Information on revisions to spring 2021 academic calendar
The following message was sent by email to students and employees on Sept. 29.
PLEASE NOTE: The schedule of Mind, Body, Spirit days has changed since this message was published.
To provide students with five days off from classes that they would have received during spring break, New Paltz will end the semester two days earlier and has scheduled three individual “Mind, Body, Spirit” days that will be distributed as follows:
- Tuesday, Feb. 23
- Wednesday, March 24
- Thursday, April 15
There will be no classes of any modality on these dates.
The message below has been edited to strike and preserve information that has changed since its original publication.
New Paltz Faculty, Staff and Students:
We are sharing details of a revised spring semester calendar for your information and planning. The continued uncertainties and challenging conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic make it necessary to take a different approach to the spring 2021 calendar that is unlike our traditional approach to the spring semester.
Key elements include:
Starting (Jan. 19) and ending (May 13) dates of instruction remain unchanged.Spring break (March 15-19) is canceled and the five days redistributed as described below.In lieu of spring break, the calendar includes five “Mind, Body, and Spirit Days” spread throughout the semester. No class meetings (online or in-person) are to be scheduled on these days, in an effort to provide students and faculty brief respite from your work. This approach retains the required number of instructional days, while avoiding the risks to community health of week-long spring break travel to distant locations and social gatherings.The “Mind, Body, and Spirit Days” have been scheduled so they do not interfere with Passover and Good Friday observations. They are Tuesday, Feb. 9, Wednesday, Feb. 24, Thursday, March 11, Friday, April 9, and Monday, April 19. Again, no class meetings are to be scheduled on these days.
The COVID-19 Cabinet, which includes the President’s Cabinet, Academic Deans, and other academic leaders, a faculty governance representative, as well as student health, environmental health and safety, instructional technology services and communication staff, contributed their input to this revised calendar. A number of working groups, such as the Academic Planning-COVID-19 Group, which include faculty members, have also provided valuable input and recommendations to the COVID-19 Cabinet.
In discussions with other SUNY presidents and SUNY officials, we have seen that the revisions to our spring semester calendar are very similar to those of other SUNY campuses.
Our thinking considered our best understanding of:
- academic offerings during the fall semester,
- interests expressed by students,
- the interests of some faculty to teach on campus (in part or in full),
- COVID-19 trends and good student behavioral compliance this semester, and
- our recently increased testing protocols and expectations for heightened testing of students and employees prior to the start of spring semester.
We have so far experienced low incidence of COVID-19 on our campus, compared with some others across New York and other parts of the U.S., which we attribute in great part to the obvious careful attention of our community members to individual and collective health. These factors give us confidence about a spring semester on-campus presence and instruction, ideally consistent in modalities with our fall semester.
It goes without saying that we want to provide the mix of experiences and offerings, on-campus and remote, that will sustain overall enrollment this spring and student interest beyond.
Faculty and staff who have questions about the calendar should contact their supervisor, dean (or associate dean) or director. Those individuals will be able to provide more guidance about schedule planning and calendar implementation.
Thank you for all that you have done and continue to do to make fall such a successful semester thus far. Thank you for your mutual commitment to making the best of the educational experience under our circumstances. We hope your fall semester is continuing to go well.
Barbara G. Lyman, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
L. David Eaton, Vice President for Enrollment Management