Actions/Follow-up:
1. Create a classroom seating chart on the first day of class
2. Report student social contract violations via The Safety Net Form when necessary
3. Plan break days into your course syllabus, Friday, 9/25 & Thursday, 10/22
Dear Faculty and Course Instructors,
The purpose of this communication is to provide an update on the following classroom related items:
1. We continue to work on traffic flow patterns in buildings. To reduce traffic jams students are asked to time their arrival to class no more than 5 minutes prior to the start so that they can enter the room. If they arrive earlier they are encouraged to keep walking and then return or to wait in the atria of buildings or outside if the weather allows.
2. As we set up your classrooms for in-person instruction for Fall 2020 we are removing selected seating to maintain 6-foot distance between students (unless located in fixed seating lecture halls where seats will be blocked off). To facilitate contact tracing and encourage physical distancing, faculty should keep seating charts, especially in larger classes.
a. To create a seating chart, on the first day of class after students have selected their seats you can either take a picture of the class and annotate with names or sketch a quick seating map and annotate. Some of our classrooms have seat maps. If you would like to know if your classroom has a seat map for your use, please email Erica Arnold at earnold@clarkson.edu
3. As noted in previous communications all students are required to sign the Clarkson Compact. This document detailed the social contract for students requiring masks, distancing and requirement to follow all safety and health guidelines. If instructors find they have a student in their class or outside of class that, after a warning, continues to violate the compact, instructors should file a notice of violation via the Safety Net Reporting form, located on the Clarkson Intranet Site https://cm.maxient.com/reportingform.php?ClarksonUniv&layout_id=1
4. Academic Affairs and Student Affairs are collaborating to offer focused events and activities on two days this Fall to provide students a chance to decompress and de-stress (faculty and staff too!). To provide students with breaks during fall semester, since we have no formal fall break, we ask that instructors build break days into their syllabus. Faculty do not have to cancel class, rather we ask that faculty consider alternative activities such as outdoor class, hands-on learning, etc. Each day will have a theme and so perhaps tying the theme to lecture that day could work. The dates for ‘break’ are Friday, September 25th and Thursday, October 22nd. More to come.
5. In response to the modified Fall 2020 academic calendar including twenty minutes between class periods and ending the semester prior to Thanksgiving break, evening exams for fall 2020 must be temporarily eliminated to prevent student time conflicts and to promote student achievement. Administration of evening exams may only be scheduled by Provost Exception, on a case by case basis, by emailing apickeri@clarkson.edu.
Your patience as we align all these moving parts is greatly appreciated. Please know, sincerely, you can reach out directly to me with any questions or concerns you may have.
-Robyn Hannigan
Provost