Dear Colleagues,

Three weeks into fall quarter, we are seeing record student enrollments and hearing great student enthusiasm for the in-person courses they’ve attended and also for the creative designs of their remote classes. Our campus also continues to release a steady flow of outstanding scholarly and creative work, much of it supported by external grants or recognized by prestigious prizes-- a testament to the campus’s robust intellectual life, that refuses to be quenched by the pandemic. And, because of the outstanding efforts of staff working both on the front lines and remotely, the campus health status, university operations, student support, and research facilities are also on a steady keel. Thank you for bringing us to this point through your dedicated, collaborative work.

We may anticipate some intense moments ahead in the next couple of weeks as national and local elections reach their culmination. As discussed in this newsletter, our 2020 Elections Sensitive Issues Response Team has prepared a variety of materials and events to help us all sustain one another as a community. While individual viewpoints will differ in a campus as diverse as ours, we can all unite in the conviction that it is essential to support one another as fellow Tritons and to explore our differing perspectives through civil discourse that enlightens and enriches us all.

Finally, I wanted to remind us all, once again, that at UC San Diego, we are committed to teaching and assessing all our students, as well as doing our best to make all students feel welcome and supported. During the pandemic, when much learning is hybrid or remote, some of our students will have significant or intermittent challenges with participating in a course session in real time for personal, technical, or safety reasons (e.g., internet outage, computer failure, illness, caregiver obligations, or time zones). We don’t want these to become demoralizing barriers to their full academic engagement. In recognition of this, we are operating under the shared expectations that course material should be made available in an asynchronous format and that an asynchronous equivalent (or readily accessible alternative-time accommodation) should be provided for any synchronous learning experience (including assessments) an instructor or TA chooses to offer.  

At the same time, our faculty have the freedom and responsibility to design courses, learning experiences, and assessments that are, in their academic judgment, best suited to the subject matter, the students’ level of preparation, and the intended learning outcomes. The faculty are best positioned to determine exactly how to accommodate the situation of a student who cannot join a synchronous session or what an appropriate equivalent learning experience might be. The expectations above are couched in very general language precisely to preserve the flexibility for faculty to exercise their creativity and judgement in devising specific pedagogical solutions for their particular courses and students.

Again, you have my deep appreciation and that of the campus community for all that you are doing to keep our campus’s research, teaching, and community engagement efforts strong despite all of the unusual constraints the pandemic has brought us.

Best wishes for your health and well-being!

Elizabeth H. Simmons