Fall Semester Preparations
Dear Faculty and Staff of Academic Affairs,
Another week has passed since my last communication and work continues in force to prepare for the fall semester. We are all indebted to the Action Team, co-lead by Dr. Antonietta Quigg and Dr. JoAnn DiGeorgio-Lutz, that is working on the planning and implementation of the return to class this coming fall. They have been unwavering in their effort and focused on providing as much clarity as possible in the soonest possible timeline. Please help me thank their selfless service (the full membership of the committee is listed at the end of this message), which they have kept going constantly for nearly two months and is reaching the level of detail that should provide the level of clarity we all are seeking.
Some of that clarity has been offered this week by the Provost herself. If you haven’t done so yet, I encourage you to read her message (June 15) that shares updated guidance regarding fall opening. Please be aware that we are following the same guidance and details as those in College Station. Below I summarize are a few specifics that we should all pay attention to:
- The class schedule will start three days early on August 19th, while reading days and online/remote final exams will begin after Thanksgiving break. This means that no formal teaching activities and requirements will take place after the break
- The schedule will not include formal Saturday classes and maintain the regular 5-days structure.
- The schedule will however extend from 8AM to 8PM (some labs may extend past that time) to allow more time in between classes to complete clearing of rooms in between each class.
- Both main campus task force in coordination with our Action Team are mapping existing courses to the new time pattern.
- Students will not be required to re-register for their courses. The university will open registration on Monday, July 27, to support students’ wishes to make changes.
- Face to face courses will seek to achieve a classroom density between 33-40% of the normal room capacity, with the implementation of face coverings and social distancing protocols.
- All face-to-face classes will also be offered remotely to support students who need accommodations. Our IT group is hard at work developing and installing technological solutions in each classroom to support faculty and students staying connected.
I will share more details throughout the coming weeks as we develop the schedule in more detail. In the meantime, please know that our Action Team is now working on adjusting the existing schedule to incorporate longer pass times between classes (30 minutes) to allow for social distancing and then twice a day (45 min), deep cleaning. I encourage all faculty to consult with your Dept. Head early and often to remain informed of your class schedule and to share information that your DH may need to know regarding your needs. Specifically, Dept. Heads will need to understand your technology needs, preferences for teaching styles, and any accommodations which you wish them to consider. For those faculty that teach labs, the schedule is unchanged (i.e., same number of sections), so please start to think creatively about how to accommodate your materials to meet the challenges of reduced classroom density. Again, make sure you work with your DH and potentially your lab coordinator.
Composition of the Fall Schedule Action Team:
- JoAnn DiGeorgio-Lutz
- Melanie Moser
- Augusta Roth
- John Kovacevich
- Neil E. Golemo
- Shelly Fordyce
- Lisa Stewart
- Joan Mileski
- Amber Booth
- Jay Porter
- Kathryn Falvo
- Vernon Camus
- Courtney Blincow
- Daniel Aaron
- Pat Hebert
Additional information I would like all faculty and staff from Academic Affairs to be aware of:
- It is with great pleasure that I announce the appointment of Dr. Carol Bunch-Davis, Associate Professor and Assistant Department Head in the Department of Liberal Studies and Chair of the CLIDE Program, as an ADVANCE Administrative Fellow. ADVANCE is a unit within the Office of the Dean of Faculties, which offers programs designed to advance faculty diversity, inclusion and success. The ADVANCE Administrative Fellows Program provides an opportunity for mid- to late-career faculty to take on a temporary, part-time administrative role in an administrative unit at the college or university level. ADVANCE provides funding to help support these positions and to provide leadership development training. Dr. Bunch-Davis has already worked for a year in my office prior to her appointment as Assistant Department Head, and this opportunity will help develop her leadership in a broader scope of areas. When she finishes her year as and ADVANCE Fellow, Dr. Bunch-Davis will transition into the position of Assistant VP for Academic Affairs. She will initially focus on expanding faculty programming in support of mentorship, hiring/promotion training and professional development and continue leading the CLIDE Program for the entire Campus. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Bunch-Davis and welcoming her in her new leadership role.
- Our campus is committed to support faculty in developing better expertise in online and remote education. We encourage you to talk with your departmental colleagues about best practices in online teaching. Many faculty have broad experience teaching remotely and online and are valuable resources for technology and teaching help. Here are a few programs being developed in support of online education:
- Nine faculty volunteered early in the summer to complete a full certification program with Quality Matters, a training institution that focused on guaranteeing the quality of coursework delivered in online platforms. Almost every department will now have a representative that can support discussions of how to guarantee the delivery of high-quality instruction through online media.
- Free registration to take individual Quality Matters Workshops are open to all Faculty and Graduate Assistants. The commitment to the workshops is approximately 8 hours per week for two weeks. Workshops available and instructions for registering can be found HERE. For more information on Quality Matters contact Dave Baca at bacad@tamug.edu
- The Keep Teaching: Galveston page is being updated to focus on online teaching. In addition resources to use classroom technologies such as Zoom and eCampus can be found on the Department of Information Technology Teaching and Learning page.
- The I.T. Department and the Library are collaborating on a series of instructional videos, tutorials and modules to assist faculty with teaching HyFlex classes. As the resources are developed they will be added to the Keep Teaching: Galveston page and the I.T. Teaching and Learning page. For more information on HyFlex resources contact Dave Baca at bacad@tamug.edu or Martha Lopez at martha.lopezcas@tamug.edu
- Faculty, please be aware that the Faculty Senate approved on Monday new syllabus requirements. This comprehensive revision of the Minimum Syllabus Requirements was proposed to ensure accessibility platforms can read the syllabus, and was made by a joint task force which included a broad set of interest groups (Faculty Senate; student leadership; Academic Affairs, Student Affairs; Core Curriculum Committee, Undergraduate Curriculum Committee, Graduate Council, and the University Writing Center). As soon as I have a final version of the requirements, I will distribute it broadly and post it on the Academic Affairs Faculty Resources page.
- Our student enrollment team, with the help of MarComm and the enrollment group in College Station, have done an incredible job in the last two months to recover the gains they had made in the first half of the recruiting season. Up until early February, they were well ahead of prior years in total completed applications and total admits. The virtual education response to the COVID pandemic lead to a precipitous decline in applications and confirmations from students and in mid-March our numbers looked close to 15% down from the same time the previous two years. Amber’s team, in collaboration with the creative groups in Student Affairs rebuilt the numbers and we are today close to the target we were looking for in our incoming class. We have a large pool of uncommitted students that our enrollment service group is reaching out to, which gives me hope that we could catch up even more. Considering that this summer’s efforts in student credit hours has paid off well, in spite of our lack of a full-fledged maritime academy sea term, I do remain mildly optimistic about our enrollment for the fall.
Much work remains ahead and many of you are giving highly impactful service to our institution to prepare for a strong resurgence when the time is right. I deeply grateful to each and every single one of you for the support you show to our institution and each other.
Until I have new details to share, may you all be safe and remain healthy. Please follow our face covering and social distancing policy while on campus. And I invite you to join me this Friday at 10AM for a “discussion with the CAO” where I can provide summaries of where we are and address questions and concerns from all of you.
Peace
Patrick