Dear School of Education faculty, students, and staff:
In their just-released message to campus, Chancellor Guskiewicz and Provost Blouin outlined campus actions in response to the rise in COVID-19 positivity rates documented by Campus Health. Effective Wednesday, August 19, all undergraduate in-person instruction will shift to remote learning. Changes to instruction in graduate and professional programs were left to the discretion of individual professional schools. Additionally, to further de-densify campus, current undergraduate residential students have been asked to reconsider their residential plans for Fall 2020.
The health and wellbeing of our faculty, students and staff are paramount to our community. As I indicated in my message to you on August 10, “We start this semester fully aware that we might need to pivot at any point because of the fluid nature of our situation.”
Thus, effective Wednesday, August 19:
(1) All Fall 2020 undergraduate, graduate and professional courses offered by the School of Education will shift to fully remote instruction; and
(2) To provide our instructors, students and staff the time to adjust to this rapidly evolving situation, all School of Education courses will be cancelled beginning Wednesday, August 19, through Saturday, August 22. This will give our students time to make necessary arrangements to leave campus and travel back home if they decide to do so, as well as give our instructors the time to pivot their face-to-face and hybrid courses to fully remote instruction. We understand that courses will, as a result, miss one or two instructional sessions. We trust that instructors will work with their students to arrange and make up for any missed instructional time through additional synchronous or asynchronous online teaching and/or activities.
In addition to continuing all of our instructional offerings through remote instruction, our research activities, as well as our student and business service operations will continue to operate remotely as outlined in approved plans for Fall 2020. Peabody Hall will continue to be open for carrying out these activities as appropriate, until the time we receive further guidance from campus.
For our students: We know this is a difficult time for many of you. The faculty and our Student Affairs staff stand ready to help you make adjustments and answer your questions. Please reach out as you may need to do so. Also, please be on the lookout for an email from our interim assistant dean for student affairs, Dr. Diana Lys, with links to specific resources.
For our staff members: Please work with your supervisors to reassess work plans for Fall 2020 with the aim of adjusting or proceeding with these plans, as needed, to ensure we continue to support our School of Education community to deliver our mission of teaching, research, and service.
We will keep you informed of any additional changes as our School continues to receive guidance from campus and feedback from our faculty, students, and staff.
Stay well, stay safe!
Fouad Abd-El-Khalick
Dean and Professor