May 2020

Communications sent to the
UW Bothell community in May

May 18, 2020 | Fraudulent Unemployment Claims Impacting UW Bothell

Unfortunately we have heard from many faculty and staff across the UW Bothell campus, that fraudulent unemployment claims have been submitted to WA State Employment Security using their confidential personal information. It is quite sad to learn that individuals are taking advantage during these challenging times. What follows are the steps you will need to take if you receive notification that you have been impacted and what steps OE/HR will take.

What you need to do if impacted:

  1. Report fraudulent unemployment claims to UW Bothell OE/HR at uwboehr@uw.edu. Please be sure to include your netid or EID if you’re sending us an email through a non-UW account.
  2. Report potential fraud to the Employment Security Department. Please visit the Unemployment Benefits page for more information and steps on how to report potential fraud.

OE/HR steps:

Again, this quite unfortunate and we are working to support through this very unfortunate circumstance. Please let me know if you have additional questions. Thank you so much.

Beth Beam
Assistant Vice Chancellor Organizational Excellence & HR

May 18, 2020 | Join us for Campus Climate Survey results sessions from Wayne Au, Interim Dean of Diversity & Equity and Rickey Hall, Vice President for Minority Affairs & Diversity

Dear University of Washington Bothell students, faculty and staff,

Last fall, we invited all UW students, as well as faculty and staff of UW schools, colleges and administrative units, to participate in a confidential Campus Climate Survey administered by Rankin & Associates Consulting. As we prepare to receive the campus-level reports, President Ana Mari Cauce, Chancellor Mark Pagano and Chancellor Wolf Yeigh remain committed to using survey results to inform campus plans and actions that will create more equitable living, learning and working environments for our communities.

At the time of the survey, we promised the community we would share the results through in-person campus town halls. While we are unable to gather due to COVID-19, we will be able to move forward with releasing the reports this spring. On May 22, UW students, faculty and staff will be able to review the executive summary, presentation slides and full reports for each campus. The following week, Rankin and Associates will join us via Zoom for campus-level Q&A sessions. We encourage you to submit questions to yourvoice@uw.edu before and during the Q&A sessions.

Session dates

Throughout the summer, the Campus Climate Oversight Committee will carefully review the reports and begin recommending next steps for action based on the study’s results.

Thank you for your participation in the fall survey — your voice made a difference. We hope you are able to join a campus-level Q&A session this spring.

Wayne Au, Interim Dean of Diversity & Equity and Rickey Hall, Vice President for Minority Affairs & Diversity

May 18, 2020 | Updates on Faculty Survey, COVID-19 resources, and faculty leader searches from Sharon A. Jones, Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs

Dear Colleagues:

Thank you for your time completing the mid-quarter faculty survey. I received feedback from 144 faculty which is a tremendous response. While I knew a bit about what this quarter means for you, I learned so much more and there is so much more that we need to do to support you. I am going to share the summary results with the three focused working groups that the Chancellor has established to develop plans to strengthen the campus infrastructure through this crisis. I will also share them with the tri-campus Back to School committee. I am providing the Summary of Results  so that you can read about the collective faculty experience.

Last week, Karen Rosenberg directed you to two useful resources. The first is a webpage (here) listing the RIFF/DIRT teams. Given the survey feedback, we are very grateful to these faculty. The second is guidance for peer observation of teaching for this quarter that can be found here. 

We also received information from the Registrar’s Office that as a result of COVID-19, units in need of the flexibility to offer a course as distance learning may submit a course proposal to request a temporary distance learning designation. More information may be found here.

Finally, I am delaying the search for the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Connected Learning until I have a better sense of the impact of the pandemic on budgets. The search for the Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Success continues with one more finalist. I hope to announce the successful faculty leader in early June.

Sincerely,
Sharon

May 14, 2020 | Strengthening Our Campus Infrastructure Initiative from Chancellor Wolf Yeigh

Dear UW Bothell Campus Community,

First, thank you all for your dedicated service ensuring that students are set up for success during these uncertain times. I was on our campus this week. It was eerily quiet, with a few transit buses passing through. Although the high energy of activities our campus enjoys each spring wasn’t visible on the Promenade, I know it is present in chatrooms, Zoom calls, social media spaces and the like. 

I recognize we are all exhausted coping with the dramatic changes the pandemic has brought us for several months now. Yet I also hear about everyone helping each other navigate the new virtual space: students helping faculty overcome technical glitches like how to share your desktop without feedback noise, faculty helping each other with Canvas and so much more. These examples attest to the fact that the UW Bothell community is resilient, creative, supportive and just outright impressive.

