We are at our best!

March 25, 2021

Hi everyone,

I read a column in the Chronicle of Higher Education today that made me think of you all and how much great work we are all doing. It also reminded me that I haven’t sent you all a message in a while. So, as we have reached spring break in the third semester of our experience with the COVID-19 global pandemic, please take a few minutes and watch this video message and know how much we appreciate all that you are doing to care for our students and each other and provide a transformative educational experience to our students.

Thank you all, Steve.

Steve Perez
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Congratulations Dean Smith!

March 18, 2021

With mixed emotions, I offer the news that Dr. Lorenzo Smith, Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science, is leaving Sacramento State after the Spring semester concludes. He has accepted the position of Provost and Executive Vice President at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. While I am thrilled for the professional opportunity this change represents for Dr. Smith, I am also disappointed that he will no longer be contributing to student success at Sacramento State.

Those contributions have been profound. Dr. Smith has been at the helm of the College since 2014. Before that, he was Associate Dean of the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Oakland University in Michigan, where he began as an Assistant Professor. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana and Wayne State University (respectively), and a Ph.D. in Engineering Mechanics from Michigan State University. While earning his advanced degrees, Dr. Smith worked at Ford Motor Company in research and development, and at General Motors Corporation as an engineering analyst.

Once he became a Hornet, his impact on the success of students in the College of Engineering was immediate. Over the course of his time with us, four previously un-ranked programs in the College have achieved national rankings: Civil Engineering is 11th, Computer Engineering is 13th, Electrical and Electronic Engineering is 18th, and Mechanical Engineering is 22nd among 220 peer institutions nationwide. He has also secured $5.6 million in gifts for the College, including funds to establish the Hornet Leadership Program, a co-curricular set of learning experiences centered around students receiving mentorship from industry leaders. Consistent with the strategic plan he established, the College now also boasts a multi-faceted student success center and a research assistantship program, along with multiple instructional laboratory upgrades and the hiring of 28 tenure-track faculty college-wide since 2014.

With two teaching awards, fifty-eight publications, two U.S. patents, and over $7 million in external funding for research during his career so far, Stephen F. Austin State University is very lucky to be able to call their next Provost a true teacher-scholar. He will be missed at Sacramento State, but I’m sure you all join me in congratulating him, and wishing him success as he continues his leadership journey.

Steve Perez
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Vaccination Update

March 8, 2021

Good afternoon Academic Affairs Staff, Faculty, and MPP employees,

Per President Nelsen’s message, Sac State employees began to receive email invitations to sign up for vaccine appointments at the vaccination site located in the University Union. This program started with priority groups, those approved to be on campus starting with those with the highest interaction with others. As of today, however, all Academic Affairs staff, faculty, and MPPs should have received such an invitation. Following Sacramento County guidance, only very narrow conditions allow for student employees to receive vaccines at this time (we have been working with managers closely on these narrow cases).

Please note the following:

• If you elect to get vaccinated at the Sac State clinic, it is highly encouraged that you sign up for an appointment this week. You can do so by following the instructions outlined in the invitation email. It is advised that you verify that the email is not in your junk email folder; some security settings may cause it to be routed there.
• If you received your vaccination already (at Sac State or elsewhere), or elect not to get vaccinated, no action is needed and you may delete your invitation email. If you have already started the vaccination process, you should complete it with the same provider.
• If you did not receive an invitation or did not get a chance to sign up for an appointment, please contact me (degraff@csus.edu) as soon as possible. We will make sure that another invite is sent out.

Thank you!

Bill
William DeGraffenreid, Ph.D.
Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs (interim)

Mary Maguire named Interim Dean of College of Health and Human Services

March 8, 2021

After consultation with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee and with the concurrence of President Nelsen, it’s my great pleasure to announce that Dr. Mary Maguire will serve as Interim Dean of the College of Health and Human Services, until a national search for a permanent appointment can take place. Dr. Maguire joined the Hornet family in 2005 as an Assistant Professor in the Division of Criminal Justice. She chaired that Division for five years beginning in January of 2013, and became Associate Dean of the College in 2017. She has been acting as Administrator-in-Charge of the College since Dean Robin Carter retired almost a month ago.

