CUNY has switched to remote work and instruction for Monday, January 26th. The central office has sent out this guidance for instructors.

Should on-campus access be suspended due to the storm, all faculty scheduled to teach an in-person class on Monday would be required to shift their classes to an online modality. This would be necessary to ensure compliance with NYSED instructional time and contact hour requirements and to avoid disruptions to the academic calendar that would otherwise result from class cancellations.

Faculty with classes scheduled for Monday would be encouraged to deliver instruction synchronously using CUNY Zoom and/or asynchronously using D2L Brightspace. Course materials, announcements, and links to live sessions should be posted in Brightspace, and classes should meet at their regularly scheduled time via Zoom when possible.

• • More information about CUNY Zoom can be found here.
  • Getting started in Brightspace video can be found here.
  • For assistance, please reach out to your local Help Desk/LMS Team.  

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We recognize this guidance uses “required to,” as well as “encouraged to” and “when possible.” This may be confusing for instructors who have prepared courses to be taught in person. Requiring emergency synchronous online instruction presupposes connectivity and the capacity to teach or learn online; you or your students may not have that connectivity or capacity.

Graduate Teaching Fellows: if you are able to connect with your students (via email through Brightspace or CUNYFirst) and invite them to a Zoom session during the time for which the course was scheduled, please do so. Understand that not all of them may be able to connect. Those who cannot should not be punished. Consider keeping the session short and informational.

At minimum, all instructors should be in contact with their students via email or post to Brightspace or your course site acknowledging that class is not meeting in person on Monday, and what, if anything, you would like students to before the next meeting. Since this is the first class of the semester, consider distributing your syllabus and asking students to review it prior to the next meeting.

Do the best you can, and remain safe and warm.

If you would like a consultation with the Teaching and Learning Center about impacts of the storm on your instruction, please send a request to [email protected].