院长艾米丽·艾伦的信息- 2021年2月

Dr. Emily Allen, 科普学院院长

朋友, when our last InSights Online came out it was just after Thanksgiving 2020 and we were finishing up our first fully remote semester. 我们又来了, with a fully remote Spring semester underway and not knowing what the Fall will bring. 此时此刻, 我们计划在秋季开设一些面对面的课程, 当然, the vaccine rollout and the state of the pandemic will determine everything in the end. 加州大学洛杉矶分校 has opened one of the first federal vaccination sites in the country, which will help protect the communities that surround us and which our students and many of our employees call home.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m getting tired of my own cooking! 在家工作快一年了，感觉越来越累了.  当然, some losses are not recoverable and we all know many friends as well as students and employees who have lost friends and family members to Covid-19. Some have lost jobs and homes as well, making it hard for them to continue with school. 然而, the vast majority of 加州大学洛杉矶分校 students are still working hard and engaged in their classes. Our faculty are home-schooling their own kids while mentoring research projects and teaching remotely. 就像世界上其他地方一样, the pandemic is bringing out the stuff we are all are made of – and 科普 is made of resilient stuff.

In my last message, I mentioned that we would soon hold a Silver Lining Town Hall. 目的是向我们的教员收集资料, 工作人员, and students what aspects of our pandemic operations would be worth keeping when we return to “normal” in-person operations. We also examined ways in which we can do remote instruction better. 不足为奇的是, the #1 improved aspect of our operations was the paperless processes for just about everything on campus—a big change from a campus that formerly relied on A LOT of wet signatures. 现在，从采购到等级变更都是数字化的.

这让你想知道为什么人们要花这么长时间才能改变，不是吗?

Remote teaching has really made faculty dig deep into ways to engage students online and in some cases, this new mode has resulted in much more engagement than in-person classes. 从秋季学期开始，一直持续到春季, faculty have participated in our Virtual 科普 Teaching and Learning Academy to share their remote teaching improvements and lessons learned, 包括增加师生互动的新方法, and “tricks of the trade” for giving fair online exams—not a simple thing to do. I believe that due to the heavy lifting that has been required during the pandemic, 当我们回到校园时，我们的亲自教学将会改进.  Our professional advisers in the 科普 学生的成功 Center and department faculty advisers have developed effective remote advising structures using new technologies to continuously support our students during this time of tremendous need.

We continue to reach out to alumni through the newly established 科普 校友 Network. 无论你是刚刚开始你的职业生涯, 在其鼎盛时期, 或者享受当之无愧的退休生活, 我们很想听听你在做什么! 在本期的科普通讯中, we’ve got a great story about our many alums working at JPL on the Perseverance Mars 2020 mission, which is due to land on Mars right after this issue hits your mailbox!

2021年2月初, I attended (virtually) the American Society for Engineering Education Public Policy Colloquium for Deans, 这是我经常在华盛顿参加的聚会, DC. 和其他八名科罗拉多大学工程学院院长一起, 我会见了九个不同的参议院和国会办公室, 有时和会员一起，有时和他们的员工一起. We were able to deliver some bragging points about our campuses and talk about the importance of the CSU to California and the nation; make clear our concerns about immigration restrictions that have devastated our graduate programs and impacted some of our faculty; and advocate for continued COVID-related funding for higher education, 梦想家的支持, and federal agency funding for minority-serving institutions such as ours.

我们还听取了美国国家科学基金会负责人的意见, 美国国防部高级研究计划局, and numerous other federal research agencies and discussed the future of engineering education. Preparing engineers to solve the nation’s resiliency challenges and efforts to improve racial equity on campuses were top of mind with deans across the country. We all lamented missing each other and our very useful networking opportunities in the evenings. We had to raise our glasses alone to the next time we meet in the nation’s capital instead of on Zoom.

Many of you responded to our calls for end-of-year donations and we are deeply grateful. 在本期中，我们概述了$1.来自你们所有人的1300万慈善和个人捐赠. 没有你我们做不到. 今年，我们还将重点介绍一些非常特别的礼物. 在大流行期间，我们对学生的需求继续增加. 奖学金和一般的捐赠一样有很长的路要走, which we can use to hire students as peer mentors for other students. This is a neat way to leverage a gift so it helps many more students at a time.

Please stay well, get your vaccinations, and stay in touch with 科普!