Before coming to Sacramento State, Dr. Maguire earned her Ph. D. and her Master of Social Work degrees from Portland State University in Social Work and Social Research. She also holds a Master of Arts degree in Psychology from Lindenwood University, and a Bachelor of Science degree in English from William Woods University. In the leadership development realm, she is a graduate of Harvard’s Management Development Program and the HERS Leadership Institute.

Professionally, Dr. Maguire has served as the past President of the Western Society of Criminology, and received the J.D. Lohman Award for Outstanding Service to that organization. She has several presentations and publications to her credit, and also received an Outstanding Teaching award from Sacramento State.

Because of these impressive accomplishments, Dr. Maguire is well prepared to lead the College of Health and Human Services, with its eight departments and approximately 7,500 majors. From the awarding of bachelor’s degrees to doctorates, the College is meeting the needs of the Sacramento region and transforming students’ lives through efforts such as new degree programs and dramatic improvements in graduation rates. Please join me in congratulating Dr. Mary Maguire as she leads the faculty, staff and students of the College of Health and Human Services to even more remarkable successes!

Steve Perez
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Are you expecting to be Face-to-Face in the Summer or Fall?

March 1, 2021

Sent to you on behalf of the Office of Faculty Advancement

Dear Faculty,

The campus is currently making vaccination appointments for those who are now teaching Face-To-Face, along with some other priority groups. We want to be prepared to move to the next phase, those faculty who will be, or expect to be, teaching Face-To-Face in the Summer or Fall terms.

If you know that you will be teaching Face-To-Face, or think that there is a possibility that you will, please go to the Office Form that has been created to share your name and email address.

• If you have received the vaccine for COVID (or are in the process of obtaining it now), you do not need to complete the form.

• Those who will be teaching only virtually also do not need to complete the form; as noted, we are prioritizing those teaching Face-To-Face.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Bill

William DeGraffenreid
Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs (interim)

Vaccine Emails

February 26, 2021

Good morning everyone:

As we are experiencing our spring semester we are simultaneously planning for our fall schedule. The challenges posed are significant as we do not know what the circumstances relative to the pandemic will be in six months. However, there are positive signs about our future and one of them is the possibility for widespread vaccinations. On Feb. 17th, President Nelsen sent a message to us all saying Sacramento State is serving as a vaccination center. As described in that message, invitations to faculty and staff have begun based on availability. This is great news.

I’m sending this message today because we are hearing that some people are finding their invitations in their spam folder. If you believe that you meet the criteria described in the message and didn’t receive an email, please check your spam. If you missed your appointment opportunity because the email was filtered to your spam folder, please contact Ed Mills at covidquestions@csus.edu. Please visit Sacramento State’s COVID-19 website for updated information.

Thank you for all you do to support our students, each other, and our region, Steve.

Steve Perez
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Student Evaluation Memo – Impact on Evaluation due to Covid-19: UPDATED

Resending with a different version of the PDF. The original Acrobat Sign version is proving difficult to merge into other PDF files.

February 18, 2021

TO: All College Deans, Associate Deans and Chairs

FROM: William DeGraffenreid, Vice Provost (interim)

RE: Student Evaluation Memorandum to Reviewer – Impact on Evaluation due to COVID 19

Attached is a copy of a memorandum regarding the impact of student evaluation relative to faculty performance evaluation for the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 terms. Sacramento State and CFA worked jointly on the language.

In sum, all Reviewers conducting performance evaluations are expected to take into consideration the impact that COVID 19 may have had on student evaluations. To that end, a copy of this memorandum is to be permanently appended to the front of each course evaluation performed in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021. Please place the memorandum in the file as soon as possible, but no later than February 26, 2021.

On 11/13/2020, Provost Perez provided his expectations regarding faculty (including reviewer) in a SacSend relative to the impact of COVID 19 which is applicable for the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 term. Please encourage the faculty to revisit his message.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you in advance.

Robin Carter Retiring from Sacramento State

February 8, 2021

In December, I had the great pleasure of announcing the wonderful news that Dr. Robin Carter had accepted the position as the Dean of the College of Health and Human Services. As you can see in that announcement, Dr. Carter has an illustrious track record of success at Sacramento State supporting our students, staff, and faculty as well as an extensive record of supporting our region.

It is with great difficulty that I write to you today to announce that Dr. Carter has decided to retire from the University for personal reasons.

