Dear students, faculty and staff,

We have been closely following the recent events in Illinois and nationally during this rapidly evolving coronavirus outbreak, as the health and safety of our UIC community remains our primary concern.

In order to increase precautionary health measures and to free time for our instructors to migrate their courses to online platforms, we will start the spring break this coming Monday, March 16, and extend it to a total period of two weeks.

As a result of this change, the late drop deadline for undergraduate students will be moved from March 20 to April 3. Classes will resume on Monday, March 30, and will be held exclusively online for the remainder of the semester.

The health sciences colleges may have alternate schedules for students in both clinical rotations and non-clinical courses and will separately provide specific guidance to their students regarding each college’s academic calendars. The Deans from all Colleges will follow up with additional details early next week.

Residence halls will remain open to serve students who will choose to remain on campus. All student support services will also be open including the libraries, dining services, recreation facilities and computer labs, although they may be on a different schedule, which will be posted on UIC’s COVID-19 webpage.

The UI Health hospital and clinics will continue to serve the needs of our community and care for patients at full staff and without interruption.

We ask that everyone continue to exercise good judgment in preventing the spread of COVID-19, including handwashing frequently, avoiding touching their faces, and practicing social distancing. Most importantly, please do not come to work if you are feeling ill.

Thank you to everyone for your patience and response during this unprecedented emergency. We will continue to address operational issues (such as commencement, transportation, human resources policies, research policies, etc.) and to communicate with you frequently, so please continue to monitor your e-mails and the UIC web page, today.uic.edu/coronavirus. Your wellbeing remains our number one priority and we will continue to do all we can for the health and safety of the UIC community.

Sincerely,

Michael Amiridis

Chancellor

Susan Poser

Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Robert Barish, MD

Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs