To All Faculty and Instructors of Record:

As the University continues to monitor developments involving COVID-19, we are putting in place contingency plans should a disruption to instructional delivery occur. As the situation involving COVID-19 is so fluid and changing hourly, it is essential that we plan in advance should the University need to limit physical access to campus, including in-person course instructional delivery. Should suspension of face-to-face instruction be needed to ensure the health and safety of our campus community, the University will continue to meet our mission of providing academic instruction to our students by moving our courses online.

Note that we are not suspending face-to-face instruction at this time; these are contingency plans only.

We plan to do this in three steps, which are detailed at our new Academic Disruption website.

Use the Learning Management Systems (LMS) of Moodle or Blackboard for communicating with students. If your course does not currently have a Blackboard or Moodle (LMS) course site, the Academic Disruption website has information about how to create one. Use Moodle or Blackboard to share course content, such as lecture notes, PowerPoint slides, assignments, and other course materials that can be uploaded to your course site on the LMS. Use Zoom to stream or record class lectures. Many faculty may choose to schedule a Zoom class meeting with their students during their normally scheduled course day/time (e.g., Tuesday and Thursday from 11:15-12:30 if that is your class meeting time). These Zoom class lectures can also be recorded to be viewed at a later time if desired.

We will also support faculty to adapt their assessment tools, such as exams, to fit this new modality.

The website also includes information for students on how they can access their course online. A separate communication will go out to students.

Maintaining instructional continuity in certain courses (laboratory sections, studios) will clearly pose certain challenges. I would like to ask faculty, department chairs/heads and deans to work together to see if alternative methods to face-to-face instruction can be found. The Center for Teaching and Learning can also be a resource to assist with these plans.

Currently, there are no plans to suspend our normal face-to-face instruction. But it is imperative that we plan should things change in the near future. I thank you for your assistance in making careful and thorough preparations should a change to instructional delivery be needed.

Sincerely,

John McCarthy

Provost & Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic