To: All Faculty
From: Robyn Hannigan, Provost
Date: March 18, 2020
Re: COVID-19 and impacts on faculty activity
Cc: Deans and Directors
The Spring 2020 semester is becoming more complex daily. With our faculty on the front lines, being asked to balance professional and personal demands, it is important that we reflect on our faculty lives and the stress that accompanies our work. The change in course delivery will no doubt lead to unanticipated outcomes in student ratings of our courses. Funding agencies and publication outlets are experiencing numerous review delays that will, inevitably, impact timely securing of grants and publication of our work.
With the concurrence of Faculty Senate, to ensure that faculty are able to move through this semester without the additional stress of potentially negative outcomes in student ratings and/or research productivity:
- Faculty will be permitted, at their option, to exclude any Student Teaching Evaluation (student rating) and Advising Evaluation results obtained during Spring 2020 from future faculty performance evaluations (annual reports, promotion/tenure).
- Research delays due to pushed-back proposal submission deadlines, slower than average peer-review return, postponement/cancellation of research activities (e.g., field work, experiments, etc), and other COVID-19 associated delays in research activity, should be noted by the faculty member in their annual report. Each Chair will note, in their annual review of performance, the impact of COVID-19 on individual faculty research activities.
- Service interruptions due to COVID-19 are likely to be substantial with cancellation of professional meetings, reduced schedules and activities for some on-campus service, as well as changes in advising and mentoring of our students. Changes in service activities due to COVID-19 should be noted by the faculty member in their annual report. Each Chair will note, in their annual review of performance, the impact of COVID-19 on individual faculty service activities.
At this time, I am not considering an optional extension to the tenure clock for probationary (pre-tenure) tenure track faculty. However, as the situation evolves, I will remain in communication with faculty senate such that, should an extension be warranted, we can explore this option.