Dean's Community Message

March 13, 2020 (Faculty/Staff)

Dear College of Engineering Community,

As you know, this is a time of incredible uncertainty and transition across the country and around the world. Thank you for your continued patience and flexibility as we navigate our path forward here in the College of Engineering and across Penn State.

As we move to remote learning for all classes on Monday, I want to reach out to emphasize that the safety and well-being of our community is of utmost importance. If you believe that you are symptomatic, contact your doctor immediately. The Centers for Disease Control provides guidance on symptoms to look for. Please prioritize your health and wellness. That — and that alone — is what matters most at this time.

For additional information about Penn State’s COVID-19 response including extensive FAQs, please visit the University’s informational website, which is being updated regularly. The College of Engineering’s COVID-19 site provides college-specific information and resources. It too will be updated regularly. The college has convened a COVID-19 Response Team. Questions and concerns can be sent directly to the team at L-COE_CORONA_CRISIS_TEAM@ENGR.PSU.EDU.

Additionally, I would like to highlight a few critical pieces of information. Separately, I also reached out to our students with information; so we are all aware of the same information, you have been cc’ed on that email as well. We are aiming at full transparency, while also trying to not overwhelm you with emails.

Faculty/Instructors

Penn State leadership has provided updated guidance, which is attached. Please review as this addresses the expectation that courses be delivered synchronously, links to a new remote learning website and a remote teaching website, and provides guidance on visiting scholars, faculty searches, and other information. Additionally, the college’s Office of Digital Learning has created a site about teaching remotely in response to specific consultations with faculty and department heads in COE. Please note that as we transition to remote learning, it is critical that time that your class is offered does not change.

Possible options to carry out remote synchronous teaching are:

  • Create a Zoom room and invite all students to join at the scheduled time.
    • Transmit lectures and discussion in real time.
    • Make sure you record the session for later viewing for students who could not attend or need to review.
    • At the beginning of the class period, announce to students that they are being recorded.
    • Resources for teaching on Zoom or Kaltura are available.
    • A good practice is to use the Zoom chat feature for real-time feedback from students. The chat can be saved in order to answer student questions after the class has met.
  • Record your lectures and have students watch them prior to the class meeting time. Then, during scheduled class time, hold live discussions about the content in Canvas. The key is that there is delivery during the scheduled class time, and faculty will need to be available in a chat room to answer questions in real time.
  • Assessments: Faculty can develop alternative assessment plans. These should be communicated early to students and detailed in an updated syllabus.

Options for remote proctoring systems are currently being explored. More information will be shared once this is made available.

For questions about delivery of courses, please contact your department head, undergraduate coordinators, or Peter Butler (Deb King: dry1@psu.edu).

The Leonhard Center and the Office for Digital Learning have also assembled guidance for continuing laboratory education in the coming weeks. It, too, is attached.

Staff

The college is committed to accommodating teleworking opportunities during this period. There should NOT be any moment where you feel that you must place yourself at risk. Although it is an option to not work remotely, it is strongly encouraged to telework whenever possible. The purpose is to minimize the probability of exposure for all of our personnel, and we have a responsibility to do our best to implement all measures to minimize risk. In all cases, I ask that you and everyone in your organization exercise extreme caution and not come to campus if not feeling well or are aware of any potential contact with the novel coronavirus or anyone with COVID-19. If a staff employee feels they have a need to work from their campus location, please reach out to Matt Zerphy (mxz206@psu.edu) directly to discuss; final approval however will remain with me. We have set the expectation that everyone should abide by social distancing and everyone should exemplify that no matter your role.

It is expected that within your area you and your organization’s managers will work together to arrange for telework arrangements, if applicable.

Please work closely with our IT groups in order to be fully functional from home. If laptops are not available, areas should consider providing desktop computers/monitors. If assistance is needed, you or your supervisor should reach out to Matt or the College IT team (support@engr.psu.edu).

These items should tracked within the department and returned when telework arrangements conclude.

Office phone lines should be transferred to the appropriate individuals. Online directions are available. There are also alternative ways to forward phones, such as utilizing the app JABBER. If you choose to use JABBER, you must submit the request through the IT Help Portal in order for it to be functional. Please do not assume that the forwarding works; please test the set-up.

Appropriate signage should be displayed throughout the departments with contact information during this teleworking stage. Signage should not indicate that offices are closed in any way. An example of signage is attached. Staff should be reachable during normal working hours unless they have received approved time off requests from their managers.

Reminder: All non-essential events are cancelled or postponed through April 6, regardless of size of the event.

Tech Service Employees

TS employees who do not have regular work available due to the number of faculty, staff, and students who are engaging in remote activities can be temporarily transferred to alternate work and receive their regular rate of pay. In the event that you are assigning alternate work be mindful to provide proper education and PPE on how to safely perform the work. We should be mindful of requests from employees who self-identify as being at greater risk (based on CDC guidelines) and considering work assignments that present a reduced risk.

New Hires

At this time, the number of on-boarding sessions being scheduled by HR Shared Services is being reduced, but the process will remain the same where candidates receive contact from HR Shared Services to schedule. If you have part-time non-academic new hires it may be prudent to delay their start date.

Moving forward, I will personally provide daily email updates to the College of Engineering. If at any point there is something urgent, I will not delay in sharing that.

Once again, thank you for your understanding as we build out the resources needed to help support our community. Please know that our primary focus in on the health and well-being of our entire Penn State family — staff, faculty, students, post-docs, visitors — everyone. We are committed to continuing to meet our important missions of research, teaching and service, but above all else we are committed to each other.

Justin Schwartz
Harold and Inge Marcus Dean, College of Engineering