Faculty Spring 2022 FAQ

Faculty have the choice to require masks in their classrooms/instructional spaces for the spring 2022 semester. Faculty need to post this mask requirement to their syllabus and in Canvas at the beginning of the semester and complete this brief survey that will produce an email to the faculty member with the standard language to be used. Additional masks can be obtained within each school from these contacts within the schools if faculty request them.

You can pick up additional masks through your dean’s office contact. If a student does not wear a mask and you have made the written policy clear in your Canvas syllabus and announcements, you need to first make a verbal request for them to wear a mask. If they continue not to comply, you can ask them to leave class that day and arrange a time to meet with you and/or the chair or associate dean prior to the next class. You should then report the situation to the department chair, who will work with you and, if necessary, with the dean’s office and Provost Office, to provide further direction. Please note that you can add a professionalism grade tied to compliance to your classroom mask policy; however, you cannot add this grade requirement after the start of the term.   

Each School/College has a designated contact person who can tell you how to obtain masks in your area.

Students who indicate a medical reason for not wearing a mask must go through the DASS Office for accommodations. Until they have DASS Office approval, which would be communicated to you in the same protocol as all DASS accommodations, they are required to comply with your classroom mask requirement. Faculty should not independently grant accommodations to students or exceptions for mask wearing based on a medical reason.

You can request that individuals wear a mask in offices, or arrange to host office hours in a larger space, including outdoors, during regular weekly office hours. You may also offer to meet virtually via Zoom for students who refuse to wear a mask or you can meet via Zoom outside of regular office hours. 

Graduate and professional programs are under the same parameters as undergraduate programs within the umbrella of the university guidelines, so the parameters are the same across programs.

You are required to provide academic continuity. In most cases, recordings are the primary avenue for academic continuity in your area. However, each School or College dean has submitted a list of courses (or course types) that have clear alternative academic continuity plans. If you believe your class (or class type) is on this list, you should contact your chair or associate dean for confirmation. Otherwise, yes, you need to make the recordings available to affected students with these guidelines:

• Record your classes for one week or until the student is able to return to class.
• Start recording (or activate the alternative continuity plans), starting either from the date of any direct communication from your student, or from the date you receive a Faculty Notification letter that a student in your course has tested positive.
• We recommend that you add the following statement to your communications with the student who receives a recording: “Students are prohibited from posting the lecture recordings of in-person classes or syllabi to any external sites.”

You can continue to teach based on your pedagogical approach. The goal of recordings (and other academic continuity plans) is to provide flexibility and reasonable access to students who cannot be present because of a documented COVID-related illness. This does not require a shift in pedagogy to podium-based instruction. You could, for example, create a solo Zoom (just the faculty member and the camera and microphone) to record the class. This would create a recording that would be shared automatically after the class. Additionally, you could also turn off the camera and create an audio-only lecture that would automatically be uploaded to Panopto. This technology is in place and working today. Additional options for providing this flexibility to augment the required recording can be found at this reminder prepared by CTE.

To discuss available options for audio and video recording, please contact the OIT Help Desk or contact your school’s ATSD (listed here) so we can help determine technology options that meet the need.

You will receive a Faculty Notification Letter through email from Associate Provost Sheri Kunovich, who works with the Dean of Students and the Health Center to ensure that faculty are notified when they have a student who tests positive for COVID-19. This will provide you with more detailed information about options, including clear directions to work closely with your associate dean to have your questions answered or to develop options.

Faculty should report a positive test case to the employee reporting portal here. The option of taking the class to Zoom temporarily must first be cleared through the dean’s office by contacting the associate dean within each School/College. The associate deans can choose to consult with the chairs in making a determination. Options will vary depending on the situation (e.g., arranging for a substitute; arranging for an in-class facilitator, shifting temporarily to Zoom, etc.). The Associate Deans of each School/College report all temporary shifts to Zoom to covidfacultyrequest@smu.edu.

You need to work directly with your associate dean to agree on the best plan for possible scenarios. As in all cases, if a temporary shift to Zoom is decided upon, the associate dean must send notification to covidfacultyrequest@smu.edu.

As with the previous semesters, faculty with a disability may request a reasonable accommodation on the basis of a disability through the Office of Institutional Access and Equity as outlined in the Needs of Persons with Disabilities Policy (3.2):  https://www.smu.edu/IAE. All other quarantine and/or isolation issues due to a positive COVID test or a potentially positive COVID test by either the faculty or a member of the faculty’s household will be managed by the Dean’s Office as described above for temporary solutions.

This situation may require alternatives for any in-person tests that were scheduled to take place during their period of quarantine or isolation. We ask that you maintain flexibility with the student to help them complete all assignments and exams on their originally scheduled date, assuming that the student is feeling well enough and you are able to find a remote solution.

Based on SMU’s accreditation status, we are a primarily in-person, on-campus university. Only those programs and classes previously approved for online delivery will be allowed to remain in the online format (e.g., OMBA, Masters in Data Science, etc.).  Faculty with a disability may request a reasonable accommodation on the basis of a disability through the Office of Institutional Access and Equity as outlined in the Needs of Persons with Disabilities Policy (3.2):  https://www.smu.edu/IAE. 

You may allow an undergraduate student to attend synchronously via Zoom for a few class periods if they need to be in Covid-related quarantine or isolation, but you are not required to do so. If any undergraduate student requests to remain on Zoom for longer than a typical isolation or quarantine period, you need to submit a CCC form so that our student support team can reach out to them.

Contact your dean’s office and contact person for clarification about how your School/College is approaching exemptions for graduate students based on medical or other extenuating circumstances.

We want our students to have an opportunity for in-person office hours. If you request mask wearing in your office and students do not comply, you can move the office hours to Zoom. Also, for additional office hours, Zoom is an option.

The Emergency Operations Center (EOC) meets every week to review information from all campus units, including risk management, academic affairs, student affairs, development and external affairs, legal affairs, etc. They review ongoing changes in the pandemic, including Dallas county, city, state, and local case numbers, hospitalization reports, and vaccination status; SMU community case numbers and self-reported vaccination numbers; governmental orders; federal, state, and local compliance requirements; and student/faculty/staff feedback. Any changes to operations will be announced via email and through the Mustang Strong website.

You can submit any additional questions here.