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[The webinar will begin momentarily] [The webinar will begin momentarily] [The webinar will begin momentarily] [The webinar will begin momentarily] Good afternoon, everyone. We'll be starting in just a moment. Good afternoon again. For those of you who have just signed in, we will be starting in just a few moments. [The webinar will begin momentarily] [The webinar will begin momentarily] [The webinar will begin momentarily] [The webinar will begin momentarily] Alright. Well, good afternoon and welcome to the IUPUI virtual Student Town Hall. I'm Johnny Pryor, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, and I will serve as your moderator. Thank you for joining us today. Before we begin, I want to acknowledge that all of us have been impacted not only by COVID-19, but also the most recent deaths of Black Americans and incidents of racism. On behalf of IUPUI, we acknowledge that today is hashtag #ShutDownAcademia and hashtag #ShutDownSTEM, which is a call to stop doing business as usual and do the work to eradicate anti-black racism in academia and STEM. We see you. We see you, and we hear you, IUPUI. We see you on social media. We see you showing up for each other, and checking in on each other. We see you. I see you. At this time, I want to share a few preliminary matters. First, this town hall is being recorded and will be available on the IUPUI website for future viewing and reference. Second, you will have the opportunity to hear remarks from Chancellor Paydar and learn more about the upcoming academic year on a broad range of topics about returning to school this fall. And also, third, to ask questions, please submit them through the Q&A section, which is located at the bottom center of your screen. The purpose of this virtual town hall is to share information and updates regarding the fall and provide an opportunity for you to ask questions. Several campus leaders will address those questions that are submitted in the Q&A box. Our panelists will aim to answer as many questions as possible. For those questions that are not answered during the town hall. We will strive to address those questions in future communications, as well as post them on the Student Affairs website. At this time, I would like to introduce to you Chancellor Paydar who will provide some remarks. Chancellor Paydar. Thank you, Johnny, and to all of the IUPUI Jaguars out there, thank you for joining us this afternoon. We have missed you. We have missed you on campus. We have missed the campus itself, but we've been in contact in different forms. Before I begin and talk about fall, I wanted to say that I could not agree more with Johnny's statement about working to eradicate anti-black racism in academia and STEM. This is part of our campus' mission -- to create a welcoming and inclusive environment for all, for everyone. So just wanted to make sure that I repeated what Johnny had said at the beginning of the program. Now, it's been only about three months since we made the important decision to take the spring semester online. Although it feels like years, it's hard to believe. But for some of you and about 7,000 students of IUPUI, in this three months, you graduated. And some of you are back to start graduate school at IUPUI. For others, you are getting ready for your senior year and wondering what that last year of college would look like. For everyone, there are lots of questions. So the hope today is to kind of talk and give you a picture of what, what we think fall is going to be like. Why we think we want to go there in this, in this fashion, and answer as many questions as you have now online, and post the rest of the answers as Johnny said on Student Affairs website. So, we all know this: Until there is a vaccine, we need to do everything possible to lower the risk of transmission. There is no doubt about that. And we have been very careful in the last three months thinking about fall. So we have formed a panel of experts, including the Dean of School of Medicine, the largest School of Medicine in the country, mind you. And Dean of Public Health and a number of others to look at possibilities for fall and if we should come back. What are the things that we need to worry about and take care of and plan for? We also created 12 task forces from across our IUPUI campus and asked them to look at these five possibilities for fall. Come 100 percent online, 100 percent outside, hybrid form, and different scenarios. And tell us what you think we need to do to make sure that we do two things. One is to keep our students, faculty, staff as safe as possible and also be able to deliver an education that everyone has come to expect from programs that lead to IU or Purdue at IUPUI. So after all these discussions, we have decided that we will offer a blend of online and face-to-face classes this coming fall. This fall is going to be different. We all know that. And while we expect most of our students to be on campus this fall, we'll be offering online courses for those of you who choose not to come to campus this fall or for some reason you can't. So we are doubling our efforts. We are in some cases teaching a course in two different modes, on site and online, just to be able to satisfy and meet the needs of our students. This is what we owe our students to do to continue you in your education at IUPUI. Now, for those of you that want to be on campus, we have been carefully planning for you and faculty/staff to return this fall. We've got input from health experts. We are following local, state, and national guidelines. And, we have, we are and we will be talking about that. We are doing all sorts of things. Things are going to be slightly different. But at the end of the day, we know that there may be possibilities of faculty, staff, or students to get sick with this. So we have an agreement with IU Health that makes it very easy for, for everyone, students, faculty, staff, to register online on our website and to communicate if one of our students is not feeling well, and go through that process with IU Health directly from our website, directly through our agreement that we have. And if there is a need for a test, the test will be done on campus as well as IU Health. We are working on a number of other things to be prepared just in case. So the ultimate goal is to educate, as I said, all of our students as well as we can but keep everyone safe. Now, we also know that come November-ish, that time of the year when the weather starts turning