King's Principal's Message - Communications

A message from Dr. David Malloy, King's Principal, to the King’s community,

From the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, we understood the importance of communicating with the King’s community.

With events changing seemingly moment by moment, the King’s Communications team employed all of their resources to keep everyone up-to-date on the cancellations of travel, events, exams, moving classes online, and our move to being a largely virtual campus. In the days, weeks and now months since the pandemic was called, we have worked together to continue to keep all of you updated as everyone implemented change to ensure King’s continued to offer the best educational and student experience possible while keeping the health and safety of our community top of mind.

I hope you have found my regular messages, written in collaboration with the King’s Communications department, useful. I have tried to keep you informed as to how the many departments across King’s have worked to adjust to these new conditions and found ways to provide the necessary services. I also hope that you have been inspired by the great work, perseverance, and adaptability shown by so many members of the King’s community.

The King’s Communications team have not only supported me in these regular emails and updates, but they have continued to provide our community with important information about the transformation of King’s from a physical campus to a largely virtual campus to a blended campus. They have employed the King’s website homepage and Events calendar, the weekly Things@King’s newsletter and King’s social media, including Facebook (with new pages for Parents & Supporters and the Class of 2024), Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat, and now, in an effort to reach more students, King's now has a TikTok account. (They have also been a great help to me in my own social media efforts on Twitter and Instagram.)

Even under these new conditions, life has continued on at King’s with the introduction of the King’s-Brescia Principal’s Anti-Racism Working Group, the opening of the Virtual Student Life Centre, Homecoming, Celebration of Graduates, and other events and initiatives. King’s Communications has continued to tell the story of King’s to our community as a way to keep us all connected, even when we are unable to gather together physically.

With the resumption of classes, albeit largely virtual, Communications has also provided support to our faculty and staff by creating and distributing course promotion emails and videos (which can be found on our YouTube channel), publications including the School of MEM Insider, Residence Life Guide (and are currently working on a 2021 Residence Brochure), International Student Guidebook and videos such as the new series for the Centre for Advanced Research in Catholic Thought.

During the pandemic, the King’s Communications team has continued to take on interns from Western University and Fanshawe College as a way to mentor future communications professionals. These interns have provided tremendous support to the team while getting an education under circumstances no one could have predicted. Some of this mentorship has led to award-winning communications work by our interns and their mentors.

In closing, I do want to add a thank you to everyone who has been wearing a mask, washing your hands, maintaining social distance, and following public health regulations. I encourage you to continue to do so as a way to take care of yourself, take care of each other, and take care of this place.