September 15, 2022
Expectations for autumn quarter instruction (Message to Seattle campus instructors)
This message was sent to instructors on the University of Washington’s Seattle campus. Guidance and resources for UW Bothell and UW Tacoma instructors are being shared by leaders on each of those campuses.
Dear colleagues,
In just a few weeks, more than 8,000 incoming undergraduates and transfer students and about 4,500 graduate students will embark on their Husky Experience, while many others will continue theirs. As instructors, you play a critical role in each student’s academic success.
We have learned over the past three years that technology is a powerful tool for teaching and research. So is engaging face-to-face during office hours, tutoring and lecturing. Everyone from undergraduates to graduate students to postdocs benefits from in-person mentoring and collaboration. We are here to promote student learning and achievement, using all available resources to do so.
Consistent with this, instruction and operations in autumn quarter will be similar to spring quarter, and we expect all courses to be taught in person, unless they are indicated otherwise in the autumn quarter course time schedule. This allows our students to better set their study, commuting, work and family schedules. For information on expectations for instruction, please refer to the University’s Instructional Responsibility Policy.
As you make final preparations for your autumn courses, remember that the Center for Teaching and Learning provides a host of resources for all instructors, including newly posted accessible teaching strategies.
As always, we encourage instructors to accommodate students who become sick with COVID-19 or other illness. The Centers for Disease Control has shortened the isolation period for COVID-19 to five days. You can stay up to date on COVID-related news and information at uw.edu/coronavirus. Additionally, Environmental Health & Safety continues to monitor and respond to the monkeypox outbreak and is posting information on the EH&S website. Dr. Geoff Gottlieb, chair of the Advisory Committee on Communicable Diseases, shared an update with the University community earlier this week.
Students, faculty and staff will continue to verify their mandated COVID-19 vaccinations, and getting the new fall booster shots is strongly recommended. Masks are strongly recommended indoors the first two weeks of the quarter (and remain required in health-care and clinical facilities), and mask distribution will continue at various library locations, the Health Sciences Center, the HUB and testing sites.
By any measure, students and their families are looking forward to coming back to campus. We welcomed 7,000 admitted students and their guests to a spring event showcasing all the UW has to offer. Housing and Food Services received 22% more requests for university housing, compared to 2019, and more than 3,000 parents and family members are planning to travel to campus and visit their students during UW Family Weekend Oct. 14–15.
Academics are the core of the Husky Experience, and we know that the college experience is much more than listening to lectures, reading and taking tests. It involves discussions, group work, hands-on lab work and capstone projects through which students question, discover, innovate and serve. The college experience means learning to live away from home for the first time and learning to live with roommates. It means learning to be a leader by participating in student clubs, internships, jobs and research. It means filling the Dawg Pound at Husky Stadium on a clear, crisp Saturday. It means learning to kayak on the Montlake Cut and trying boba for the first time on the Ave.
We remember what it was like to leave our families and hometowns for the first time to begin as undergraduates. As first-year teaching assistants in graduate school, we remember the slight nervousness we felt as we entered the classroom to teach our very first classes in geophysics and chemistry. And, we remember the bittersweet days not long ago that we dropped off our own children for their first year of college.
Thank you for your dedication to teaching, learning and each student’s academic success. We hope you enjoy these last few weeks of summer, and we look forward to welcoming you back to campus by Sept. 28.
Sincerely,
Mark A. Richards
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Professor of Earth and Space Sciences
Philip J. Reid
Vice Provost for Academic and Student Affairs
Professor of Chemistry
