At long last, our students will begin returning this weekend, and we are SO EXCITED to see them! Wishing all returning Deacs a safe and happy trip back home to us.
Your Corona Chronicle went out yesterday to students (read it here). One of the things it mentioned is Fireside on Manchester. We’ll let your students discover this fully when they return, but I want to give a little teaser of how magical it looks.
Two COVID-related items today: students who are not in compliance with pre-arrival requirements got an email this morning with instructions on what to do. Unfortunately we had a very tricky data glitch and a small number of students who actually are compliant/cleared to return also got the message; those students will be sent a message (hopefully by end of day) telling them oops, we made an error and they can disregard. Our apologies to the small group of students who got the message in error.
We also have a change for the spring semester regarding students in isolation or quarantine and how faculty are notified of their inability to attend in-person class. Faculty will no longer receive notification from the Office of Academic Advising or their respective graduate degree program leaders when students are isolated or quarantined because of COVID-19. Instead, when required to isolate/quarantine, students will be given an email from Student Health Service documenting their status. Students can choose to use this document to obtain an excused absence or other accommodation for academic work. This change was made out of concern for student privacy, keeping students in control of their own health and disability information.
In general campus news, there was a terrific news story about a course on mis/disinformation taught by two of my dearest Wake friends in the ZSR Library. It’s called Misinformation And Disinformation On The Internet: Thinking Critically About Fake News, Junk Science And Fact-checking, and I hope your Deacs find this class. But there are also less formal workshops that students can access via our Professional Development Center (the first one of the three-part series starts in February). I recommend this news story to the Daily Deacdom because it has some great points about how to discern whether what you see on your social media feed is legit and how to be better consumers of digital information.
This flyer came to my inbox this week. For any students who might be interested in our ROTC program, there will be an open house on February 1st. Students interested in participating can connect with the organizers to register.
Because this weekend begins students’ return, we are opening the Call Center just for this weekend. You can reach us from 10 am-2 pm Eastern at 336.758.7500 on Saturday and Sunday. If lines are busy, leave a message and we will respond as soon as we can, or you can leave a question at our COVID form.
