News

Update on the coronavirus (2019-nCoV), and campus response and preparedness efforts.

Spring 2020 final exam period (Monday, May 11 to Friday, May 15) falls during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. We would like to remind you of the campus policies that outline the rights and responsibilities of both faculty and students with respect to course conflicts and accommodations of all types.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) influenza activity is high across much of the United States. So far, influenza B/Victoria viruses have been reported more frequently than other influenza viruses this season, but this may be changing. It’s not too late to get protected! It is recommended that anyone over the age of 6 months get a flu shot, and especially people with chronic medical conditions are at high-risk for flu-related complications. Please see below for information about flu vaccinations at the Tang Center.

We are writing to welcome you back to campus for the Spring Semester of 2020 and to inform you of some positive new developments and activities on campus. These include implementation of an academic accommodations hub, a new policy for auditing classes, the celebration of 150 years of women at Berkeley, and announcements of town halls to gather your input and thoughts on instructional resilience and the search for the next president of the UC system.

Senate Bill.698, which goes into effect on January 1, 2020, allows employees to file a claim with the California Labor Commissioner if the University fails to issue wage or salary payments on time.

Frances Hellman has been reappointed as dean of the Division of Math & Physical Sciences (MPS) for a second five-year term, beginning January 1, 2020.

We write to inform you that PG&E is monitoring the weather in the Bay Area for a possible shutoff in selected areas on Wednesday and Thursday. While this situation is evolving and there is considerable uncertainty, we believe it is in the campus’s best interest to be prepared for the possibility of an outage.

UC Berkeley — together with UC San Francisco and the University of Washington — is launching the Weill Neurohub, thanks to a $106 million gift from the Weill Family Foundation.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has notified UC of its intent to strike. The 24-hour strike is planned for 12:00am through 11:59pm on Wednesday, November 13.

An update on Instructional Resilience Week and outlining the steps we will be taking to put the campus in a better position to weather power outages or other disruptions to instruction.

We are writing to urge our entire community to collaborate this week in creating and using a new approach for Berkeley to become much more resilient to power outages, air quality challenges, or other events that could disrupt ordinary instruction in the future. Accordingly, the Chancellor and Provost, in collaboration with the Academic Senate, are declaring the next week “Instructional Resilience Week.”

In order to be more resilient to campus-wide class disruptions, such as those occasioned by power outages, smoke from fires, or other possible events, we encourage instructors to creatively consider all options to make up for lost class time. Next week we will establish an administrative-senate joint instructional resilience working group to develop systematic plans and guidelines for this. Our goal will be to quickly learn to manage through these unpredictable situations with much improved resilience, offering students an instructional experience as close as possible to the originally-planned instructional experience, either during a crisis or just after normal operations resume.

We want to make sure that students and those staff who work with faculty and students are aware of how instructors are being guided relative to missed coursework from last week’s cancellation of classes.

This week’s PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff was a real-time test of UC Berkeley's emergency preparedness and response capabilities. While we learned many lessons that will help us improve, overall we are encouraged by how the campus responded and proud of the way in which so many across our large and diverse community pulled together to support one another, the Berkeley campus, and its core operations.

The application deadline for the 2020 Faculty Leadership Academy has been extended from Monday October 14th to Wednesday October 16th, 5:00pm. All letters of support should also be submitted by this date.

The Global Climate Strike effort being planned by student groups on Friday September 20 includes a walkout planned for 11:00 AM. Please have a plan in place to ensure the continuity of the delivery of your course content. Faculty members are encouraged to handle missed courses and exams according to their usual instructional policies.

The application period for the fall 2020 UC Berkeley Faculty Leadership Academy is now open.

Communicating the importance of faculty not scheduling midterm and final exams, or other important academic activities on key religious holidays. Most immediately for the Fall semester, this applies to Rosh Hashana (September 30 and October 1) and Yom Kippur, which begins the evening of October 8 and lasts through October 9.

Edward Wasserman, will be stepping down as dean of the Graduate School of Journalism and rejoining the faculty full-time.

As we start the fall semester, we call your attention to the following important campus policies and guidelines concerning the academic calendar, academic integrity, and accommodations for students in their academic programs: