September 6, 2021
To the Campus Covid-19 Response Team:
Henry Yang
David Marshall
Joe Incandela
Scott Grafton
Stu Feinstein
Susannah Scott
Mary Ferris
Margaret Klawunn
Jeff Stopple
On this Labor Day, we are writing on behalf of the UCSB Faculty Association. We recognize
that the Administration and the various COVID task forces have worked vigorously to protect
UCSB faculty, staff, and students during the past months. We appreciate the Divisional
newsletters from the Faculty Senate and the robust efforts to keep us informed of evolving
circumstances. While we applaud the commitment to pivoting from in-person instruction if
the science and determinations of the Santa Barbara Department of Public Health warrant
such a move, we remain concerned about the risk to University community members in the
proposed in person scenario for Fall 2021. Given ever-shifting circumstances and the
endemic nature of the pandemic, we call for greater flexibility in the delivery of
instruction. We need to encourage faculty who want to adopt and adapt the tools that
so many of us acquired during the last eighteen months to teach remotely and redesign
courses for quality education.
Many of our members feel anxious about the plan to return to fully in-person teaching for
the 2021 Fall quarter, given the Delta variant and related surge in infections,
hospitalizations, and deaths in California. We note that while the first week at UC
Berkeley went relatively smoothly, the second week saw some student cases presumably
acquired in the community. The Central Coast and Los Angeles lag behind the Bay Area
in vaccination. Locally, the opening of the Santa Barbara Unified School District has s
een rising numbers of cases. We all recognize that the university is part of the community.
Existing data comes from before student arrival. Although almost all campus participants
will be vaccinated, breakthrough infections are more common than initially reported.
Faculty with younger (unvaccinated) children in school experience special concern given
that they may be unintentional vectors for communicating infection from their
children to colleagues and students or vice versa.
Our faculty and staff are concerned about lack of clarity regarding the enforcement of
safety protocols. It is not enough to permit instructors to walk out of class if a
student refuses to wear a mask. Given violent confrontations over masks even in our
county, burdening instructors with policing may well put some in immediate danger.
Though the situation is evolving, our instructors and staff must have greater
transparency on how to best protect people on campus.
We are also concerned about reports of breakthrough infections and waning immunity.
In this context, we urge the University to adopt a policy of maximum flexibility in
allowing all Instructors to decide whether to teach their courses in-person or remotely,
at least until health authorities have determined that the danger has subsided.
Instructors require maximum flexibility to deliver courses during ongoing pandemic
conditions; students too require the most appropriate ways to access courses but not
at the expense of instructor or staff workload. In this regard, we especially note
the recent affirmation of earlier communication that “Instructors are not required
to teach students simultaneously in-person and remotely where an alternative teaching
modality would represent a significant workload issue.” Just as we trust our teaching
staff to provide quality courses, so we must trust them to appropriately deliver their
courses during the ongoing pandemic.
We call for the team to perform a transparent and comprehensive assessment of the
current health situation and UCSB readiness before the September 13 Town Hall.
Following it, and if the results warrant, we suggest to UCSB Administration and
Academic Senate that individual Instructors on Record be allowed to choose the
teaching modality for their Fall 2021 courses.
Sincerely yours,
Eileen Boris, co-chair
Ben Olguin, co-chair
Peter Ford
Kalju Kahn
Harold Marcuse
Constance Penley
Laila Shereen Sakr
Executive Board, Santa Barbara Faculty Association