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RECAST | WEEK 8 Resources & Reminders

by · November 17, 2020

From: Academic Deans <deans@evergreen.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2020 7:56 AM

Fall 2020 Week 8  

Resources and Reminders 

Highlights 

  • Academic Fair 
  • COVID Updates 
  • Power Outages  
  • Closing out Quarter/Incompletes 

Dear Hard-Working Colleagues: 

We are moving toward the finish line on fall quarter. Please check some guidelines below for finishing out well and ensuring as much clarity and support for student success as possible!  

Academic Fair.  Academic Fair for winter quarter is coming up!Please make sure you have Wednesday, December 2nd from 4 to 6 pm on your calendars and plan to attend this important event. The Academic Fair will once again be held in a virtual/online/Zoom environment.  At the request of the Agenda Committee, we are trying a different format this quarter. Faculty will set up their own zoom meetings for the fair. Our friends in academic technologies have been nice enough to put together a guide to help you quickly set up your meetings with the settings that are most appropriate for this type of event. See:  Schedule a Zoom Meeting via the Web Portal 

COVID update. Governor Inslee has called for four weeks of tightening up our social practices. You can view the updated list here. The pandemic continues to be dynamic, not static, and as science and public health guidance advances expect to see incremental change in the College’s health and safety protocols, and in your roles and responsibilities. Please read all COVID-related email and check regularly for updates at: https://sites.evergreen.edu/covid19/ 

As the number of cases in Thurston and Pierce Counties rises, we can expect to see more cases among students and employees. To minimize the risk of transmission on either campus, work from home to the greatest extent possible and follow all guidance in the College and specific activity safety plans: https://sites.evergreen.edu/covid19/safety-plans/ 

Please be sure that you understand the Reporting and Response protocols: https://sites.evergreen.edu/covid19/reporting-and-response/ These protocols balance health privacy with appropriate fact finding. The system in place has worked well thanks to our amazing incident responders/fact finders. We ask that you respond quickly if they reach out to you, and refrain from distracting them when they are busy reaching out to others. 

Scheduling reminder: To prevent any COVID spread as a result of holiday travel, there will be no in-person sessions for any course or program after Thanksgiving. 

Power outages and other disruptions. Please make sure that you are signed up for emergency text notifications by logging into your Omnialert/E2Campus account. This is the best way to receive notifications about the status of campus and college operations. 

If you are working remotely, make a plan for a power outage at home. If the power outage is not widespread, the college may continue to operate. Faculty teaching remotely should have a plan to communicate with students in the event that you need to cancel class. 

To aid in planning for a weather event, Computing and Communications has created a page with information on computing resources during power and internet outages.  

 We encourage you to develop a contingency plan with your students that includes a back-up mode of emergency communication and clear ways students can carry on with work, even when synchronous meeting is not possible. Please review this handy set up guidelines from the Learning and Teaching Commons: https://sites.evergreen.edu/ltc/continuity/. The hope, of course, is that all students have equal access to earning their credits even if they don’t have equal access to the power and wifi they need! 

END OF QUARTER REMINDERS 

Self-Evaluations by Students 

  • Students are required to write a self-evaluation for each program they take, and this self-evaluation should be “turned in” through my.evergreen.edu.  
  • Students are not obliged to post self-evaluations to their transcript.  

 Faculty Evaluations by Students 

  • Students have a right to submit feedback privately, visible to faculty only after evaluations and credits have been posted.   
  • Please note: a practice in the past was for faculty to ask students to bring their faculty eval to conferences and read it out loud; this is no longer a common practice. In order to preserve a fair and equitable evaluation process, please do not ask students to submit faculty evaluations to you before they have been evaluated. 

 Awarding Incompletes. We encourage you to offer incompletes with care.  The way you submit an incomplete can be supportive or the oppositive of supportive, depending on context, rationale, and your follow through. Given the pandemic, potential obstacles from power outage or tech snafu, etc, there are strong reasons to be flexible with time, and one option may be to record an incomplete during evaluation week AND federal financial aid regulations require students to complete incomplete work within 30 days, which in turn creates a faculty responsibility to assess the work and complete the final eval within those 30 days. The financial impact on students can be devastating if your evaluation of student work arrives late. Please be sure to close the loop and post INC credits as soon as possible after work is turned in.  

Thank you, thank you for all you do to create kind, equitable learning spaces.  

Your Deans 

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