To Our Faculty and Staff:
Below is a message we will be sending later today regarding our decision to assign each undergraduate a single room as part of COVID-19 risk-mitigation measures. This approach requires excluding nearly all sophomores and juniors from living in campus housing, which means that a significant number of students who planned to attend courses in person now will be unable to do so.
We are sharing this message with you now so that faculty can begin considering how they might change the mode of instruction listed for their courses in the Student Information System in the event that some students who expected to take a class in person now will be learning remotely.
As faculty consider potential adjustments, please keep in mind that some sophomores and juniors may live off campus—or secure approval for exceptions because of extenuating circumstances—and still plan to take courses in person.
We will provide more specific guidance as additional information regarding students’ decisions becomes available.
We realize that many faculty have spent a substantial amount of time adapting courses with the expectation that most students would be on campus this fall, and regret the additional work this change may create for both faculty and staff.
As students review this message, they of course will have a broad range of questions that they are likely to pose to academic advisors, navigators, and many more of you. We have prepared a Frequently Asked Questions page for their reference, which you will be able to access after the message to undergraduates is sent.
Unfortunately, pandemic-related developments within our region and the nation required that we reconsider the density of our residential student population. We believe providing all undergraduates their own rooms will increase our ability to protect students from infection—and, in turn, reduce the risk to the entire campus community.
We deeply appreciate all of the additional pedagogical adjustments faculty have made last semester and this summer, as well as the extensive support that staff have provided to assist in those changes. We are sorry to add yet another change to plans and expectations, and hope that any new modifications are less labor-intensive than those already made.
Thank you again for all that you do for our students, and one another.
Barbara R. Snyder
President
Ben Vinson III
Provost and Executive Vice President