We do not yet know what autumn 2020 will bring, and there are several groups at UW that are working on and preparing for multiple scenarios. It has become clear, however, that we need to deploy resources immediately to strengthen our campus’ instructional and student services infrastructure as well as the work environment for our staff and faculty. We need to create plans before we break for the summer, if we are to have these supports in place before the beginning of the next academic year.

To this end, I am allocating an initial $500,000 to help fund this work. I want to reassure you that this funding will not impact allocations set aside for UW Bothell’s Investment Fund and Strategic Plan implementation. Also, I want to make clear that these resources shall be used exclusively for campus infrastructure improvement; they will not be used for existing operations or to backfill budget constraints.

To develop these strategies quickly, I have tasked members of the Chancellor Executive Team to set-up small working groups to outline plans in three main areas of support we have identified: 

These working groups will submit recommendations to the Expanded Chancellor’s Leadership Council (eCLC) for final approval the first week of June. Each recommendation should include the campus issue being addressed, the expected outcomes both long term and short term, and the funding needs. The eCLC includes CET members; leaders from the Council of Academic Deans, General Faculty Organization, General Staff Organization and Associated Students of the University of Washington Bothell; and the chairs of the three campus councils: Diversity, Community Engagement and Sustainability.

I will make a final announcement on funding to the campus community by June 15, 2020, so the various teams can use the summer months to implement these support programs in time for autumn quarter.

Together, as a UW Bothell community, we will prevail!

May 8, 2020 | Faculty Survey reminder and Student Survey Results from Sharon A. Jones, Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs

Dear Colleagues,

A friendly reminder that the faculty mid-quarter survey is open through Monday May 11th. We already have over 130 responses and this tremendous feedback will help guide our ability to better support you moving forward. Please complete the survey if you have time. We will send a summary of the results soon. 

During the fourth and fifth week of the quarter, we also surveyed UW Bothell students (undergraduate and graduate) to learn more about their Spring 2020 remote learning experience. Almost 600 students responded!  Many of the students included positive notes in the survey thanking you (their faculty and staff) for all you have done to support their learning. Those of us in Academic Affairs echo that gratitude!

Some students identified themselves and indicated the specific resources and support they need now. A team of academic staff and CARE team members are working to provide those resources to those students as quickly as possible. Students also provided some suggestions for what could be improved from their perspective. We’ve summarized the main points below in case these are useful for you: 

Your Faculty Peer Support Teams are eager to support you and include Drs. Shauna Carlisle, Alice Pedersen, Wadiya Udell, and Camille Walsh in IAS; Drs. Codrin Nedita and Naveen Kumar in BUS, Drs. Jason Naranjo and Tyson Marsh in SES; Drs. Charity Lovitt, Avery Shinneman, and Gavin Doyle in FYPP; Drs. Jody Early, Meghan Eagan-Torkko, Stefanie Iverson-Cabral, and Stoerm Anderson in NHS; and Drs. Bryan White, Mark Kochanski, Yusuf Pisan, Nicole Hoover, Robin Angotti, and Matt Gliboff in STEM. UWB IT also has drop-in hours if you want to brainstorm ideas or need support for technology aspects.  

A summary of the student survey results can be found here.

We really appreciate all you are doing!

Sharon

May 7, 2020 | Spring Quarter Update from Chancellor Wolf Yeigh

Dear campus community,

We are moving through the spring quarter with flexibility and a lot of creative thinking from our staff, students and faculty. I appreciate your dedication and commitment as we navigate our way through this unprecedented time.

I write today to update you on how we are preparing to welcome you all back to campus in a safe manner.

To discuss various issues requiring our attention, the vice chancellors and I meet daily; the Chancellor’s Executive Team meets thrice weekly; and the CET, Council of Academic Deans and General Faculty Organization leaders meet weekly.

UW leadership also has created two working groups to guide next steps to make our return possible, in line with state and federal guidelines and with the help of public health authorities and research.

The Back to Work and Back to School groups will request input from numerous stakeholders, including people on our campus. The groups have just begun their efforts and as conversations continue and calls for feedback are created, Sharon and Gowri will keep us updated.

Please continue to take care, stay safe and know we are in this together.

Bjong Wolf Yeigh, Ph.D., F.ASME
Chancellor and Professor of Engineering