and getting cold, the flu season will pick up. And when the flu season picks up, the peak of flu season and COVID-19, we know it's not going to be the most pleasant time. So what we have done, we have adjusted the calendar so that on-campus classes will end right at Thanksgiving, just couple of days before that. And then we will come back again for those who want to be on campus early February. But that period from Thanksgiving to early February, that fall semester is going to end, part of spring is going to start, we have created a winter term, which I really want you to take a look at that. All of that will be online. The idea here is between Thanksgiving and February, to protect our, not just all of our students, remember, we have, we have thousands of faculty/staff, and we want to make sure that everyone is protected in that period. So, so we want to talk about some of that. But justification for change of calendar is because of that. Dining is going to be different. Housing is going to be different. We will talk about some of these special events. We will try to have accommodate that as much as possible. But it may be different. Social distancing will be one that we promote on campus. We're gonna order, and we'll talk about all of these. We're going to order masks, cloth masks for every student, a couple of them so you can wear it and wash it. Be we'll require that masks, when you're indoors on our, on our campus. The classrooms, it's going to be kind of less number of students in it, meaning that we have to make sure that, as you said, there will be six feet distance between students. So we will, we will mark all of those things so that you are separated. Again, remember, education is extremely important, but health is also important. And all of us need to work together. We are going to deep clean many areas everyday, some places several times, some places overnight, we will provide material for students to have to clean their area in the classroom if they wish. So we're working on all of those. And we started a few months ago anticipating if we should because as you know, if you look for a, for a disinfecting wipes, it's very hard to get. And what we need is more than just a tiny little box. So we are working on all of those things to make sure that we provide a safe environment for all of our students when they come to our campus. As I said, in some cases we will have, we are upping the IT, in classrooms so that we can create some opportunities for students that are not in that classroom to be able to see it. So we are in a sense going to be running two universities simultaneously at the same time, all for the benefit of our students and faculty/staff. I bet you have a lot of questions about many of these items. And for that, I want to first thank you for being here. I want to thank all of you for cooperation as we go through fall. Without everyone coming together and following guidelines, working together, taking care of themselves, taking their temperature on a daily basis, we are not going to be able to achieve the environment that we want for all of our students. I want to thank you in advance. And I know that I can count on all of our students. I'm going to pass it back to Johnny so that we can begin conversations with other panelists as well as more importantly, your questions. But I'm going to stay online. I want to hear what you're saying. I want to get a feeling. I want to get your pulse as we go through this, this town hall meeting. Again, thank you very much for being here. Johnny, take it away. Yes. Thank you, Chancellor Paydar. Thank you very much for your continued leadership at this time. Next, Chancellor Paydar referenced quite a bit the academic calendar. The first question is for Executive Vice Chancellor Johnson, would you please share with the students, sort of kind of go into further detail just about the academic calendar and kind of the various options between online and face-to-face classes and that approach? >> Absolutely Johnny I'd be happy to. And it's complicated. I see a lot of questions coming in about that complexity and especially with respect to how it works with tuition. So I'm gonna go ahead and share my screen just for a moment because I have a visual that helps to, I think, address some of this complexity. And really let me reiterate that the complexity is really a byproduct of the flexibility that we're trying to add to maximize our communities' health and also giving students as many options as we can. So first of all, at the top of the screen, you'll see the types of sessions that will be offered during the fall and covered by fall tuition. And most of you know, we have what we call a banded tuition structure, which means that there's a single rate that students pay, but within that rate, they can take anywhere between 1218 credit hours. So you'll see first of all, that we will still continue to have a 16-week session with the last three weeks online. As the chancellor mentioned, and yes, there will be final exams online at the end of that standard section. What we've also introduced though at the top are a couple of new options. First of all, we've let faculty know that if they are able to shift some of their content to online than perhaps it could be possible to complete the semester with the learning goals for that course achieved if they end by Thanksgiving. And if that's the case, of course, finals for 13-week sessions would happen just before Thanksgiving break. So right around here. That then leaves a little bit of space for an optional three-week intense winter session, if you will. We're just in the process of helping schools begin to think about developing these or, or translating some of their existing courses into three week sessions. I don't really think there's going to be a lot of them because that's pretty intense. We would likely need to limit student enrollment in three credits because it would be a really, really, again, intense three-week period. But there could be several of these offered. And if students wanted to, if they hadn't fully taken advantage of that 18 credits, they could pick up for example, a three credit seminar or elective during this first winter session. So all of this will be under the fall banded tuition structure Under this spring, we also introduce a new six-week session and that will run from December 21st until February seventh. This I think will be likely to see more of because this really is similar to the current summer courses that we offer right now. For example, many