Fully Remote Instruction

Dear colleagues,

Together, we are charting unknown territory as we continuously pivot in response to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic affecting our community. I appreciate all you are doing to provide alternative course delivery while guiding and supporting your students.

Beginning March 23, all classes, including lab sections, will be delivered in an alternative remote or online format. We must adhere to social distancing guidance from state and federal authorities. I hope you have already reached out to the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) for support and guidance. If not, please do. They have many resources and workshops to assist you.

In addition to the resources provided through CTL, faculty may need staff support in order to bring instructional labs online. Supervisors have the authority to designate staff as mandatory employees in order to provide assistance to faculty to conduct and videotape experiments if this is the only way to meet course objectives.

For individualized study such as dissertation, thesis, honors project or other faculty-directed research or engineering senior design for which the use of university equipment is essential and where numbers are small enough to permit effective social distancing, students may work with their faculty mentors or supervisors to enable the work to continue on campus.

Please keep in mind that many students have extraordinary family obligations at this time, so ensure that online delivery is not unnecessarily increasing student workload. Be responsive to student feedback and make adjustments if necessary. Especially during these circumstances, we must be supportive so students can progress. We want to emphasize to students that they can complete the semester and we are here to help. Review these additional tips and faculty resources.

Guiding your students who are self-quarantining

If a student informs you they are self-quarantining, you may be wondering what you should do next. It is important to remember that anyone can choose to self-quarantine if they believe there is a need to do so. It does not mean they have COVID-19 or are at risk of developing the illness.

First, please verify your student has completed the self-quarantine form on the Emergency Management website. After this, we encourage you to exercise caution to avoid unnecessarily causing alarm among your students. The Office of Emergency Management and the Student Health Center are in close contact with the Mecklenburg County Health Department. Should any of our faculty, staff or students test positive for COVID-19, they will work together to initiate contact tracing quickly in order to notify those who may have been exposed.

I continue to be extraordinarily grateful for and awed by the work of our Academic Affairs faculty and staff to address the needs of our students under these adverse circumstances that have upended our semester. You continue to prove that the phrase, “We are All Niners” is not an empty slogan. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Joan F. Lorden
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs