Dean's Community Message

March 27, 2020

Dear College of Engineering Community,

We’re closing out week two of social distancing and remote learning. As we settle into our current new “normal,” I urge you to connect digitally. This is a marathon, and we need caring checkpoints to ensure we make it to the finish line. Today’s quote, submitted by Christa Watschke, an instructional designer in continuing education, reflects this idea. After the isolation ends, we may not remember specific actions of each day, but we’ll certainly remember our sense of community.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
—Maya Angelou

Remember, you can connect directly with me LinkedIn, and you can follow the college on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Here are today’s updates:

Zoom Meetings on Academic Integrity and Remote Assessments

The Directors of the Leonhard Center, the Office for Digital Learning, and the Academic Integrity Office will host Zoom meetings to answer your questions about academic integrity and to allow you to share ideas about how best to adjust your academic integrity plan for remote assessments. These meetings will be held on Tuesday, March 31, from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. and Wednesday, April 1, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Before joining one of the Zoom meetings, please review this short guide that is designed to help faculty develop academic integrity plans for remote assessments.

Follow Up Regarding Undergraduate Grading

We have received several questions regarding the updates to the University grading system. Faculty should submit letter grades as though there is no change. Undergraduate students have one week after grades are submitted to take the letter grade or to switch to the new categorization system. Regarding ABET accreditation, there is no conflict of SA/UN grading with accreditation criteria or ABET’s policies. Since SA/UN grading will have no effect on accreditation of our programs, the SA/UN grading presents no conflict with requirements for students who wish to pursue licensure. We expect to have details on graduate student grading in the near future.

Cisco Jabber Communications Tool for Faculty and Staff

Cisco Jabber is available to all University faculty and staff. The communications tool allows users to make or receive calls associated with your University number from virtually anywhere, initiate chats or calls directly from contact lists on Office365 Outlook meetings or emails, listen to and/or forward voicemail messages, transition calls between devices, transfer calls to colleagues, conference in colleagues, and more. If you are interested in setting up this tool, visit the IT website to submit a request form.

Employee FAQ

To help clarify employee expectations and responsibilities, the University has created an employee FAQ that is updated as the situation evolves. Recent updates include the clarification that employees who can work from home should plan to continue to work from home through the spring semester. For individual questions, please continue to work with your direct supervisor.

Remember, additional information is available on the University’s informational site as well as the College of Engineering resources site. Please continue to reach out with questions and comments to L-COE_CORONA_CRISIS_TEAM@engr.psu.edu.

I hope you all have a healthy and happy weekend!

Justin Schwartz
Harold and Inge Marcus Dean, College of Engineering