of our summer courses are online already. They've been developed to be online, and they oftentimes align well with our general education credits, for example, for undergraduates. So that would be part of the spring banded tuition structures. Students might take one or two classes in this winter session if they wanted to, and then take the balance of their credits during the remainder of the spring semester. And this might be helpful, for example, for students who are essential workers and might need to spread their, their learning out a little bit more across the fall, I'm sorry, across the beginning of the term and the remainder of the spring, but as the chancellor mentioned, there'll still be a standard 16-week option as well that will run right up until the end of May and end at the normal time. I saw a lot of questions about do I have to sign up for one of these new sessions? These are entirely optional. Again, we think that they might be good options for students who want to spread out their learning a little bit. But it's something that one could take advantage of but doesn't have to take advantage of. I know that the big question out there right now is which of my classes are going to align with these different options. Faculty just found out about these different options only just over a week ago. We needed to wait until the restart Committee, which was chaired by the Dean of Medicine, issued their guidance for the fall. And once we did, we provided them with some academic program guidance that was intended to help them to think quickly about whether their course would lend itself well to each of these different options and faculty right now or being able to, to register, their thoughts with their department chairs or with their deans. We're hoping that within the next month and a half we'll have those determinations finalized so that by the middle of July you should be able to get online and looked to see exactly which length your course is going to have, in which modality it's going to have. And of course there's adding and dropping that could be done if you're not, if you're not comfortable or interested in those decisions. And with that, I think I'll pause Johnny, because I know that there's lots of other questions to get through as well. Let me take this down. >> Thanks. >> Okay. This is still an academic related question about I'd take it to Vice Chancellor Broker regarding the classroom space, can you speak to what the universe will be doing to minimize the number of students per classroom and to a create, safe social distancing, not only in the classrooms but on campus. >> Thank you, Johnny. >> I'd be happy to. So we have actually had a team. IUPUI is great and known for our collaboration, and that has come to pass on this as well. We've had a great team between our registrar's office Our Center for Teaching and Learning, some of their staff and UITS, as well as our facilities staff, who have been going out to classrooms and really identifying the number of seats that we can have in any particular classroom based on maintaining that six-foot distancing guidelines that we're using. So we are looking to reduce the capacity in our classrooms to provide that guidance. We will also be putting hand sanitizers and disinfecting cleaning supplies throughout buildings, but then also in classrooms. As we will be asking for all of our campus community to help us in maintaining a clean and safe space. Ok , thank you very much for that. And I just want to go into some questions about housing and also dining. Back to you. VC Broker, can you speak to, you know, what options the students will have this fall in terms of on campus dining options. >> So we are looking to maintain our dining options. >> So food court will be open, tower dining will be open, although both of those will be different experiences as we try to maintain safe environments. >> So for tower dining, it's not going to be the self-serve that we've had in the past. >> There'll be served meals looking to really provide some full meal options at each of our stations. Working through those will be using contact list ordering, payments, those type of things, some online ordering to assist with this. We will also be increasing our staff who are out actively cleaning the spaces, as well as providing some guidance and kind of our safety ambassadors in spaces so that we can help navigate, maintain those safe distances, as well as provide guidance as we look for seating options. So seating will be reduced. So for those of you who have been around, we went through a project to increase the seating capacity in the campus center. >> Unfortunately, with this situation, we're going to decrease that seating. But we are trying to be creative and we'll actually be looking to add some additional exterior seating options. And as we all know, being outside is actually one of the ways that we can help provide some additional safety precautions. So we're looking at all of those options as we move along and get ready for the start of the school year. >> Thank you very much for that. Next question is for Dean Skillman, Head of Housing, Residential Life, can you share with the students what they can expect for those that are living on campus in the fall, where students can expect when they live on campus, including about move in and, and just the experience in general. >> Thanks Johnny, happy to answer that question if I forget something just remind me because there'll be a lot I'll try to talk about so you know as our housing team, number one. We're excited to have students come back to live with us. You know, we've had some live with us even had some summer students live with this now, but we've missed them. We miss him a lot. And so it's going to be awesome to have students back as we plan for the fall. It starts with the safety and the well-being of our students. And so our facilities, team, and housing will be modifying the way that we clean spaces we'll be following the building guidelines that are there for, for housing programs, IU family of campuses, and we'll increase the frequency of cleaning in our public restrooms in areas where we have bathroom that students share. North Hall, for example, Ball residence hall, for example, will probably schedules students to use those spaces and assign students to bathrooms rather than have all bathrooms open to everybody to kinda to reduce how many people are using a particular bathroom. For our, for our students all over campus we'll, we'll be providing some guidance and