December 21, 2020
Colleagues,
As fall semester draws to a close, I want you to be among the first to know that the IFC Executive Committee has endorsed the designation of two wellness days in the Spring 2021 Academic Calendar. This carefully considered decision was made after a review of student feedback about the fall semester, a discussion of impact on instructional contact hours, and a review of what other institutions are planning. These two days—Tuesday, February 23 and Wednesday, March 24—were carefully chosen. They will serve to break up the semester without creating a long weekend that might generate opportunities for viral transmission. In addition, for the majority of faculty, only one class session per course will be affected.
I am aware that instructors may find it challenging to adjust class schedules to accommodate these days, but certainly we can all appreciate how much students need this break. We have the flexibility in our spring calendar to accommodate these days while meeting our instructional contact hour expectations for all sessions except for those that are 13-week. Unless you are teaching in a 13-week session, I ask that you not assign any work nor hold any classes on these days. Please designate these dates as Wellness Days on your syllabi and encourage students to participate in optional programming being planned to reduce stress and promote health and wellness.
For those of you teaching 13-week sessions, I ask that you make the content you would have offered on these days available to students via some asynchronous mechanism, while encouraging them to take these days off. This allows you to deliver the necessary content for your courses and satisfy the expectations of our accreditors for instructional contact hours, while also creating a break for our students.
You are balancing many competing priorities and a change to the calendar at this point in the year may be challenging. Please know this change will send a message to our undergraduate, graduate, and professional students that we have heard their concerns and that we care about their health and wellness.
Sincerely,
Margaret R. Ferguson, Ph.D.
Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Professor of Political Science
