To Computing and Information Science faculty, staff, and graduate students,
I wanted to follow up on the messages from President Pollack and other members of the university administration to add some CIS-specific information related to Cornell's COVID-19 policies. The CIS leadership understands that this is a time of considerable uncertainty on campus, and we are coordinating with the administration to prioritize the health and well-being of the community, and to work toward academic continuity going forward. We appreciate the work that so many of you are putting into exploring and carrying out the changes that we need to make in the coming weeks.
We have formed a committee within CIS (Steve Gallow, Francois Guimbretiere, Joe Guinness, Rene Kizilcec, Lillian Lee, Steve Marschner, David Rankine, Marty Wells, and Scott Yoest) to act as a central point for collecting and refining ideas on virtual instruction. I'd like to thank the members of the committee for taking on this task. Please don't hesitate to contact me or any members of the committee with ideas related to remote teaching that you think would be useful for us to incorporate into our planning. We in turn will be continuing to coordinate with groups in other academic units, including the Center for Teaching Innovation, which has a page of resources that they are regularly updating.
The ITSG group has put together a useful document with information and resources for working remotely; it is available at https://it.coecis.cornell.edu/remote/. Requests and questions can also be directed to them at itcoecis-help@cornell.edu. There is also a useful page of Remote Work Guidelines on the Working at Cornell site.
The planning of upcoming events will be guided by the principles outlined in President Pollack's message. One consequence is that the Social Hours in Gates Hall on Friday afternoons will, unfortunately, have to be suspended until further notice. The communications team in CIS will be developing and sharing further updates on events in the coming days.
I know from direct experience that CIS is a community that comes together to address challenges and to look after one another's well-being. I appreciate all the help that people have begun to contribute so rapidly and generously in this situation. And I'll reiterate that all of you should feel free to get in touch with me or any other members of the CIS or departmental leadership groups if there are things we can be doing to help.
Thanks very much,
Jon