guidelines and how to clean their own space regularly, whether it's your room or if you're in Riverwalk, the kitchen and bathroom areas to make sure that we try to disinfect as much as we can. And we will have, I think, students who've lived with us before, or if you're brand new to living with us, you'll notice a higher frequency of our, of our facilities team walking around and disinfectant spaces. And probably some folks that that worked for on our team that aren't part of facilities that are also helping to disinfect to make sure we keep people safe. In terms of the experience. We know that students who want to live on campus, want a housing experience, or at least a version of it that, that allows people to interact, to learn to live together, have close access to all the outstanding resources on campus. And our Residence Life team is working on how to implement that plan for us right now. And so we will have student, staff that live on campus and support students. We will have professional staff that live on campus and support students that'll live on campus. You know, they're, they're available 24 hours a day just like usual. There may be some practices that are different. We will have to when we program will have to have less people and follow the guidelines for how many people we can have in a room. As Vice Chancellor Broker mentioned, maybe doing some things outside and do a lot more outside to keep people safe. And but we will, as we, as we look at our programming spaces our lounge spaces, we'll have a protocol for each space when somebody enters, how to disinfect, how to stay apart from each other in those spaces, and how to disinfect when you leave. Because it's going to be on every, all of us to help each other disinfect spaces. But we also want to make sure students have the chance to interact and have an on-campus housing experience. A couple other points, and I'm sure there's more questions, but a couple other common questions. We get, um, living together with somebody else versus single occupancy, we we're going to do both. You know, we'll have fewer people living on campus this semester, this year. However, we have a lot of students that have already indicated they want to live with a mutually selected roommate in North Hall and University Tower and Ball Hall. So right now we're assigning and working with students that want to live together to put them together in those spaces. Over in Riverwalk. The occupancy for is defined by bedroom. And so if you live in a four bedroom, you'll live with three other people. If you live in a two bedroom, you'll live with another person and you'll share the space in there that you have your own bedroom that's lockable and private. And Johnny, I think you'd asked about move in We're still planning how we're going to implement a move in that maintains social distancing and physical distancing. But what we know is we need to start with the first day of classes and make sure everybody is in their housing assignment by the first day of classes and work backwards. And so we will probably begin moving people in. And I'm going to give you an estimation. So if it's a little bit off. Please don't hold that against me, but we will probably start moving people in seven to ten days prior to the start of class to make sure we do it in a responsible way that doesn't congest up the campus and doesn't increase the risk of exposure for students. >> Alright, thank you very much for that, Dean, Skillman. The next question is for Ms. Aliza Frame our Director of International and Scholar Services. Can you share what advice you would give to international students who may not be permitted to enter the US because of laws imposed by their government and may not be able to come in to take advantage of, of face-to-face classes? I'd be happy to address this. This is a big question for international students. And I just also wanted to take an opportunity to say how resilient I feel our international students have been, and how challenging it has been to have to make important decisions about travel, financial considerations, classes, and you know health and safety concerns, and all of those things during a period when there's been little firm information to work from. So we're thinking of you, we miss you, and we're looking forward to continuing to support you as you work through these important considerations for the fall. You know, one of the important sort of considerations at this time for international students is that for the spring and summer, the US Student and Exchange Visitor Program and Department of State did allow special flexibility for universities to alter their mode of education and to allow students to maintain their visa status and continue to make progress toward their academic programs despite having to take take their coursework online. That has not. That guidance has not been issued for the fall, so we are still awaiting guidance about what will be allowed for international students in the fall. So we will, we will maintain our web page is updated. We will share information by e-mail and let everyone know once guidance has been issued for the fall by the US government. But for now, our recommendation is that international students work closely with their academic programs to get registered for the classes that they believe they need that best suit their academic needs at this time and then make adjustments as needed once the fall 2020 schedule of classes is updated. So again, just continue to watch for more information as we learn what the guidance will be for the fall, we will certainly make everyone aware of that. >>Thank you, Aliza and I know guidance is is still will be forthcoming, but just want to stay with you for a moment. So for international students, if the course has permitted, would they be permitted to take classes fully online if the classes they need or are they able to do that? >> So international students are, you know, able to enroll online just as any other IUPUI, student would be. But there are many questions still from students about whether that would mean that their immigration record would need to be ended and then they would need to apply for a visa upon return later. So there are a lot of important considerations for students in order to make the decision as to whether they can stay home and maintain their visa status as was allowed in the spring semester. But given and one special flexibility authorized by US government agencies, it can't be confronted this time for the fall. >> So we will