PRTM Support During Covid 19

 
To Our PRTM Community,
I hope that you and your families are safe. I also hope that you had an enjoyable and restful time during the extended spring break. As you know, we are now in unchartered waters and rules, guidance, freedom, education, and our social practices are ever-changing. Nobody has answers to all the questions we have and often the answers vary with time. Please know that our faculty and staff have been working extremely hard to ensure the safety of the students, staff, and faculty they work with. More than ever, the PRTM family has been coming together to take care of the “pack”. Biltmore and Jordan Halls are now closed and ONLY authorized personnel are permitted to enter. If you need to speak with any member of the PRTM faculty or staff please use email or phone.
With “social distancing”, I hope we don’t lose connectivity with one another. Instead, I urge each of you to check in regularly with one another (via text, email, phone, email, or any number of video chat services) to ensure that the health and basic needs of everyone such as food and medicines are met. Please do take the “social distancing” advice seriously. It is important not only from the standpoint of you own health, but the health of others you may come in contact with, especially the elderly and people with underlying health conditions. It will also enable our healthcare workers and first responders to take care of their responsibilities in a safe manner. Please continue to be patient, understanding, responsible, and take a personal leadership role in helping them and us navigate through this difficult situation successfully as a team.
As we transition to online classes, I ask that you please be patient and understanding as we work through the system to address your questions/concerns and provide the best possible education we can, under the circumstances. Instructors may not be able to provide the options, attention, and variety in learning platforms that you may have been accustomed to receiving, and I hope you realize that they are working very hard to do all that they can possibly do to convert face-to-face classes to online classes. Please keep in mind that some instructors have never offered online classes in the past, and to make that transition in two weeks is a monumental task. In order to transition all of your face-to-face classes to online classes, changes in your syllabus are warranted. Each instructor will be communicating the changes in their respective syllabi with you. While some of those changes may not seem fair, please do understand that instructors have limited options and resources available to implement at this time. Recognizing the challenges that some of these changes may pose to you, NC State has made three significant changes (1. Managing exams, 2. Changing letter grades to S/U, and 3. Requests for late course drops) as indicated in the attached file. Please work together with your instructors to navigate through these changes and the remainder of the semester in a collaborative manner.
Please be safe and stay connected.  Together we will get through this.
Thank you!
Dr. Michael A. Kanters
PRTM Interim Department Head