Message to USC Faculty
From: Charles F. Zukoski, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs
Today we enter the final two weeks of the semester and the fifth week of radical social distancing with online teaching and learning. We celebrate and honor the dedication, flexibility, and tenacity of the USC faculty for all that you have done cooperatively to provide an excellent education to our students.
As we approach this end point, we are seeing increasing signs that we will emerge from this time into a society that will be altered in myriad ways, but where the function of a great university will remain an essential foundational element of future success. The teaching, creative activities, and clinical care we provide, the research we undertake, and the personal and intellectual growth of our students are the outcomes that will enable us, as individuals and collectively as a community, to thrive.
With this in mind and on behalf of President Folt and the entire senior leadership team, we want to say to you, our faculty: Your resilience has been amazing. Stay strong for the rest of the semester. As you are developing your final lectures, assignments and exams, please consider how you can continue to provide a high quality, rigorous educational experience, while also taking into account your students’ individual circumstances, including time zone differences. We know that you will finish the semester with the same creativity and innovation that have always characterized a USC education.
As we move into summer session and plan for restarting the next academic year, I hope you will take time to reflect on the lessons you have learned from teaching remotely. These include the creative ways you moved an art and design studio, a math lab, a dance class, and a fulfilling discussion session to your virtual classroom. Let’s build on these experiences and use them to improve and expand upon the ways we teach, research, and study.
Be strong, be well, and thank you for your hard work, empathy, and compassion under trying circumstances.
cc: Office of the President
Academic Deans
President’s Senior Leadership Team
Provost’s Leadership Team
Academic Senate
Staff Assembly
GSG President
USG President