COVID-19 Communications
Dear campus community,
As spring break ends, we want to acknowledge that we have never experienced a public health crisis of this magnitude in modern times. First and foremost, it is important to remember that all of us are in this together.
The shelter-in-place and stay-at-home orders in effect in Sonoma County and the state of California aim to protect the public health by containing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. We cannot emphasize enough how important it is to follow these orders.
We also must follow the basic hygiene recommendations (wash your hands frequently for 20 seconds) and social distancing requirements (six feet between people). The good news about COVID-19 is that simple washing with soap and water for 20 seconds will kill the virus on our hands. By socially distancing, staying at home, and hand washing for 20 seconds we have the power to protect ourselves, our communities, and our loved ones.
Due to the increasing spread of COVID-19, the Library will close for the rest of the semester starting Wednesday, March 25 at 5 p.m. Until then, there will be limited access with limited staffing from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. for students to check out laptops on a first-come, first-served basis. Faculty may also access necessary resources during this time.
Faculty have a process to pick up necessary teaching materials until Wednesday at 5 p.m. In the interest of public health, all faculty must follow the school sign-up process to access offices. Given the rapidly changing circumstances regarding COVID-19, technology-assisted classrooms will be available only through Wednesday, March 25, at 5 p.m. for faculty to record lectures or perform other activities. Please contact your dean if you have questions.
After 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 25, SSU will be locking down most of its buildings with the exception of the first floor of the Student Center and residence halls. Students who need to use the Student Health Center must call ahead.
Remote classes begin on March 24 (Tuesday). We have created extensive resources for our students and faculty to transition to remote teaching and learning. Our Faculty Center staff and faculty peer mentors are working hard to support this transition. The Academic Affairs COVID-19 Info Hub also has many resources.
Academic Advising, CAPS, tutoring, and other student support services are available remotely for students.
Because SSU has transitioned to fully remote instruction and postponed Commencement, we are encouraging all campus residents who can move home safely to do so. Students who move out by March 31 will get a housing, parking, and meal plan refund. County officials are aware that Sonoma State is encouraging campus residential students move home safely, and they support this activity as a means of protecting the public health. It is safer for our students to visit the campus once in order to move out than it is for them to return to the university and live in the residential community long term. For public health reasons, students who choose to remain on campus will be relocated in an effort to increase social distancing. Messages to students are posted here.
Staff who need to pick up necessary items from their offices are encouraged to work directly with their supervisors to schedule a safe time to come to campus. SSU is working hard to minimize the number of required essential on-site staff. We recognize these are challenging times, so we encourage staff who are seeking an accommodation or other support to reach out either to their supervisor or directly to Renee.Senander@sonoma.edu.
Social distancing of six feet between people will be required at all times on campus to ensure we protect public health. Please remember that the safest place for you to be is in your home.
These are indeed unprecedented times, and we are all in this together. Thank you for helping SSU protect the health and safety of our entire community while we continue to educate and support our students.
Sincerely,
Lisa Vollendorf, Provost
Wm. Gregory Sawyer, Vice President for Student Affairs
To maintain health and safety, the campus Emergency Operations Center (EOC) has worked with the Faculty Center and academic leadership to develop two processes to assist you in moving to remote teaching and learning.
Please know that we anticipate a time when the public health crisis may cause SSU to limit people’s access to their offices. Also, it is important to know that faculty offices have not been appropriately sanitized and we cannot guarantee that they will be given the shelter-in-place order.
As such, we are implementing the following processes:
- Process to pick up teaching and learning materials from your office or lab quickly and efficiently.
- Sign-up process to use classrooms in Salazar Hall for remote teaching and learning. Classrooms are available only for faculty who absolutely need classroom access to film lectures or conduct other activities.
Sonoma State has many resources to assist you and your students:
- The Faculty Center has instructional design resources for teaching remotely. See their Teaching Through Disruptions web page.
- Academic Affairs has faculty, student, and parent resources available at the COVID-19 - Academic Affairs Info Hub.
- The IT Help Desk is available for technical questions by phone at 4-HELP. We are working on extended hours for the IT Help Desk and will update you as more information becomes available.
PICK UP TEACHING AND LEARNING MATERIALS
Guidelines
- Pick-up must be pre-scheduled to occur Monday, March 23, Tuesday, March 24, and Wednesday, March 25, between the hours of 8:00am and 5:00pm. Academic buildings will be locked outside of regular business hours.
