(Healthcare workers ready to assist faculty, staff and students at the Coates Hall COVID-19 testing location.)

Dear Colleagues,

I hope you had a wonderful holiday break. We completed the fall semester, a semester that will be known as one of the most difficult in our history. We learned a great deal, and persevered despite many obstacles. That knowledge will help us navigate the spring semester.

We have a lot to look forward to in 2021. We continue to see record-breaking enrollment numbers, a testament to the academic rigor and world-class experience available on our campus, and we are optimistic about fall 2021.

You should have received an email from Interim President Galligan with a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Roadmap progress report and an invitation to a forum dedicated solely to this topic. I am excited for you to hear about their progress. We still have much work to do, and we will continue to keep you informed.

We have a new, centralized COVID testing location open in 263 Coates Hall. It is open to all faculty, staff, and students. I can speak from personal experience that it is a simple process, and I encourage everyone to be tested often. We plan to continue our wastewater testing, and will also be testing a random sample of students every two weeks who have on-campus classes or activities to help us monitor the disease.

You should have received an email with a pre-registration survey to assess your interest in getting vaccinated. The survey will inform our plan to vaccinate members of the LSU community. We are working directly with the Louisiana Department of Health and the Louisiana Board of Regents regarding vaccinations, and will send updates as soon as they are available. 

With the vaccine available, our plan for fall is to resume the instructional delivery models we had in place prior to the onset of the pandemic, which was primarily face-to-face instruction.

As always, thank you for all that you do for LSU each and every day.

Best,
Stacia L. Haynie
Executive Vice President & Provost
J.W. Annison, Jr. Alumni Professor

Upcoming COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey

LSU will be participating in the Collaboration on Academic Career in Higher Education (COACHE) faculty job satisfaction survey, operated by the Harvard School of Education. In addition to evaluating faculty perceptions of climate at LSU, COACHE is a powerful instrument that permits benchmarking against peer institutions. Such comparison adds important context to this data, facilitating change both within our community, and relative to our peers. COACHE ensures a data-driven approach to policy-making that centers faculty voices. Amidst major changes on campus and in higher education broadly, it is important to identify areas of challenge and opportunity so that we can align policy with faculty priorities.

For this data to truly be meaningful, we need to hear from our faculty. As we dive into 2021, please consider participating in the survey. You will hear more about the survey methodology, process, and timeline over the coming months. The survey will open the week of Feb. 8, 2021. While it is not mandatory, we hope faculty will join us by participating. You can learn more about the survey and COACHE at www.lsu.edu/academicaffairs/coache. LSU’s partnership with COACHE is funded through the ADVANCE grant from the National Science Foundation. 

Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity Forum - Wed., Feb. 3

As we have worked to make our campus a more inclusive, equitable, and diverse place for everyone in our LSU Family, we have always made it clear that our actions must speak louder than our words. To discuss the actions accomplished thus far, you are invited to the Inclusion, Equity & Diversity Forum on Wednesday, Feb. 3, from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. This Zoom webinar will be an opportunity for you to hear from the subcommittees about their findings and accomplishments as well as a Q&A session.

Spring 2020 Student Evaluations

As faculty prepare self-reflections for their annual evaluations, please remember that as a result of quickly pivoting from classrooms to remote learning in March, faculty have the option to include or omit spring 2020 student evaluations in their annual evaluation. If you decide to omit, a simple note within your annual self-reflection in Faculty360 stating, “I wish to omit my spring 2020 student evaluation,” will suffice and an explanation is not warranted. Course evaluations for summer and fall will be considered as usual.

Coming Soon: Applying the Quality Matters Rubric (APPQMR) Workshop

LSU Online is very excited to announce that the Design & Development team will begin offering the Applying the Quality Matters Rubric (APPQMR) workshop starting spring 2021.

The Quality Matters' flagship workshop on the Quality Matters (QM) Rubric and its use in reviewing the design of online and blended courses is intended for a broad audience, including but not limited to faculty, instructional designers, administrators, and adjunct instructors. It is particularly helpful to those new to QM or those considering the adoption of a quality assurance process for online and blended learning. In addition to learning about the QM Rubric and the course review process, participants will learn to apply the concept of alignment and draft helpful recommendations for course improvement.

Details on workshop dates will be forthcoming and available on the LSU Online Faculty Support & Resources website early spring 2021.

Introducing the Student Success Help Desk

The Office of Retention & Student Success is pleased to announce the opening of the Student Success Help Desk. This new initiative will serve as a one-stop-shop for students on campus who need assistance navigating their next steps to success. We are here to help them overcome any potential obstacles that may stand in their way of graduation from LSU.

Our official launch was Monday, Jan. 25, and we are ready to serve students. Our physical location is in the LSU Welcome Center, located on the corner of Highland Road and Dalrymple Drive and our hours of operation are Monday - Friday: 7:30 a.m. - 6 p.m. We can be reached by phone at 225-578-2634 and by email at success@lsu.edu.

Paper/Pencil Testing for Spring 2021

The LSU Office of Testing and Evaluation Services will provide on-campus locations for flex-scheduling/hybrid courses to take paper and pencil tests. For additional information about scheduling paper and pencil testing space, please visit the Paper and Pencil Testing page.

Questionmark Test Creation and Delivery Software

Questionmark is a robust test-creation/delivery software that allows faculty to create course assessments and view comprehensive reporting and analytics. Questionmark is supported by LSU Office of Testing and Evaluation Services and is available for free to all LSU faculty. For more information, please visit the TES Questionmark page.