{"id":29746,"date":"2020-04-01T12:32:13","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T12:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/?p=29746"},"modified":"2024-08-10T21:11:03","modified_gmt":"2024-08-11T01:11:03","slug":"a-message-from-dean-kazerounian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2020\/04\/a-message-from-dean-kazerounian\/","title":{"rendered":"A Message From Dean Kazerounian"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">Dear Friends:<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">We are in\u00a0extraordinary\u00a0times. With each day,\u00a0we are learning how resilient we are.\u00a0Yes \u2013 we have a\u00a0new\u00a0day-to-day\u00a0reality. But our constant mission\u00a0continues: to\u00a0bring\u00a0an environment of\u00a0stability and continuity to the students, faculty and staff who still need to finish the\u00a0spring semester.<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">Over the past couple of weeks, the University, and the administration at the School of Engineering have instituted initiatives aimed\u00a0at creating\u00a0safe and healthy\u00a0surroundings\u00a0for everyone, while maintaining our daily operations. Those initiatives include, but are not limited to:<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">Transferring all classes to an <\/span><span class=\"x_mceitemhiddenspellword\">online<\/span><span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">-only format for the remainder of the semester, as well as giving students the option of transitioning their grade to pass\/fail, where applicable.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">All staff\u00a0are working remotely, adhering to the recent guidelines from the\u00a0State and University.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">\u00a0All lab work has ceased.\u00a0All of our researchers have been instructed to switch to tasks that can be done from home (research writing, data analysis, proposal submissions).<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">\u00a0All Engineering student workers will receive their normal pay, regardless of the circumstances they now face.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">\u00a0As of a few days ago, there has been an outpouring of medical equipment donations from our faculty members, which\u00a0has been sent\u00a0to <\/span><span class=\"x_mceitemhiddenspellword\">UConn<\/span><span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\"> Health.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">\u00a0Although all lab-based research has ceased, we are using this opportunity to double the volume of research proposals that are normally generated by faculty in the School of Engineering. We were inspired to do this based on the story of Isaac Newton, who in 1666, during the time of the Bubonic Plague, went into self-isolation, and produced some of his greatest discoveries.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\"><span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">This list is certainly not exhaustive and there will\u00a0undoubtedly\u00a0be more tough decisions\u00a0to come. However, I pledge to you that the School of Engineering has been, and will continue to be,\u00a0open and transparent with you during this process. Please let me know if you have any questions.<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">I wish you all good health over the next several weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">Kazem Kazerounian<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\">Dean, <\/span><span class=\"x_mceitemhiddenspellword\">UConn<\/span><span class=\"x_mceitemhidden\"> School of Engineering<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A message from Dean Kazerounian on the School&#8217;s Coronavirus efforts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":217047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[56],"class_list":["post-29746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 07:14:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217098,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29746\/revisions\/217098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/217047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29746"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=29746"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=29746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}