- All CDC recommendations for health and safety remain in effect, including social distancing and limiting gathering.
- Deans will send out a spreadsheet sign-up process. Please make sure you sign up for a two-hour time slot. We can allow no more than 10 faculty per school per time slot. If you need more time, please work with your dean.
Process
Deans will contact faculty to provide a sign-up process in time slots of two hours. Faculty are limited to ONE two hour-long time slot during the three-day period. If you need additional time, please coordinate with your dean. School offices will be open and staffed by one person during those 3 days.
CLASSROOM SIGN-UP GUIDELINES AND PROCESS
Guidelines
- For your safety, a limited number of classrooms in Salazar Hall have been sanitized and are available for faculty who absolutely need classroom access to film lectures or conduct other activities. The expectation is that most learning activities will be done remotely, off-site, and asynchronously.
- To ensure equitable access to the classroom space, faculty may only sign up for one two-hour period per week.
Process
Faculty who need to sign up for a classroom in Salazar Hall should email Dennis Goss at dennis.goss@sonoma.edu. Please provide your name and your preferred date and time for a two-hour time block. Scheduling will be on the hour starting at 8 a.m. until 5 pm. He will assign a classroom to you.
We recognize you may have questions, so we encourage you to work with your dean and your chair.
Thank you for continuing to help us navigate these difficult circumstances.
Dear Faculty and Staff in Academic Affairs,
I want to start by expressing my deep gratitude for all you are doing to help all of us at Sonoma State navigate this extremely difficult – and frankly frightening – public health crisis.
COVID-19 is unprecedented in modern times. I know all of you are doing the very best you can to stay healthy, protect public health, and respond to an extremely dynamic situation. By this time, almost all of us are under shelter-in-place orders. Thank you for observing those orders and protecting our community.
I know that the shelter-in-place orders introduce an extremely stressful situation for everyone, and most particularly for people with children and other caregiving responsibilities. I know, too, that those in high-risk groups are living with real uncertainty and anxiety. Please know that faculty and staff who feel they need to take leave or seek an accommodation can contact the appropriate person (Renee Senander in Human Resources or Sally Russo in Faculty Affairs) as per our usual procedures.
Also, please see our Academic Affairs COVID-19 Site for more information, including a new Resources for Parents page.
The Faculty Center continues to provide workshops and support to help faculty transition to remote teaching and learning on March 24. As you saw from the President’s message, we now have planned for the entire semester to be delivered remotely.
Having a shelter-in-place order means that we are required by law to limit our movement around the county. Protecting the health and safety of our campus community must be our first priority.
We are recommending that faculty teach off-site asynchronously to enable more flexibility both for faculty and students. This also functions to limit people’s movement during this severe public health crisis. In asynchronous courses, faculty convey course materials and give assignments with a deadline and students are able to complete their work in their own time rather than at scheduled class times.
Deans will contact all faculty in their schools to delineate processes for returning to campus to pick up teaching materials on March 23-25 (Monday-Wednesday). A limited number of technology-assisted classrooms will be available for those who absolutely need classroom access to film lectures or conduct other activities. Given the dynamic nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is possible that SSU will be required to severely limit access to buildings in the coming weeks. This is another reason that we strongly encourage faculty to engage in remote teaching off-site to the extent possible. Most of all, this will protect you and your family as COVID-19 continues to spread through the community. Instructions about how to proceed will follow soon from the deans.
We have a whole team of people working 24/7 to support this major shift in approach to education this semester. Please do not hesitate to reach out to Academic Programs, Faculty Affairs, Deans, Chairs, the Faculty Center, and faculty leadership with questions or concerns. And please feel free to reach out directly to me as we continue to find our way through this very difficult time.
I am deeply grateful to all of you for the compassion you bring to your work and to our students. I am proud to work with all of you at Sonoma State as I do believe we put empathy and integrity first, especially in challenging times.
With warm wishes and deep gratitude,
Lisa Vollendorf, Provost
Dear Faculty and Staff in Academic Affairs,
I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone on our staff and faculty for continuing to help us maintain academic continuity under these difficult circumstances.
