3-19-20 Message to Community
Colleagues,
Trying to follow my own recommendations to find some good in all that we are facing right now. So, on this first day of spring and in celebration of everyone who has struggled to adapt quickly to remote delivery of instruction, here is Michael Bruening singing his version of “I WIll Survive” for all teachers moving online unexpectedly. Enjoy!
Topics:
Fall 2020 Course Registration — New Starting Date
To address the unusual disruptions caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, Miami University (both Oxford and Regionals) is postponing the start date for Fall 2020 registration for all students.
The revised registration schedule for fall 2020 classes on ALL campuses will begin on April 22 (rather than the original April 8 start date), and it is listed below:
Regional campus registration times would also adjust per the same pattern.
A delayed start date will give students and their academic advisors more time to plan their fall academic schedules. It is important to note that due to the changing situation, course listings may be revised more significantly than in past semesters. As a result, students are urged to carefully review up-to-date course listings before they register for classes. Students will be notified of the change in registration dates and encouraged to review their new registration time tickets in BannerWeb.
Budget challenges likely:
Most of you will have noticed that the COVID-19 crisis has drastically impacted the economy, the stock market, and of course many businesses and industries. It is increasingly clear that this will be a long-term situation with potentially grave economic consequences. Our university will not be immune to this unfortunate situation, which has seen us refund tens of millions of dollars to students for housing and meal plans as they moved out of on-campus housing. As you know, we had to recall many study-abroad and study away programs, which will also lead to substantial refunds and loss of revenue. Summer revenue is currently an unknown and most universities are seeing lower confirmations for fall term than expected.
It is in the greatest uncertainty that our current and future actions become ever more important and we all must be careful and strategic stewards of university resources at this time. Being more careful now gives us more opportunity to avoid drastic actions later. With this in mind, I am working with leaders within Academic Affairs and strategizing over how we as an institution can respond to the significant challenges while protecting our ability to serve our students and our mission. In the next few days we will provide more guidance to divisions on how to proceed.
There are things each department can do right now:
Trying to follow my own recommendations to find some good in all that we are facing right now. So, on this first day of spring and in celebration of everyone who has struggled to adapt quickly to remote delivery of instruction, here is Michael Bruening singing his version of “I WIll Survive” for all teachers moving online unexpectedly. Enjoy!
Topics:
- Course Registration dates moved back two weeks
- COVID-19 budget challenges
Fall 2020 Course Registration — New Starting Date
To address the unusual disruptions caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, Miami University (both Oxford and Regionals) is postponing the start date for Fall 2020 registration for all students.
The revised registration schedule for fall 2020 classes on ALL campuses will begin on April 22 (rather than the original April 8 start date), and it is listed below:
Early priority = 04/22 through 04/24
Regular priority = 04/23 through 04/24
Seniors = 04/28 through 04/29
Juniors = 04/30 through 05/01
Sophomores = 05/05 through 05/06
Freshmen = 05/07 through 05/08 (last day of Spring semester classes)
Open registration for all Oxford students = 05/18 through 05/25 (not during final exam week)
Regional campus registration times would also adjust per the same pattern.
A delayed start date will give students and their academic advisors more time to plan their fall academic schedules. It is important to note that due to the changing situation, course listings may be revised more significantly than in past semesters. As a result, students are urged to carefully review up-to-date course listings before they register for classes. Students will be notified of the change in registration dates and encouraged to review their new registration time tickets in BannerWeb.
Budget challenges likely:
Most of you will have noticed that the COVID-19 crisis has drastically impacted the economy, the stock market, and of course many businesses and industries. It is increasingly clear that this will be a long-term situation with potentially grave economic consequences. Our university will not be immune to this unfortunate situation, which has seen us refund tens of millions of dollars to students for housing and meal plans as they moved out of on-campus housing. As you know, we had to recall many study-abroad and study away programs, which will also lead to substantial refunds and loss of revenue. Summer revenue is currently an unknown and most universities are seeing lower confirmations for fall term than expected.
It is in the greatest uncertainty that our current and future actions become ever more important and we all must be careful and strategic stewards of university resources at this time. Being more careful now gives us more opportunity to avoid drastic actions later. With this in mind, I am working with leaders within Academic Affairs and strategizing over how we as an institution can respond to the significant challenges while protecting our ability to serve our students and our mission. In the next few days we will provide more guidance to divisions on how to proceed.
There are things each department can do right now:
- Spend only on essential items. Conserve resources to the greatest extent possible.
- Consider expanding summer online course offerings to generate revenue. Do not assume students will be able to physically return to campus before August.
- Examine planned course offerings for fall 2020 and spring 2021.
- Decide what is essential to offer, e.g., required courses, and what does not need to be offered this fall. Non-essential courses should be deferred.
- Defer courses offered occasionally until another semester.
- Proactively cancel low-enrolled classes now and utilize faculty for essential courses.
- Examine section sizes and where possible, expand sections to reduce the number of sections being offered.
To assist departments and divisions, we have an excellent team who have developed some extensive and detailed resources that can help inform these decisions. We will also soon begin high level meetings to review available data, provide relevant examples, and suggested actions that could help us address the financial concerns we expect to face.
Love and Honor,
Jason Osborne
Don't forget that all resources related to COVID-19 are available at our one-stop web page: https://miamioh.edu/ coronavirus/index.html.