Office of the Provost

The Division of Academic Affairs provides a broad range of services to faculty and staff to promote their professional development and enhance their education.

A Message from the Provost

Dear Academic Affairs Colleagues,

I’d like to thank many of you for participating in one of the two Academic Affairs town hall meetings that were held earlier this week and last week. We received a tremendous number of thoughtful questions, not all of which we were able to answer during our virtual meeting. We’ll be posting those questions and responses here this week.

In the meantime, here are a few reminders of recent decisions regarding our return to on-campus instruction.

• When JMU returns to in-person instruction on Monday, October 5, all courses originally scheduled to occur in person (IP) will return to that mode of instruction unless instructors have had an alternate mode of delivery approved.
• At this point, in-person class meetings will limited to 50 students or fewer when class return to in-person delivery. To be clear, this means that no class meeting will have more than 50 students in a single room. A class may maintain a higher enrollment if there are detailed plans to prevent 50+ students from gathering in person at once.
• Some students returning to campus will need to arrange online accommodations for an IP course based on an ODS-approved Access Plan or for required periods of COVID-related quarantine or isolation. Instructors should work with these students to determine a reasonable accommodation that enables the student to proceed in the course. For more information about Access Plans, contact the Office of Disability Services (x86705).
• Other students may contact their instructors with a request to be allowed to remain online for the rest of the semester primarily because they do not feel comfortable returning to in-person classes. Academic Affairs understands that it may not be feasible in all cases for an instructor to provide a semester-long online learning option in addition to established course activities. While we encourage all instructors to be responsive to this type of student request to the extent they are able, instructors are not required to provide an online option if it is not feasible to do so.
• Fall break, originally slated for Oct. 22-23, will be cancelled in an attempt to reduce student travel.
• After Thanksgiving break, all courses will move online for the remainder of the semester.
• The majority of exams will be online, and exams will begin on December 11.

My thanks go to all of you for the patience and care you have shown, and continue to show, our students and each other as we work through these uncertain times.

Sincerely,

Heather Coltman