December 15, 2021
Spring 2022 course preparations
Dear deans, department heads, faculty and graduate teaching assistants:
As the fall 2021 semester ends, thank you for supporting student success through your commitment to teaching excellence. Your creativity and innovation make a difference. As you transition from fall 2021 to spring 2022 course planning, please review the following information.
Retention: As you know, we use spring enrollment data to inform our progress toward meeting university retention and degree completion goals. We need your help to encourage your students to return to K-State this spring. Consider sending students in your classes an end-of-semester message that celebrates the end of term and looks forward to spring 2022.
Course syllabus statements: As you plan for the spring 2022 semester, please be sure to review the information about course syllabi. Remember to include the mandatory statements in your intersession and spring course syllabi, and please consider including suggested optional statements. Individual links to the statements are now available for your convenience.
Masks: Please continue to use the mandatory statement regarding wearing of face masks on your course syllabi until further notice.
Spring break: Remember that spring break is scheduled for March 13-20, 2022.
Open house: An in-person All-University Open House in Manhattan is scheduled for Saturday, April 9, 2022. As usual, classes will be canceled starting at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, April 8, 2022. If instances arise where rescheduling in specialized classrooms or laboratory environments is not feasible, or canceling sections of a multisection course would result in the loss of an entire class day, then instructor prerogative will determine whether classes will be canceled. In these cases, faculty members choosing to hold classes at or after 2:30 p.m. must notify room scheduling at 785-532-1712 at the start of the spring semester to ensure that their classrooms are available. This determination should be clearly noted on the course syllabus handed out at the beginning of the semester so that students are aware of this far in advance of open house.
Final exam schedule: Please make sure your final exam schedule is updated to reflect the spring 2022 exam schedule. All faculty, instructors, and graduate teaching assistants should refer to University Handbook section F70-73 to make sure they are in compliance with the final exam policy.
Prep week: We ask you to pay close attention to the prep week rule that no examination — unit or final — may be scheduled seven calendar days before the first scheduled day of semester examinations.
Course design: Finally, please consider making one or two adjustments to your course(s) designed to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. The Teaching and Learning Center has a set of resources to assist you. Here are some examples:
- Add an empathy statement and a diversity, equity and inclusion syllabus statement. Review these statements in class.
- Create a consistent, predictable routine for your course design.
- Build opportunities to offer instructor or peer feedback to students working on long-term assignments.
- Take time early in the semester to set classroom norms. If you build time for this discussion into your syllabi now, you are more likely to engage your students in this important conversation. You may also want to create a video introduction to the syllabus.
- Survey students (anonymously) mid-semester to request feedback on how the course is going, listen to this feedback and adjust.
With appreciation and best wishes for a great winter break and a very successful 2021 spring semester,
Tanya González, interim associate provost for institutional effectiveness and professor of English
Jeannie Brown Leonard, vice provost for student success