absolutely. >> Let students know, just as soon as we've also been updated about that. And it is something that we would recommend that they do to stay in close communication about academic programs and what they're planning for course mode of instruction will be for the fall. >> Okay. Thank you for that. The next question is for Dr. Weldy, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs. Can you share what kind, what type of programs and events that students can expect on campus this fall. And any type of guidance you may have for student organizations. >> Thank you very much, Johnny, in regards to programs and events, I'm sure that there are a lot of questions in regards to Weeks of Welcome and Regatta. >> What I can tell you is that both Weeks of Welcome and Regatta will be taking place this year, but we'll have a strong virtual component to them with some face-to-face interactions. And so as we move forward to the start of the year, more details will be shared. And I'm sure that a lot of student organizations are wondering, you know, what is, what are things going to be like once we're on campus? You know, how do we interact? I would say that the guidelines for student orgs will be the same as other departments and offices across campus when it comes to following social distancing guidelines, as well as wearing masks in public settings or spaces. However, I do expect that student orgs will be limited in the number of people who are able to gather together. They will have to utilize zoom and other video conferencing platforms to whole large group meetings, as well as consider reducing the size of their programs and events. Something else that I was strongly occur. Encourage width some of those program and events, is just kind of rethinking them. Maybe it would it would be better if they were held outdoors. Obviously, the start of the year, the weather is a little bit nicer. And so those are things that, that will be looking at. So there is more information to come as we look to the start of the fall semester. >> And thank you very much, Dr. Weldy. We go back to you. VC Broker, recieving some questions about the increase in tuition and just the cost associated with fall, whether students are online or face-to-face, can you speak to just maybe some of the reasoning for the cost increase and intuition for fall >>Oh, Johnny, thank you. So we really are trying to as, as you've indicated, the chancellor has indicated, really are trying to provide as much and as close as possible to the same experience for our students as they come to our campus. So we are trying to balance that with all of the needs for the campus. Obviously, there will be additional cost and, and things as we change our structures up a bit just to make sure that we're keeping people as safe as we possibly can. >>Thank you very much for that. And I just want to stick with you, one of the things you said was talking about kind of having the same experience during the online. The time that the campus is online, will students have access to labs, library, IT support? During that period? >>So if I may phone a friend here from some of my other colleagues. But I think that our intent really is during those online periods, during that, that winter season, flu season, we really are looking to reduce that density on campus even more than what we're trying to do for our normal 13 weeks. So I think that we're going to have to take some of these and just kinda work through them. Situation by situation. but we really are trying to reduce that density so that we can help maintain that that physical distancing to keep people as safe as possible. >>Thank You. The next question is for Dean Gladden, Dean of Undergraduate Education. Can you share whether at this point or whether it's students will be able to take advantage of, of on-campus employment this fall. >> Excuse me. Definitely. >> Johnny the plan. >> Now, here's the thing is we've been, we continue to employ, we employed students from the time that we moved everything remote in the spring and in through the summer, we've continued to employ students. So, absolutely there will be student employment positions on campus this fall. Some of those positions may be more remote than in-person depending on how a particular office is operating or could be a combination thereof. But certainly one thing we've proven is that students are as flexible, probably more flexible than we are on the technology. And we found a lot of supervisors that had no problem shifting the work that students were doing to virtual learning environments. And certainly with offices being open for face-to-face interactions, we're absolutely going to need students to help in those offices as well. So the answer long answer. But the answer is yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Next question back to Dr. Johnson. if you could just clarify something. In terms of the the online face-to-face classes, do students have a choice of whether they take online only? Or does it depend on whether the professor's course is online or fully in-person. >> Yeah thanks, Johnny. That's a and it depends. For example, if there's a course that has multiple sections, such as lots of our general education courses. I would imagine that there will be both 100% online as well as as face-to-face options available to students. If there's only a single instance or one section of a class offered. It's really going to depend on the learning goals for the class, what we've asked faculty and their chairs or people that they report to you to consider, most of all, is what are the learning goals for the course? We know that some classes really do depend heavily on a face-to-face context. If you're learning how to Do injections or if you're learning how to do studio work in an art class, those are the sorts of courses that will really prioritize for face to face, as well as some of our clinical, clinical classes and first-year seminars. We know that our beginning students, it's really important for them to, to become part of a social network. So anyway, we've provided guidance to schools and departments to really kind of think through the learning goals for the course. If a course can be moved easily online, we've asked faculty that if, if it hasn't been already planned to be online to try to add a face-to-face component. That might mean that the lecture portion of a course is delivered through Canvas, but maybe there are recitation sections or discussions or opportunities for collaborations on projects that happened