Message to the Faculty from Provost Susan Poser

Dear UIC Faculty,

We have all been going at lightning speed to adjust to the new reality thrust upon us by the COVID-19 public health crisis. This pandemic has created the enormous challenge of ensuring that our students not lose all of the investment of time and energy that has gone into their UIC educations thus far. Under these unprecedented circumstances, the administration did the only thing we could think of and asked all of you to figure out how to move your classes to an online format, and in less than a month.

I am pausing now to thank you, and to let you know that Dr. Barish and I, and the Deans, are well aware of the Herculean task we have asked you to do, and we deeply appreciate your efforts. Many of you are doing this while caring for children, and in some cases, the older adults in your family and circle of friends. You are also probably rightfully worrying about your own health and well-being. Meanwhile, time and opportunity to attend to your research and scholarship is, in many circumstances, scarce. And as if that were not enough, the financial implications of this moment have yet to fully reveal themselves, but they are going to be challenging, to say the least – for many of you personally, for our students, for the university, and for this country and the global community.

This email is more of a downer than I intended. My intention was simply to tell you that I am in awe of your dedication to your students and to UIC. I am hearing about this on a daily basis, and I saw it for myself at a recent meeting with the Senate Executive Committee. This is what gives me complete confidence that we, the community of UIC, will get through this difficult period together and come out even stronger and more determined.

As you know, there are myriad academic and operational issues that this situation creates. So the other thing I want you to understand is that we are cognizant of these issues, consulting about them widely, making decisions only after full consideration of their implications, and providing answers as soon as possible. I ask for your patience as we sort through all of this. My focus is on supporting you and our students, and keeping our operations going, while being fair and just in the process.

Thank you, faculty, for everything you are doing. And please, take care of yourselves.

Sincerely,

Susan Poser
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs