Dear Colleagues,
As we start our third week of remote work and our campuses have now fully transitioned to remote learning I want to offer my thanks to the entire UMass community.
By and large, students and faculty would prefer to be in the classroom or the lab and administrators and staff would rather be on campus – but almost overnight, our faculty and staff have been able to transfer our academic programs into a digital setting. I am very grateful to the 75,000 students and 18,000 employees who have made this UMass transformation a reality.
I am impressed and a bit awed by how quickly and efficiently the largest university in New England was able to reinvent the way it meets the academic needs of its students. Is everything 100 percent perfect? Perhaps not, but at this moment in our lives and history, we’re all pulling together (while maintaining a safe distance). We’re looking to make tomorrow better than today.
Though UMass has a 20-year history of delivering online education through UMassOnline, shifting 75,000 students to an all-remote model in less than two weeks required swift, decisive and coordinated action across our Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell and Medical School campuses to ensure completion of the spring semester for students. Our faculty and staff have more than risen to the challenge.
Across the UMass system, Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, IT and other departments joined forces to guide and support the transition to remote learning, ensuring that educators and students had the tools, technology and assistance needed to effectively teach and learn. This included increasing access to Zoom video conferencing software and training sessions, loaning laptops to students and faculty, launching new websites dedicated to technical assistance, ramping up technical support via phone, email and chat, and expanding capacity of learning management systems such as Blackboard and Moodle.
Faculty members have modified and, in some cases, re-imagined courses, not only integrating technology into every aspect of their planning, but finding creative ways to overcome the limits of that technology. For some members of the faculty, particularly those who have been teaching online for several years, this change has been relatively minor. Other faculty members have faced a bigger challenge, just as this sudden shift has radically altered the way people learn and work across the nation and globe.
The patience, resilience, flexibility and ingenuity displayed throughout our statewide university community has been exemplary. It is clearer than ever that online teaching and learning has proven essential to breaking down both chronic and unpredicted barriers to educational opportunity.
I want to thank UMass Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Manning and our Trustees, UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy, UMass Boston Chancellor Katherine Newman, UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Robert Johnson, UMass Lowell Chancellor Jacquie Moloney and UMass Medical School Chancellor Michael F. Collins for their leadership and commitment to the UMass mission under these most disruptive circumstances. I also want to thank our dedicated faculty and staff for working tirelessly to ensure that students receive the world-class education that is a UMass hallmark.
In the toughest of times, we are seeing the best of UMass emerge, and for that, I am grateful.
Sincerely,
Marty Meehan
President, University of Massachusetts
More updates
- Tomorrow, 135 UMass Medical School students will graduate early and soon receive 90-day licenses to practice in order help fight the coronavirus. This accelerated graduation is unprecedented, and a clear indication of the need for health care reinforcements in our community.
- The chancellors and I announced last week that the university will adjust student room, board and parking fees following the closure of residence halls in response to the coronavirus threat. As our statement indicated, “The financial impact of this crisis is causing real hardship for many of our students and their families. We hope that this adjustment of housing, dining and parking fees will help alleviate some of the stress they are enduring.
- The $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package approved by Congress last week contains $14 billion for higher education. Nationwide, the need has been estimated at approximately $50 billion. Based on my experience in Congress and my vantage point on the Board of the Association for Public Land Grant Universities, I believe the best approach for us is to work constructively with our Congressional delegation and the administration. We will outline our needs and demonstrate the critical role UMass will play in the nation’s economic recovery.