June 9, 2020
This message is intended for faculty at IUPUI, IU Fort Wayne, and IUPUC.
Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Academic Officer
Dear Colleagues,
As we shifted away from almost everything “normal” about the spring semester at IUPUI, IUPUC, and IU Fort Wayne, our colleagues in the Office of Institutional Research and Decision Support (IRDS) were working very hard to glean as much information as possible from the experiences of students and faculty. The first report on the student experience was shared last week with deans, and I’m pleased to share it with you as well as data that have been disaggregated by whether students were pursuing undergraduate versus graduate degrees. You can find both reports here. Special thanks to the IUPUI Faculty Council Executive Committee for suggesting that this survey be conducted and for advocating strongly that it should be shared with all educators across all of our schools at this time.
I believe that it is important to reflect upon the feedback of our students so that we might better empathize with them, particularly our students coping with staggering financial, health, and personal stressors. Ultimately this feedback should be held in mind as we prepare to make shifts in how we continue to deliver aspects of students’ education remotely next year. As just one example of an actionable insight from the survey, I was surprised to learn that access to computers or tablets was much less of a problem than access to a reliable, high-speed internet connection. This created troubling disparities in how students were able to engage in interactions with their classmates and professors, and negatively impacted their experiences with timed, proctored exams. As a result, we are working deliberately to create safe environments for proctored testing on campus in order to help address this issue.
A complementary report focused on the faculty experience will be shared with you a bit later this summer. I also wanted to remind everyone that we are maintaining and regularly updating a faculty FAQ list based on the many excellent questions that have poured in since we announced the plans for next year. Please keep the questions coming!
Sincerely,
Kathy E. Johnson, Ph.D.
Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Academic Officer
Professor of Psychology
