Closing Down Campus for Safety

We're in our first week of "remote" instruction here and the situation continues to develop. Initially, our university library, computer labs, studios, and offices remained open. But then the library closed (I know our library staff breathed a sigh of relief!), and now pretty much everything on campus is closing as far as I can tell. At any rate, the Art Office, studios, labs...

As for teaching, well, it isn't exactly going all that smoothly for many of us. Those who wanted to put lectures online or even hold synchronous online discussions are reporting some problems. If nothing else, lots of students don't have very reliable internet access or are trying to take care of their kids or elderly parents.

So far, I've tried giving assignments that are fairly open-ended, but I'm having trouble with students (even my one MA student from another department) not reading the instructions very well. When the instructions say that I've put a list of suggested films on our course site, I don't want to have people emailing asking if I can give them a list (but they've done so). When the instructions say to post info about museum web sites on Discussion Board and discuss, I don't want people emailing me or the whole class with what they've found (but they've done so). When I say to watch as many films as they can, I don't want to be asked "how many do you want us to watch?" (but they've done so).

I get that they are feeling discombobulated and stressed out, and I know I don't always pick up key information when I read either. It's just that each unnecessary email of that kind takes time to deal with, makes me worry that a whole lot more are about to arrive, and takes my focus away from grading take-home exams, commenting on actual Discussion Board posts, and planning how to go forward.