Please know that everything we are stating right now might change later today or tomorrow. These are indeed challenging times for our university, our community, our nation, and our world. Thank you for helping Sonoma State be as good as we can possibly be throughout the COVID-19 crisis.
As promised, please find a list of resources and advice compiled with the collaboration and input of many people both on campus and off to help us transition to remote instruction in the smoothest manner possible.
TEACHING REMOTELY
Academic Affairs has created a Faculty Resources Guide that provides general guidance to faculty related to instruction. This document will change regularly as the situation changes and as we field additional questions. If you have thoughts about how we can improve the document, please email academicprograms@sonoma.edu, and we will be happy to receive your feedback.
FACULTY CENTER
The Faculty Center remains open to serve our faculty with any/all requests to help as faculty transition to remote instruction for at least the next few weeks. We are on standby to assist with: 1) Canvas LMS (assignments, communication, grading, and exams), 2) Zoom (for holding live class meetings), and 3) Yuja (for recording video and distributing on Canvas). We have a wealth of resources on our Teaching Through Disruptions guide for assistance with teaching remotely. Think about how you will communicate with students, how you will collect and distribute assignments, and how you will inform students about grades. Canvas makes a lot of this very easy and simple.
We are taking active measures to ensure the health and safety of our employees and the faculty we serve.
Faculty seeking assistance should first call 707-664-2659 or email faculty.center@sonoma.edu (8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday-Friday) to see how we can help with your request. If you want to come to the Faculty Center in person, please call ahead and make an appointment first rather than just coming in, so we can assure appropriate social distancing.
Faculty may also check out our online Zoom Meeting Room, which will be staffed beginning Monday morning during regular hours. Canvas phone support is available 24/7 at 1-833-263-0708.
Effective immediately, workshops will be done primarily online using Zoom. These have their own Workshop Zoom Meeting Room. For the time being, we will continue to offer in-person options for those who prefer it, but to ensure appropriate social distancing, we are capping workshop participation at five (5) in-person participants. You must RSVP to attend if interested.
Finally, we have a group of SSU faculty peer consultants that has offered to help you with addressing pedagogical concerns or getting up and running with Canvas, Zoom, or other common SSU teaching tools. Take a look at the list, find a colleague in your school, and send them an email to arrange a consultation over the phone or online.
PEDAGOGY IN THE TIME OF COVID-19
Keeping in touch with students is vital right now. Please continue to let students know about changes in deadlines, assignments, procedures, and broader course expectations. Early and frequent communication can ease student anxiety and save you from dealing with individual questions. Keep these principles in mind (borrowed from CSU San Marcos):
● Communicate early and often: Let students know about syllabus and assignment changes as early as possible, even if all the details aren't in place yet, and let them know when they can expect more specific information. Don't swamp them with email, but consider matching the frequency of your messages with that of changes in class activities and/or updates to the broader crisis at hand (For example, if remote teaching is extended, what will students need to know related to your course?).
● Set expectations: Let students know how you plan to communicate with them and how often. Tell students both how often you expect them to check their email and how quickly they can expect your response.
● Manage your communications load: send messages to all students in a course at the same time. If you have suggestions for messages that should go out to all students in the major, contact your department chair. If you have suggestions for messages that should go out to all undergraduates or graduate students, contact academicprograms@sonoma.edu.
This teaching environment is unprecedented, so cut yourself some slack and breathe. Here are some further thoughts on how to focus your teaching (adapted from Queen’s College):
● This is not online learning -- this is triage. You won't replicate what you do in person in a remote or virtual mode overnight. Teaching online well takes time and training, so think small and triage. Can you communicate with students? Share resources? Communicate grades?
● Talk to the Faculty Center and the peer experts available to you now. Don’t wait.
● Prioritize: what do students really need to know? You absolutely can’t do it all (and shouldn’t try).
● Take account of access issues: students may not have a computer or access to sufficient bandwidth at home. Many will only be working via a phone.
● Be prepared to relax expectations, reduce course work, and lighten the load during this crisis.
● Use campus-provided tools. These are things we can help you with. Vendors want to make quick sales right now. The Canvas LMS is sufficient to do nearly anything you might need, and students already know how to use it. Don't try to train students by yourself.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR FACULTY
In addition to the Faculty Center, you can reach out to your department chairs, associate deans, and deans with specific questions about teaching remotely, about student issues, and about your needs during this unprecedented situation. They stand ready to assist and will be available on campus and remotely. Similarly, faculty leaders in the Academic Senate have made themselves available for support and assistance, so please do not hesitate to reach out.
