Nov. 2 letter to faculty from Provost Storrs

Dear faculty,

As we near the Thanksgiving holiday, I wanted to share a few thoughts and send along a few more updates.

Please encourage your students to attend upcoming COVID-19 testing events (see here for testing dates). UND is pleased with the Grand Forks City Council’s unanimous vote last Monday to approve a resolution, signed by Mayor Brandon Bochenski, requiring masks in public spaces to protect against the spread of COVID-19. UND is closely monitoring our campus and community situation, and we continue to have the capacity to contact trace COVID-19 cases on campus as well as quarantine and isolate students as necessary.

While we have been pleased with our enrollments this fall, students have until Nov. 13 to withdraw from the University. Staff in Student Affairs & Diversity have partnered with staff in Academic Affairs to complete a student outreach project. The team will contact every student to check in and see if they need anything. Alex Pokornowski and Karyn Plumm will follow up with students if they indicate any need and may reach out to faculty where appropriate. I am grateful for the efforts you make in your classrooms to support students. Faculty can often make the difference in a student’s decision on how best proceed given a variety of challenges they face. Your flexibility and willingness to support students is what makes UND special. Please continue to do what you can to support them; your efforts are much appreciated.

A few updates:

Faculty/Staff Town Hall: Please join us for a Zoom town hall at noon, Wednesday, Nov. 4.

• Join from a PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android device via Zoom. Passcode is 277473.

• Join by phone. For higher quality, dial a number based on your current location.
  • US: +1 253 215 8782 or +1 346 248 7799 or +1 669 900 6833 or +1 301 715 8592 or +1 312 626 6799 or +1 646 558 8656. Webinar ID: 975 2649 4065.

Support for high impact practices: The VPAA office is pleased to provide faculty support for embedding project-based, experiential learning into courses and providing students with experiences working as a team on real-world problems. With CARES funding, UND has partnered with Riipen, an experiential learning platform and marketplace for project-based learning.

This opportunity is available for all faculty, in all disciplines, working with all levels of students, for both in-class and online experiences and virtual internships. Riipen offers end-to-end support – including course project ideation and design, technical support and student onboarding, and matchmaking with industry partners across the U.S. Given the realities of COVID-19, real-world-relevant experiences are more important than ever for students, so please consider taking advantage of this opportunity.

If you are interested in embedding project-based, experiential learning into your course during the spring semester or in the future, Riipen will host informational webinars on Tuesday, Nov. 10 (1-2 p.m.) and Thursday, Nov. 12 (10-11 a.m.).

Please register here: UND Riipen Webinar

The sessions will be recorded, so, if you are interested but unable to attend, please register, and the recording will be sent after the webinar. For more information about Riipen, check out the Educator one-pager, platform overview video tour, and the Educator FAQ. You can also create your profile and explore Riipen on your own through the UND portal.

For faculty ready to start prior to the webinar, please contact Ola Ogungbemile (ola.ogungbemile@riipen.com), the dedicated Onboarding Specialist for UND. Ola will talk with any faculty member one-on-one.

Starfish Updates: Thank you for submitting your Starfish midterm alerts. Starfish continues to add features that help you support students when/if needed. If you have concerns about a student outside of their academic progress in class, please consider using one of the referrals and flags below. These flags are in addition to the course flags you are already familiar with (Early Alert, Midterm Deficiency, General Academic Concern flags).

• Student Support Team Referral (New Referral): You can refer students to the Student Support Team if you believe they are at risk of not being successful and would like a team member to reach out to them. The referral can used for any number of reasons, including if you are not sure how to best refer the student or if previous referrals did not appear to be successful.

• General Concern Note: The general concern comment may be used to document behavior that is uncommon and unexpected (i.e., sad, irritable, lack of motivation, etc.). If you are unsure of the behavior or if it should be documented, contact the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities (OSRR, 701.777.2664). General concern comments are visible to OSRR, but they are not monitored. They are reviewed if OSRR staff has seen other concerns about the student come forward.

• Student Behavior Concern Flag: The student behavior concern flag may be used to document behavior that draws attention away from, but does not inhibit, normal duties/activities and does not pose a threat to safety or security (i.e., cell phone use during a class, prolonged behavior consistent with the distress category, etc.). If you are unsure of the behavior or if a flag should be raised, contact OSRR (701.777.2664). Student behavior concern flags are monitored by OSRR. If something does inhibit the class or poses a threat of safety or security, please call 9-1-1, the University Police Department (701.777.3491), and then report the information to OSRR.

• Student Academic Integrity Concern Flag: Raise the flag to notify the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities (OSRR, 701.777.2664) of any concerns related to academic integrity. A member of the OSRR team will inform you if the student previously has been reported, keep record of the current situation, and discuss options available to you as a faculty member regarding academic integrity concerns.

Technology Requests:

• Remote work equipment: If you requested technology equipment such as laptops, webcams, etc. to support remote teaching and have not yet received the equipment, please contact Nicole Morris (morris@und.edu) for an update. Since there were many requests submitted to UIT at various times during the last several months, UIT wants to ensure that orders were not inadvertently missed.
• Recording studios: Recording studios submitted by deans, funded by the CARES Act, has been finalized. UIT will order the equipment and when the equipment begins arriving in January, we will work to implement the studios. We will keep you updated on when they are available for use.

Please continue to practice UND safety protocols in and outside of the classroom and encourage your students to test for COVID-19 before they go home for Thanksgiving. And, to borrow from Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor, Dr. Holly Borg-Brown, “Stay negative and be positive.”

Debbie Storrs
Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs