Dear Colleagues:
All Main Campus faculty members are expected to return to campus in Fall 2021. If a special circumstance prevents faculty members from returning to campus to teach in-person, they may request permission to teach in a fully remote format. This request must be made following consultation with your department Chair, Area Coordinator or Program Director. If you wish to request an exemption from either in-person teaching or returning to campus for the Fall semester, please submit the Request for Exemption to Fall 2021 Return to Campus form by July 20, 2021.
If your request for accommodation falls within the scope of legally recognized accommodations (e.g., personal health or religious), you will be referred to the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Affirmative Action (“IDEAA”) to complete a request (for information about this process, please view the Requesting Accommodations page).
If your request for accommodation falls outside of the scope of legally recognized accommodations, it will be reviewed by your school’s Dean, after consultation with the department/unit head. The Dean will make a recommendation to the Vice Provost for Faculty, who will come to a decision following consultation with a faculty advisory committee composed of three members of the Provostial-MCEF Task Force on Exceptions. Appeals of the Vice Provost decision can be made to the Provost; the Provost’s decision will be final.
Requests are not necessary for courses that are already approved to be taught fully remote or hybrid; courses that were delivered in fully remote or hybrid format prior to March 2020; or in-person courses for which the instructor wishes to deliver < 10% of the meetings online.
Requests for exceptions based on a desire to live outside the area (either in the U.S. or internationally), commuting concerns, issues with the time a course is scheduled or disagreement with the campus public health requirements are unlikely to be successful.
We expect that the number of approvals for exemptions from in-person teaching that fall outside of IDEAA will be very low, and granted only for the most compelling reasons.
We are grateful for our MCEF colleagues’ thoughtful approach to developing this process for our Main Campus faculty. Best wishes for preparations for the upcoming academic year.
Sincerely,
Robert M. Groves
Provost