Academic Programs and Faculty Affairs are fully staffed and available both on campus and remotely for questions about curriculum and instruction, faculty workload, RTP questions, policy issues, enrollment issues, and general support for faculty and students.
With sincere thanks,
Lisa Vollendorf, Provost
Dear Faculty and Academic Affairs Staff,
As we make our way through the evolving COVID-19 health crisis, we are committed to communicating with the division to share what we know as of this time.
Please keep in mind that this global health situation is truly unprecedented, so the recommendations we are making are based on the best-known information at the time of the communication. Things are changing quickly, so we will communicate as frequently as needed to ensure we are maintaining open lines of communication.
As we shift to remote instruction in this unprecedented situation, please know how much we appreciate each and every one of you.
Please know that the message sent out to employees by HR yesterday (March 15, 2020) stated that ALL employees age 65 and over would be placed on administrative leave as appropriate effective immediately. The message should have stated that the leave requirement does not apply to faculty 65 and over because: (1) this week is spring break, so faculty technically are not on duty; and (2) all faculty already are transitioning to remote instruction. The only exception to this is faculty on 12-month contracts (of which SSU has very few).
Faculty who are 65 and over are required, as per the Chancellor’s Office mandate in accordance with Governor Newsom’s declaration, to stay away from campus. If you need help procuring teaching materials or other items from your office or elsewhere on campus, please contact your chair and dean so they can assist in finding a way to get necessary items to you. Please note that the Faculty Center is making workshops available via Zoom so everyone has access regardless of where they are.
Clearly, the COVID-19 global health crisis continues to evolve. For the most up-to-date information regarding Sonoma State’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, please visit our SSU coronavirus FAQ page.
Please know that there are still no confirmed cases of COVID-19 at Sonoma State University. Sonoma State continues to respond to the coronavirus threat with the goal of keeping our campus community safe while allowing our students to continue their education.
In keeping with the recommendations of public health officials, we are conducting business in ways that provide for appropriate social distancing. These efforts include teaching classes remotely, canceling large events, and providing virtual resources. To date, we have determined it is safe to keep the campus open. As you can see from changing mandates from the federal, state, and CSU system levels, we will continue to adapt to this shifting environment as required and needed.
As per prior announcements about instruction:
● All face-to-face classes will remain suspended on Monday, March 23 to facilitate the transition to remote instruction.
● All classes, both undergraduate and graduate, will be conducted remotely beginning Tuesday, March 24 through Sunday, April 19. The campus will make a decision by Wednesday, April 8 about the rest of the semester.
● Labs will be conducted remotely or by alternate means.
● Internships, practica, clinicals, and field work will be conducted remotely, if possible, with very limited exceptions to be approved only by deans.
I will send out a separate message soon with recommendations and resources aimed at helping everyone in Academic Affairs continue to adapt in this time of uncertainty. We have dozens of people working hard to help us protect the health and safety of our community while also ensuring academic continuity.
I am grateful to our collaborative approach to working together and being the best we can be as an educational community.
With sincere gratitude for all you are doing to keep yourself healthy and to serve our students in this challenging time,
Lisa Vollendorf, Provost
Dear SSU Faculty,
As you saw in President Sakaki's message today, we are suspending face-to-face classes for tomorrow, Thursday, March 12, Friday, March 13, and Monday, March 23. If you teach a face-to-face class and were planning online activities (such as a quiz), those activities need to be suspended because all face-to-face classes are suspended.
This will give faculty who do not teach online currently the chance to prepare to teach classes remotely should the need arise.
We have many resources posted on our Faculty Center website and also many workshops running to help faculty adopt to this new situation.
All online classes remain in session during this time.
If you have any questions whatsoever, please consult with your chair, dean, the Faculty Center, Academic Programs, Faculty Affairs, or faculty leadership.
We are all here to support you during this unprecedented public health crisis.
Should the university have to make the decision to suspend face-to-face instruction for a longer period, we will notify you as soon as possible.
Finally, I want to thank you for all you do to support our students and deliver high-quality, impactful instruction at SSU. I am proud to work with each and every one of you.
With sincere thanks,
Lisa Vollendorf, Provost