Support for our Faculty and Students at the Start of Fall Quarter

Dear Colleagues,

We are about to launch into Fall 2020, and into an academic year characterized by uncertainty, unrest, and unprecedented challenges. As the UC San Diego Division of the Academic Senate, we are writing to all faculty and instructors that teach, mentor, and supervise our students, in order to share a message of support and to encourage dialogue as we all try to best navigate these circumstances and to succeed in our academic mission.

As faculty ourselves, we recognize that faculty and instructors are working harder than ever in order to adapt their classes to online, remote, and hybrid forms of instruction. We acknowledge that many of us are experiencing frustration in changing modes of instruction and adapting to the challenges of teaching in a remote environment. While many of us learned a great deal through the experience of teaching remotely in Spring quarter, we also discovered areas where instructor and student priorities may not be aligned, including keeping cameras on in Zoom sessions, and methods and practices of evaluation.

Not surprisingly, many of our students are also struggling with remote instruction. After Spring quarter concluded, the university convened a committee to examine our students’ experience. Among other things, the committee examined data from the University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey (UCUES), which included questions specifically aimed at understanding how our students navigated the remote environment. Several trends emerged, revealing that some students lack adequate academic-related support, including limited access to laptops and WiFi and limited access to quiet and private workspaces. Students also reported competing demands and responsibilities at home that prevented them from being fully engaged in learning. Importantly, these challenges are not felt equally amongst students, but rather heighten existing resource inequalities. International students who attend from their home countries had additional concerns - time zone differences make synchronous content challenging; some internet platforms (e.g. YouTube) may be restricted by their governments; and some controversial course content may make classroom participation uncomfortable for them due to their remote learning situation.

Many of our students are struggling in other ways. Students may be feeling a sense of disappointment and loss - for friends, campus community, extracurricular activities, campus jobs - all while striving to maintain academic excellence in an unfamiliar format. Uncertainty is pervasive, financial impacts are significant, and some students are experiencing compounding stresses.

While there are some tangible solutions to these recognized problems, for example the campus has a program to lend laptops and provide WiFi hotspots, many of these issues are going to continue unabated into this academic year. We are providing this information to give a sense of what our student community may be experiencing, and to provide suggestions on how to best support them. We strongly encourage instructors to keep possible access limitations, infrastructure deficits, and sensitive course content issues in mind when planning and delivering their courses. We encourage instructors to be flexible and be patient with students; perhaps by providing flexibility with deadlines while taking time to acknowledge what a difficult and uncertain time this is. We encourage instructors to talk about COVID-19, our national political strife, pervasive racial inequalities, and what we are all feeling in response. We encourage instructors to check out Strategies for Remote Instruction offered by The Digital Learning Hub at the Teaching + Learning Commons and the instructor resources on the Keep Teaching site. We encourage continued conversations between faculty and instructors to support each other and to exchange tips, share resources, and applaud successes.

Finally, we want to use this opportunity to encourage constructive dialogue between faculty and instructors and the UC San Diego Administration. The UC San Diego Division of the Academic Senate exists to direct the educational function of this campus and to provide faculty advice to both the Regents and the Administration. Towards that goal, we encourage the faculty to further engage with the Academic Senate via their department/division/school’s faculty representatives to the Representative Assembly. More information on the Academic Senate’s response to COVID-19 can be found on our website, which includes a new page detailing the educational policy changes enacted by the Senate in order to accommodate the impacts of COVID-19 on teaching and learning.

Steven Constable
Chair, Academic Senate, San Diego Division

Tara Javidi
Vice Chair, Academic Senate, San Diego Division

Geoff Cook
Chair, Educational Policy Committee

Jane Teranes
Chair, Undergraduate Council

Lynn Russell
Chair, Graduate Council

James Antony
Dean, The Graduate Division

John C. Moore
Dean, Undergraduate Education