Dean's Community Message

March 24, 2020

Dear College of Engineering Community,

I hope you are doing well! I wanted to start off with our quote of the day, which was submitted by Kathryn W. Jablokow, Professor of Engineering Design, Technology and Professional Programs. Please continue to send us your quotes!

“Do not worry why problems exist in the world — just respond to people’s needs.”
—Mother Teresa

This one reminded me of so many across our community who have been stepping up, and stepping in, in ways both big and small, even as the world around us struggles to confront the COVID-19 challenge. Thank you for all you are doing and the strength you are showing. It is truly inspiring! This also reminds me — and I want to remind ALL of you — that in this time of physical isolation, we don’t always see each others’ needs. So if you are in need — in any way — please reach out. WE ARE here to help. We remain a community.

Today’s updates:


Town Halls Follow-Up

Two sessions were hosted by Penn State leaders earlier today, one for faculty and staff and another for students and families. If you were unable to tune into these live sessions, archived recordings will be available at liveevents.psu.edu. Many topics were addressed during the town halls, with hundreds of questions submitted and dozens answered. We will work in upcoming Daily Community Messages to highlight specifics, provide clarifications, and address questions from across our engineering community. I did want to address one topic, in particular:

Critical Hires

Per the Provost’s announcement at the town hall today, all hiring is on hold without explicit prior approval. Permission to hire that was granted before today must be requested again if formal offers have not yet been made. The college will receive all requests, and if approved by me, will be submitted by the College to the Provost’s office for final approval. This applies to all hiring (faculty, staff, hourly, post-doc, etc.) regardless of funding source, with the exception of Graduate Student assistantships. More details on the request process will be forthcoming ASAP.


Timing of Promotion and Tenure Decisions

Penn State will be extending the provisional tenure period starting with the 2020-2021 academic year for all faculty in their pre-tenure probationary period, as defined in University policy AC23. This stay in the provisional tenure period will not count toward the two-stay limit. Any faculty members wanting to go through the tenure process “on time” (i.e., at their previously scheduled time) may do so without requesting permission for early-tenure consideration. The University will be providing more guidance in the coming weeks regarding the implementation of this change.


Visiting Scholar Process

The following guidance was provided by Kathleen J. Bieschke, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs:

Moratorium on New Applications

Based on the recent U.S. Department of State Global Health Advisory and Visa service suspension, Penn State will not be accepting new visiting scholar applications, effective immediately and until further notice. This moratorium applies to both domestic and international visiting scholars. Applications currently in the system will not be approved.

Extensions for Current Visiting Scholars

If a visitor was previously scheduled to depart prior to the July 1, 2020, but has requested to extend their stay past this date due to the COVID-19 pandemic, an extension request must be submitted in DocFinity. Please work with the staff in your unit responsible for submitting the visiting scholar requests. Questions from your unit regarding extensions and the required documentation should be directed to the dean’s office.

Entering Existing Visiting Scholars Into DocFinity

In light of the moratorium on all applications for Visiting Scholars — domestic and international — until further notice as set forth above, we remind you all existing visitors with a program end date on or after July 1, 2020, must be entered into our visiting scholar tracking system (DocFinity). We recommend that you move forward with entering those scholars into DocFinity immediately.


As always, additional information is available on the University’s informational site and the College of Engineering resources site. Send questions and comments to L-COE_CORONA_CRISIS_TEAM@engr.psu.edu.

Please take care and stay healthy!

Justin Schwartz
Harold and Inge Marcus Dean, College of Engineering