face-to-face. So we're really trying to think as creatively as possible. Given that there's, there's limits on numbers of students who can be in classrooms has been, as has been said already. >> Okay, thank you for that. I want to go back to Dean Gladden. You know in the event that a student must self quarantine or test positive for COVID. Can you talk about what options that students may have to continue their studies? >> Sure Johnny, Thank you for that question. That's a really important question and certainly we are planning for that. One of the things that we're asking all faculty do and their face-to-face and in-person interactions is to record and capture the lecture on so that that can be reviewed at another time by students. It's easy, it's easy to do. And when we're doing things virtually, but it's possible also to do in the classroom. If that specific case arises, I would recommend any student do a number of things, including seeking the proper support that has already been talked about related to one's health. But I'd also strongly encouraged communicating with an advisor and communicating with each of the individual faculty members to let them know that, that, that you, the student is experiencing some difficulty and to request some accommodation in that class as needed. So I think that we're, we're working on is trying to be as flexible as possible and to certainly account for situations like that. Okay, thank you very much. My next question is to Associate Vice Chancellor for Graduate Dducation, Dean Blum. You've heard a lot of the discussion. So far, we've been focused on undergraduate education. Can you speak to what, if any, parts of the conversation maybe is the same or maybe different considerations that graduate students may have as they're planning for fall. Thanks, Johnny, and I'm delighted to talk to the students today. There are some commonalities and some differences for our graduate and professional students. Certainly you will be juggling online classes again, and perhaps even some on-site classes. And I see in the chat box a lot of questions related to that. And many of you will also be engaged in research and thinking about practicums and internships. And you're really going to need to work closely with the program advisors and the faculty in your schools on how to navigate that for the fall. We've done our best to really set up the perfect, I think, environment to do research safely. You'll be getting a lot of guidance. The faculty members have developed plans for safe work in laboratories and social distancing, personal protective equipment. We're working very closely with the schools on that, but similarly those in our clinical programs also, there's a lot of discussion in your schools, and I know that the faculty and staff are going to be there to guide you and make this a productive fall. So looking forward to it, and we're also encouraging, I saw a question about TAs. Will we need more TAs? Will we need TAs to help the professors? We're certainly guiding the professors to try to talk about their TA needs for their classroom to make sure the TAs are available. And also so you, who are going to be a TA, know what times you will be working in and have plenty of space to juggle your various responsibilities. So I think it's going to be a good fall for graduate and professional students and want to make it as safe and productive as we can. >>Right, thank you. Next, going to Marvin Smith, Executive Director of Financial Aid. Can you share any special considerations that students may have for the fall thinking about just from a financial aid perspective. Yes, thanks, Johnny. I know that the, the coronavirus has impacted families and family income. Students haven't been able to maybe work and have lost their part-time jobs. Some great questions we've had about working on and off campus and remotely. I want to encourage every family that's been impacted negatively to reach out to our office. There's something called a special circumstance form where we can re-evaluate the student's federal financial aid eligibility based on their estimated income now versus when they filed the FAFSA they were looking back at 2018 income. We're going to develop a plan to review those quickly. For loss of income like that, the federal government and the state of Indiana accepts those professional judgment changes to your FAFSA, and it could result in more federal and state aid. So, encourage you to reach out to our office. I'll put our email in the chat. Alright. Thank you, Mr. Smith. And the next question is for Vice Chancellor Broeker, we couldn't have a town hall without talking about parking. So, can you share with us any changes or special circumstances that parking is providing in light of the changes to the academic calendar. So we are looking, as Dr. Johnson mentioned, this has all come about fairly quickly. So we are looking at potential changes for parking for this upcoming year, especially as it relates to the academic calendar. I wish I had final answers for you today, but we are still kind of working through some of those trying to balance the needs of all. So, please stay tuned. The parking permits for students go online on August 1, so we will have the information that we can share prior to that date. And then I'll also include that we will continue with our normal student permits as well as our North Campus permits to provide some options. And we are working hard to continue our shuttle lines, so that we can provide those opportunities for students while we increase the cleaning of those buses during the day. Okay. Thank you. I want to go back to Miss Frame. If you could talk about study abroad, if there's been any recommendations in terms of study abroad for the fall or for the next academic year? Sure, I'd be happy to. I know this is a big question on students' minds. And everyone in the Office of International Affairs is, is, is concerned about these decisions as well. We are...decisions are being made right now about the fall 2020 study abroad options. And those decisions should be announced later this summer, sometime after July 30th. So, students will just need to stay tuned for more information. Again, we're going to be updating everyone just as soon as those decisions are made. Due to CDC guidance and Department of State guidance, those study abroad options were suspended for the spring and the summer 2020. So again, more information to come soon. And those decisions are being made as we speak. I think, Chancellor Paydar, did you have any remarks or updates? I was I was going to say that the decision has been made actually just, just recently not to have study abroad this coming fall. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. The next question is for Dr. Weldy. Can you speak about if there are any plan so far about any protocols for students that may contract...contact COVID-19 and the need to self-quarantine? Yes. And I'll start and if Mr. Skillman has any additions to make, you can go right ahead. So, what we're doing is we've set aside spaces within, within the residence halls for such situations so that if we do have a case where a student or students either have possible symptoms or have been tested positive, we will be able to move them into a space of isolation on campus within the residence halls for, for a period of time. And then also following other protocol that are set up through the university. >>Dean Skillman is there anything else you'd like to add? >>That really covers it. The only thing I would say, would add is that there is a group that we work with directly that are experts on how to manage a situation like that. And we're going to take their guidance. We also know that if a student is self-quarantined, they're going to need to get food and they're going to need to have access to cleaning supplies and laundry supplies. So we'll be ready to support them, if a student should end up in that situation. We also, there's, there's good guidance out there and how to clean a space where the student was living. And how do we make sure that other students, their, their risk is reduced significantly. And so we will follow all that and guidance to do so. Yeah. And just for clarification as well, that the places that we've set aside within the residence halls are for students who will be living in the residence halls, not not for those who will be off campus. >> Yeah. Thank you for that clarification. I want to go back to Dr. Johnson regarding the fall academics schedule/ calendar. I know that that's in progress and being modified and changes being made based on the restart committee's recommendations. Can you share just an estimated timeline of when we anticipate that the updated fall schedule will be available. >> Sure. Yeah. Our target deadline for making that available to students is currently July 15th. And at that time, you should be able to log in as as you normally would to register for classes and see which modality in which term lengths the classes that you've registered for have. And again, we're hoping that that provides people still with plenty of time to do adding and dropping if that doesn't meet with their, their needs. But that's our goal. >> Okay. Thank you for that. And I want to go back to VC Broeker, receiving a couple of questions, asking for clarification just around tuition increase and just fees for student, if there's anything additional that you may be able to share, just add more clarification or context. I'm trying to think through, Johnny, and I and I understand the question and I know that anytime that we have a tuition increase, it is not done lightly. We do want to make sure that we are taking into account our students, but we also then are making sure that we can provide all of the resources that our students need as we...as they come and join us either on campus or virtually. >> Okay. Thank thank you for that. The next question I want to go to...Dean Gladden. We're getting lots of questions about, kind of thinking about scenarios where students might be immune-compromised. Will they have a choice to take classes online if it's offered in person, if they're not comfortable taking a face-to-face class due to being high-risk? >> Yeah, Johnny, the goal would be for every student that is immune-compromised, taking care of someone that's immune-compromised, have concerns related to that, to be able to complete their coursework online. That will be easier to fully tell once this calendar in terms of how that what will be accomplished. It could be a combination of fully online classes and hybrid classes where lectures will be recorded and that sort of thing. But once the full modalities are released, so how you will take your course, then it would be a good point in time to touch base with an advisor, whoever your advisor is, and to walk through the ability to do that. But certainly that's the intention. >> Thank you. Dr. Weldy, earlier we talked a little bit about Regatta. We also received questions about Weeks of Welcome. Can you talk about whether they'll still be a Weeks of Welcome this fall and what that may look like in our new context. >>Sure. Like I noted before, Weeks of Welcome will, will take place this year, but there will be a strong virtual component. We realize that we will have students who will be on campus. And so there will be some limited face-to-face interactions. But we, but we are working with our collaborative partners across campus because we want students to be engaged throughout the year, but especially at the beginning of the year, as students begin kind of reconnecting and building those relationships. And so we're working hard to provide something for everyone. >> Alright. Thank you. We'll go back to Dean Skillman regarding housing. Received a number of questions regarding housing options for students during the online period. Can you speak about, you know, based on what you know now, if you could share any information and options for students in that online period. Happy to answer that. We know there's going to be students during the online period that need housing. And we, there'll be a process similar to the one we had in the spring to accommodate the students who truly have to be here over the break periods. And I don't have that process to send out today, but we'll have that out in a timely way in the fall when students get here to make sure that we that we do not have anybody that doesn't have a place to go. We were very concerned about that in the spring and made sure they tried to accommodate everyone we could. I see a lot of questions in there about the about rate questions or rate adjustment questions based off the new calendar. That's something that we know. I know that questions out there as director for housing, working with our campus leaders and working with our other housing programs. And, we will address that and send a note out to our students that have either applied for housing or have a signed contract as soon as we have an update on on both breaks and any kind of impact that the news calendar has on the rate structure. >> Thank you. Going back to Dean Gladden. Can you talk about what are the expectations...is there a requirement for students to where masks in the classroom? If you could just clarify that for students that do decide to take classes on campus. Are they required to wear masks in the classrooms? >> Yes. So as a part of IU and IUPUI's safety precautions, masks are a part of the public health guidance, and they certainly will be a requirement in our classrooms in the fall of 2020 as a mech... one mechanism that we each can take to keep our entire community safe. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Looking to the future, a couple questions about commencement 2021. Dr. Johnson, can you share what, if any, information you might have currently about looking at graduation? >>I am not sure yet. That's a great question. I was trying to phone a friend when I heard you call on me for this. I think we're trying to figure out as quickly as possible, you know, how we can safely have this event, which I know is so important to so many students and their families. >> I think the Chancellor can respond to that. >> Oh, good. >> Then we have two phone a friend requests. Chancellor Paydar. >>On the commencement activities, my favorite event, and I'm sure yours and students who work so hard that they want to be recognized. We want to have them up there so that we could say you graduated, you went through it. So we don't know what's going to happen by May. I mean, if there is a vaccine that changes things, but I have some good news. We've never had Winter Commencement. For the first time this, this winter, for those that are graduating in winter, we are going to have a very nice but virtual commencement, so that we can recognize students for the first time that are graduating, this, this, this winter time or the end of the fall. So that we are working on to create. Spring... Hopefully we could get together, but we'll see where we will be, you know, 8-9 months from now. >> Alright, thank you. We'll go back to Marvin Smith in Financial Aid. In thinking about billing, will there be any changes to the billing cycle or financial aid based on this new calendar or any special considerations that students need to be mindful of? >> Now, I think that the, the billing and financial aid disbursement will be the same. So the fall semester will be under the banded tuition rate, 12 to 18 credit hours, they're billed at the same rate. Financial aid refunds will begin 10 days before the start of classes. So that week right before classes, if you're expecting financial aid that exceeds tuition fees and housing, I encourage you to sign up for direct deposit. You'll have your funds a week before classes start. For the spring semester, That winter intercession will be attached to the spring semester. And the plan right now is that the fees will be due for the spring semester in January, and we will disperse, refund excess financial aid 10 days before the start of the spring, the official spring start. That winter intercession is really kind of a bargain because you can take those credits and make it part of banded tuition for the spring semester. So it might be a way for a student to lessen their load during the spring semester by taking a 6-week class during that winter intercession. But in terms of financial aid and how that will be applied, it'll be very similar as it has been in the past. >> Johnny, could I, could I just have one minute to, >> Of course, yes. >> to acknowledge that we know that COVID-19 and and the way the whole society came together, or did not come together for a period, has created financial issues for so many people. So we recognize that. We, there are expenses at the university has dramatically increased as we have to do much more than what we normally do, while we have to have the faculty to teach. Just a couple of things here. One is that we have asked every department, every school, every office to cut 5% of their expenses. Everyone including my office, just so that we can manage financially because the costs are enormous, and we have to, we have to find ways of, of, of helping with all of these extra expenses without charging it on students. So that's, that's one thing that we have done. And we have also... we are considering to eliminate distance education. That's, that's $90 per 30 credit hours from students. So we want to cut that out as well. Recognizing we need... that's gonna put us more in hole of the university. But, but we want to help students as much as possible. And, and furthermore, the winter session, we are making it free of charge. The average credit hours of our students never gets too close to 18 credits. But we hope that having that extra semester, but unlike summer where we charged for that, that we will make it free to students up to the 18 credits. So we are mindful of all that. We are working on it just to make sure that we will continue supporting our students as we go through this. All of us together. Thank you, Johnny. >> Alright, thank you. We have time for just one last question. We have a couple of questions regarding Campus Health and counseling services. For Dr. Weldy, will, will counseling and Campus Health offer in-person or will those services be virtual this fall? Great question. Thank you, Johnny. CAPS will be providing primarily remote clinical services beginning this fall. However, it is preparing a series of workshops to be offered to the general student population and held on a reoccurring basis to support students in coping with the various types of stress. Mental health and interpersonal violence prevention outreach and workshops will continue to be offered primarily in remote formats. In regards to Campus Health center, there will be a virtual component. But we also know that there is a need to, to meet with students in person as well. And so we're still working out those details, but I, but I will tell you that our locations in Coleman Hall and as well as our location in the Campus Center will be open this fall. Alright. Well, I see the time is 2 o'clock. I just want to thank you all for joining us today. Be sure to continue to monitor the IUPUI website and your university email for updates. On behalf of campus leadership, I want to thank you for participating in today's town hall. Also for all the questions that we didn't have the opportunity to get to, we will endeavor to answer those questions with the email address that you provided. But again, thank you all for joining us, be well, and take care.
