This message is intended for Academic Departmental Administrators, Collegiate Chairs, Directors, and DEOs offering Fall 2020 courses.
Classroom Scheduling is as eager as you to learn more about our upcoming fall semester and in what manner we will be able to welcome our students in August. We appreciate that many of you have taken initiative to make adjustments to your course offerings assigned to the pool of University Classrooms (UCRs). However, Classroom Scheduling will be working under the direction of the Office of the Provost with special guidance from the new Health and Safety committee to address recommendations from the State of Iowa and CDC, and currently working behind the scenes on impacts to classroom assignments and therefore course offerings. Until guidance is received, we will not process (will hold or reject) any COVID-19 related requests to change Fall 2020 classroom assignments. As criteria are provided to our office, scenario modeling will begin to address the classroom space challenges ahead.
Due to the uncertainty of these details, we need to partner with colleges and departments. What can you do now to aid in course offerings solutions for Fall 2020? We ask that you begin a task of prioritizing your course offerings so that we can work together in our fall planning efforts. In doing so, consider the course’s impact on gateway opportunities, major requirements, pre-req criteria, graduation impact, or any sections that are offered with another other college that is vital to another discipline. Another consideration for you may be where successes were found in online instruction for Spring 2020 and consideration given to Spring 2021 for those sections in lower priority. Colleges will be asked to submit their priorities to Classroom Scheduling in a few short weeks.
Please know that each college and department is not required to determine solutions on their own. Rather, cohesive guidance will be provided by our central administration, the Critical Incident Management Team (CIMT) and the Health and Safety Committee to the campus as soon as possible.
We look forward to partnering with you soon to re-envision our classroom assignments for Fall 2020 implementation.
Questions
If you have questions, please contact Classroom Scheduling at registrar-room-res@uiowa.edu or 319-335-1243.
