc-guidance-on-remote-student-appointments/?fbclid=IwAR1AwpCCofgqbXxKfR2qJjn7SfPh7FXFAoa4QsMaZTyCT4wOPEa9dIemRKw
April 8, 2020
VMS has been assembling resources and hosting webinars in response to the CARES Act. These materials (including recordings of webinars) can be found at https://vms.mit.edu/VMSCares.
March 13th, 2020
- The physical VMS office will be closed starting Monday, March 16th. We will continue to operate virtually.
- All mentoring sessions (including office hours) are being held remotely (via WebEx). Details for connecting to sessions will be provided in meeting reminders sent via email from the VMS office ~24 hours ahead of your mentoring session.
- The in-person monthly mentor meetings for March 25th and April 28th are cancelled. We will create and distribute digital materials on March 25th and April 28th. We ask that you please review the materials and respond to sign up for mentor teams and other requests as you normally would so that we can minimize the impact on our mentoring processes.
- VMS Demo Day is tentatively rescheduled from May 7 to October 7 and pitch scrubs for April 21 & 23 are cancelled.
- Intake and onboarding of new mentors, and Mentor Orientations, are indefinitely on hold.
March 9th, 2020
Following MIT's response to coronavirus developments (mit.edu/covid19), we are announcing that:
- In-person events for Monthly Mentor Meetings in March and April are cancelled. We will distribute digital materials for mentor review. We ask that you please review and respond to the materials so that we have as little disruption to mentoring processes as possible.
- Upcoming mentoring sessions will be held virtually until further notice. We are working now to transition all scheduled meetings to WebEx and if you have a meeting scheduled, we will be in touch with you to provide more details prior to your meeting.
- Adjustments for other events, such as Demo Day, are under review. We will share more information as soon as it is available.
The current guidance is applicable until May 15th, and we will continue to keep you apprised of announcements regarding policies for after May 15. You may also refer to mit.edu/covid19 at any time for the most up to date information from MIT.