With the fall semester halfway complete, University of Michigan leaders are looking to the campus community for feedback and guidance as they make important decisions for the winter 2021 semester.
During the weekly COVID-19 briefing to campus Oct. 16, Provost Susan M. Collins outlined the university’s planned outreach efforts, including a brief anonymous survey for instructional faculty and graduate student instructors launching Oct. 19.
The goal is to gather information from all Ann Arbor campus instructors on the challenges, opportunities, successes and drawbacks they have experienced throughout the pandemic, Collins said.
The survey, conducted in collaboration with the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs, also will ask instructors about their preferences for teaching in the winter term, resources that could help fellow instructors and challenges to work-life balance, she said.
“We deeply value your input and hope that every instructor will respond to this extremely important survey,” Collins said.
The survey launches Oct. 19 and concludes Oct. 22.
A separate survey to collect student experiences went out Oct. 16 to all enrolled students on the Ann Arbor campus. The anonymous survey asks students to share their thoughts about the fall term to help university leaders best determine how to fulfill the university’s educational mission this winter.
Questions cover topics that include course formats, academic workload, technology, public health practices and student well-being.
The student survey is being conducted by the Office of Student Life Assessment and Research and will be open until noon Oct. 20.
Collins said administrators also are interested in gathering input from university staff, whom she described as “the backbone of our teaching enterprise.”
The university is conducting targeted outreach with staff members now and will implement broader measures to collect staff feedback in the coming weeks, she said.
Winter term classes will begin Jan. 19, following the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Jan. 18. The later start this year will allow more time to implement any needed public health protocols, give students a longer break and provide instructors additional time to plan before classes begin. Spring recess will be eliminated, and final exams will run April 22-29.
