Spring 2022 Face-To-Face / In-Person Classes

1-5-22

Dear UAF faculty,

Welcome to Spring 2022. I hope you all had a restful winter break. I know many of you have questions and concerns about how the spring semester, especially the face-to-face classes, will be affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the omicron variant.

The start of 2022 has been challenging with rough weather, persistent COVID cases, and extreme travel delays. Given these challenges, it is likely that some of you or your students are unable to be physically present on campus to attend the face-to-face classes that were planned to start on January 10.

For Spring 2022, if you would like to delay the in-person interactions for your course by a week or two and deem it appropriate for meeting the student learning outcomes, you are approved to do so. This is a faculty choice and not a requirement. If you do elect to delay in person interactions please inform your Dean/Director in writing.  If you are teaching in an externally-accredited program, please contact your Dean/Director prior to making adjustments to ensure all face-to-face requirements for regulatory or accreditation requirements are being met.

This temporary change will not be reflected in Banner, and will not negatively impact international students, nor those who receive VA or other benefits. The change does not impact asynchronous or synchronous distance-delivered courses.

This temporary and optional authorization to temporarily switch to distance modality applies to all UAF classes originally scheduled to meet in-person and the authorization will end on January 21, 2022 at 10:00 p.m. AKST. After this date and time, classes scheduled to meet in-person should resume as originally scheduled, unless specific authorization is provided to you by your Dean/Director. 

Thank you for adapting to the ongoing challenges and ensuring the academic continuity for our students.

 Best regards,

 Anupma Prakash, Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor