Office of the Assemblies

Dear Anuli,

 

Thank you for conveying to me Student Assembly Resolution 16: Calling on Cornell University to Protect and Accommodate Students During the Spike in COVID-19 Cases.

 

The University has demonstrated its commitment to providing a safe campus environment for all students, faculty and staff as we have collectively experienced the personal and academic challenges caused by COVID-19.  We have chosen to follow the science from the very beginning of the pandemic, and have implemented a layered public health approach to protect our community through mandatory masking, aggressive surveillance and adaptive testing, thorough contact tracing efforts, quarantine and isolation support, and a 96% campus-wide vaccination rate.  We broke the chain of COVID transmissions this fall, as we had in early fall 2020 and in several instances in spring 2021, by being vigilant in following our protective measures and closely monitoring potential transmission activities. To date, as was the case last year, there is no evidence of transmission in the classroom or in structured on-campus activities. We have now since returned to COVID alert level green as a result of our dedication to following this COVID response strategy.

 

Without question, it is challenging for students who are placed in mandatory quarantine or isolation.  All students in this situation are encouraged to register with Student Disability Services to receive a temporary academic accommodation. SDS will in turn send a notification to instructors regarding the student’s need for academic flexibility during this period of time. Based on the format and learning outcomes of a course, the accommodations that are deemed to be most appropriate and possible given the specific pedagogical and classroom setting differ across classes. Where necessary and possible, faculty may leverage available technology to facilitate remote participation or record course lectures. They are also provided with guidance from SDS to, as appropriate, adjust participation and attendance requirements, share missed course content, offer exam make-ups, and/or extend assignment deadlines. Additionally, students are strongly recommended to request Cornell Health to notify their college student services office in order to receive individualized academic support. 

 

To further support this accommodation effort, Cornell Information Technologies recently developed a rapid response outreach protocol to help faculty set up the classroom technology needed to create audio or video recordings, or to set-up Zoom meetings so that students can remain engaged in their classes with interruption. Outreach emails offering technical support, including in-class technology assistants, have been sent to instructors of over 4,500 course sections. Remote office hours were very successful in expanding access for students last year, and faculty have been encouraged to offer them again this year in addition to holding their traditional in-person office hours.  

 

Faculty and staff are similarly able to request accommodations related to COVID.  We continue to use the process of seeking and receiving such medical and disability accommodations through our Medical Leave Administration Office.  The office staff can, and have, approved accommodations that make a job’s essential functions, such as working in-person for many of our faculty and staff, safer and easier to perform.  As a residential university and are committed to providing students with a residential experience, as public health conditions permit.

 

We have also encouraged all units, colleges, and schools to be creative in providing arrangements for faculty and staff outside of the formal medical/disability accommodation process. These arrangements can include online teaching for faculty when that is appropriate to achieve the desired educational outcomes for our students or a partial remote work schedule for staff when job responsibilities can still be achieved in that modality. The process includes discussions with chairs and deans and other supervisors as appropriate, in coordination with human resources, so as to ensure consistent responsiveness to faculty and staff needs across the university.

 

Sincerely,

 

Martha E. Pollack

 

 

 

Martha E. Pollack

President, Cornell University

300 Day Hall

Ithaca, NY 14853

Tel: 607-255-5201