RETURNING TO TEACHING AFTER THE WILDFIRE CRISIS: A RESOURCE FOR FACULTY The Napa/Sonoma wildfires caused widespread damage and personal loss in our communities. The university has been closed for over a week and the semester was ground to a halt. We will resume our teaching responsibilities on Wednesday, October 18th. According to Academic Affairs, December 8 remains the last day of instruction for the semester. Faculty have been asked to adjust their syllabi and course schedules to account for the lost time so that the term can be completed as planned. This resource was developed to offer some suggestions that may be helpful.



Assess the missed time across each of your courses and then make adjustments. This is likely to vary. For instance, a course that meets once per week on a Thursday missed one class session, whereas one that meets on a Monday or Tuesday missed two – which is equivalent to two weeks of instruction. These classes will probably require greater adjustments to the content covered, due dates and perhaps even the grading scheme. Once you have an idea of how many hours were missed, you can begin to make some decisions. One option is to continue where you left off, adjust due dates, and omit some of the material originally planned for the end of the semester. Or, if the content is such that content is not contingent on what was learned previously, you may wish you omit what you had planned to teach during the closures. We at the Faculty Center are here if you would like assistance on adjusting your course. Contact us at [email protected] and one of our team can be in touch to set up an appointment as needed.



Resist the inclination to “catch up”. If the university is closed, then the learning expected of students for those days is not required – or perhaps even feasible. We do not yet know how many students were directly affected, but it is likely that a substantial number have either experienced loss or knows someone who has. Doubling up on lectures and/or readings is unlikely to promote learning and may make an already challenging time more stressful for some students. Make the changes explicit to students and go through them in class. It is very important that the students are clear on changes made in the course. It is strongly recommended that you revise the syllabus and if applicable, your Moodle page to reflect all changes. For example, replace the originally scheduled content with “Campus closed” or “No class” for all sessions missed. Once in class, go through all changes carefully, particularly if you are removing or modifying assignments, exams, and readings. You may wish to have both versions of the syllabus sent to students or posted on Moodle – the original and revised – so that the changes are clear to them. Suggestions for the first day back The impact of this disaster on students will vary. How people cope with traumatic situations also varies, and it is important to be mindful of this. Although sharing experiences and feelings may be useful to some, it can be distressing to others who cope by resuming a sense of routine and normalcy. This is not to suggest that you avoid discussing the crisis at all. A few words of acknowledgement and encouragement followed by an overview of how the semester will proceed will set a supportive tone and assist students in resuming their academic work. Matthew Paolucci Callahan, PhD Instructional Consultant, Faculty Center