Advisory from Academic Council for summer and beyond

May 1, 2020

Dear University of Oregon Faculty and GEs,

As you have heard by now, the UO will offer summer term 2020 remotely due to the ongoing disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. We are continuing our planning to find ways to support faculty and GEs in this new teaching environment, and to ensure that our students are able to have a positive academic experience at UO.

As part of that planning, the Academic Council, in coordination with the Office of the Provost and the University Senate, has approved expectations for the summer term and beyond. We wanted all faculty and GEs to be aware of these expectations approved by the council in late April, which modify somewhat the expectations for spring term 2020 based on instructional experiences and responses to the spring term.

Highlights for the summer term and beyond include:

  • Expectations approved on March 4 are still in effect, except as modified by these updated expectations.
  • New expectations clearly distinguish between courses that were intended to be online and courses that were intended to be in person.
  • Courses scheduled as in-person courses should have some live engagement with faculty and GEs, and between students during scheduled class time. You can see details in the full document.
  • Reminder to faculty and GEs that Canvas is to be used for all courses to post materials, collect assignments, and post grades.
  • Reminder to faculty and GEs that they may use other FERPA-compliant software to supplement Canvas use. These include the UO licensed versions of Office 365, which includes OneDrive and Teams, Zoom, and Dropbox. More information about acceptable technology tools and software can be found on the Going Remote website.
  • Grading policy adjustments approved for spring term 2020 are continued for summer term 2020.

As we move closer to summer, we will continue to update faculty and GEs about the ongoing resources available to you as you structure your courses. The provost’s Academic Continuity webpage has numerous resources listed to help you, and we will continue sending out our Weekly Teaching Updates via email.

Thank you for your continued work and all that you do to support our academic community members at this difficult and unprecedented time. If you have any questions, please send an email to provost@uoregon.edu.

Elizabeth Skowron
Professor, Psychology, and Senate President

Janet Woodruff-Borden
Executive Vice Provost for Academic Affairs