A Message from the Provost

Dear Colleagues:

Welcome back to the fall semester. I am writing with a couple of requests and one piece of information for you. Please take a minute to review the entire message.

Initially, I’m asking you to reach out to the students in your classes if you have not already done so. Allow me to suggest you include the following information in your message. First, please attach a copy of your syllabus to the message and while I presume your syllabus specifies what book or books you are using, you may want to mention this directly in your message.

Second, since Bradley is using two learning management systems, please let your students know which platform you plan to use. In order to make things easier for our students, we have made it possible for them to access either Sakai or Canvas classes through their Canvas dashboard. They may log in through this link: bradley.instructure.com. Once they are on their dashboard they will also find a tutorial for using Canvas (it is on the left-hand menu as Help and Training).

Third, it is perhaps most important that you let your students know where they should be on the first day of class. Let students know if they will all be meeting face-to-face on the first day of class or where they are in the rotation if you are rotating students through remote and face-to-face classes. Also, remember that we have a number of students who have opted to be 100 percent remote. You can identify those students through Navigate.

In addition to reaching out to your students, I want to reinforce the importance of maintaining a semester-long seating chart. I realize few if any of you have ever used a seating chart. Such a chart is critical to our ability to conduct contact tracing if and when one of your students tests positive for the virus. If one of your students tests positive, we will ask for seating charts as one of the first ways of identifying who has been in close proximity to an infected student. I am not asking you to assign students to seats, but once they have taken a seat on the first day of class you should insist that it become their seat for the semester. Please take a minute to explain to them that a reliable seating chart may become important if we need to conduct contact tracing in your classroom.

Regarding students who have requested to be fully online. On Friday you will receive an email indicating the students who are in your courses that have been approved for complete remote learning for the semester. You will also receive an email on Tuesday with any updates. This information can also be found through a student's information in Navigate.

I know you have been working hard throughout the summer. I want to thank you for your extraordinary effort to be ready for this academic year. I am grateful for your dedication to the University and to our students.

Walter R. Zakahi
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

–Sent to all Faculty on 08/20/2020