Dear Faculty and Staff Colleagues,
First, let me again thank you for the heroic effort you all made in moving our spring courses to a remote format in a very short, and hectic, period of time. The power of our academic community is inspiring; I’ve seen you all step into uncharted territory and achieve what might have been unthinkable just a few short months ago. Given the constraints we faced, you deserve a round of applause.
We’re now transitioning to the summer term, and are faced with the same uncertainties as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to threaten the health and well-being of our communities. Consequently, the University has decided to continue in an online learning environment for almost all courses offered from May through August of 2020.
You’ve done a commendable job with a remote method of delivery that allowed faculty and students an opportunity to successfully complete the spring term. We now have significant learning and experience to apply to our methods. Moving forward, we will begin creating a more robust and sustainable online educational experience for our students. This move is essential to the university’s retention of our current students and to the successful recruitment of a new class.
To meet this challenge, we’ve made the following decisions for this year’s summer course schedule:
- HYBRID FORMAT: All courses scheduled for summer will be taught via a hybrid online course format.
- TRAINING: Consistent with SACSCOC guidelines for distance learning, summer instructors will
be required to complete training to modify their course to a hybrid course format.
-Training requirements have been streamlined. Most faculty should be able to complete the requirement in a short time period.
-Courses with section numbers 700-999 are exempt from this training requirement. - CALENDAR: We will mostly follow the current summer calendar.
- REGISTRATION: Summer and fall registration will begin April 20.
We will be contacting associate deans and department chairs and providing them a survey tool and asking them to quickly contact faculty who have submitted courses for the summer term and confirm participation. We are also reviewing additional courses that may be suggested to meet particular student needs. As an example, we may to need find alternative courses for students who had planned to study abroad during this time.
As we move toward a hybrid delivery format, course quality will be of the utmost importance. Detailed information concerning training and course design is available from the Koehler Center at: Summer 2020 Distance Learning Instructor Information.
We still have issues to address and questions to answer, so information will continue to flow from our team working on summer school.
Please know that we can’t wait to gather again on-campus as a TCU community. Until that is possible, thank you for creating an online learning environment for our students that is engaging, challenging, and reflects your diligent work, as well as the high academic standards of a Texas Christian University education.
Chancellor Boschini and I have heard from many of you over the past few weeks, and I want to personally thank you for your wit, your resilience and for your grace as we navigate together, these unusual times in the life of our University.
Sincerely,
Teresa
Teresa Abi-Nader Dahlberg
Texas Christian University
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
TCU Box 297040, Fort Worth, TX 76129
dahlberg@tcu.edu