Dr. Carter has literally grown up at Sacramento State and Sacramento State has grown up with her. Dr. Carter’s impact on us as a campus and a community cannot be overstated. She has left a lasting impact on us and we are indebted to her for her care and leadership. Personally, I have valued her partnership and friendship and will miss working with her very much. I have worked with, traveled with, and celebrated with Dr. Carter and have benefited from her strong, compassionate, and dedicated leadership, and her honesty and integrity.

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Carter on her tremendous career and thanking her for her dedication to the Hornet Family. We look forward to all that she has in front of her and wish her all the best as she makes this transition into her future. I can’t wait to see what comes next in her fantastic journey.

Sincerely,
Steve Perez
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Spring 2021 Welcome

January 14, 2021

Hi everyone,

I hope this email finds you well and having a relaxing break between semesters. While I was able to recharge some from the continual efforts we all put in every day to provide a great educational experience to our students during incredibly difficult times, the events in Washington, D.C. on January 6th shook me. I found myself very emotional watching what looked like our country crumbling and felt overwhelmed wondering what our future brings. While I still do not know what is in our future, even as the pandemic surges, watching the bipartisan condemnation of the attack on the Capitol gave me hope. It gives me hope that we can see across our differences and work towards a better future for all of us. We must continue to stand for democracy and stand up against attempts to challenge it with mistruths and deception. We must continue to support each other.

We have done that in many ways on our caring campus. We continue to have a lot of work, discussion, debate, and understanding needed to make our campus a truly welcoming and inclusive one. I have every confidence that we can and will succeed. I have already seen the work and care we have put into supporting our students and each other during the pandemic. We have transitioned our campus to a mostly virtual experience out of necessity and we need to keep it up for another semester. We are all exhausted and we miss interacting with one another. Those days will come again and we anticipate being back on campus in some form next fall. Until then, we have another virtual semester ahead of us and we must continue to protect ourselves and one another from the virus. It will require us all to continue to be flexible, caring, and understanding of how we are each struggling and how we can succeed together. I know you already have been carrying out this Herculean task for nearly a year now, but we must continue.

Among the many ways we adjusted last semester was with the implementation of some emergency policies and procedures described in my messages from August and September and this video. As we continue to experience the effects of the pandemic, we must maintain these policies and procedures, including those explained in the interim course syllabus policy.

The aspect of these policies and procedures which has received the most attention is the section regarding webcams:

To support student privacy and for equity reasons students shall not be required by faculty to allow live access to a webcam. This includes proctoring, discussion, class sessions, office hours, or other consultation. Courses (or departments) that must require live access to a webcam for course pedagogy (e.g. American Sign Language courses, theater and dance courses) must obtain an exception from the Department Chair and College Dean before the start of the semester.

The equity concerns regarding access to high-speed internet and technology continue, and thus we shall maintain this aspect of the policies and procedures. With that said, I have heard from some faculty that they would like to encourage students to turn on their cameras to increase engagement. I understand that and I agree it could enhance a student’s ability to be engaged in a course. Faculty should feel free to explain the benefits of having cameras on and how it can improve everyone’s experience. However, a student should not be penalized if they are not able or willing to turn on their camera. Our collective goal is to support one another, with care and compassion.

Delivering an education virtually would have been impossible without your work and the support of IRT over the past 10 months. IRT has done a tremendous job supporting the needs of our students, faculty, and staff and we owe them a big Thank You! If you or your students have technology needs, please look here for resources available.

This coming semester we should look to the future, one with a challenging budget yet also one with many possibilities. We will continue to strengthen and innovate in the ways in which we support our students. We will continue working on our campus antiracism plan. And we will continue to expand our activities to support our region as an Anchor Institution. We have learned many things about what we can do in this last year. Now we need to determine what of this we want to continue doing and how else we can evolve and innovate to provide the best education possible for our students. Our first step will be to plan how to accommodate the likely need for high flexibility in the fall 2021 semester. We do not know exactly what it will be like, but we can plan for a semester that supports a combination of face to face, virtual, and highly flexible courses to meet the varied and changing needs of our students, staff, and faculty. I hope you share my optimism about the coming semester and the future ahead.

Once again, thank you for all you are doing to support our students, each other, and the region. We have faced so many challenges and difficulties in the last year and done so with grace, care, and understanding. We will face more, and I know we can get through them together.

Take care, Steve

Steve Perez
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs