Research Restart, Fall Instruction, Staff Banquet, Dennis Peters Wake

Hoping your finals week has been going as smoothly as we might expect.

A few follow-up items from the faculty meeting:

1. As we envision restarting our research efforts, please forward any concerns you have to Jon Karty, so we can be proactive in preparing for our own needs in Chemistry in advance of guidelines from the various restart committees.  We would also like to hear from the several groups that have been continuing with essential research.  If you have encountered any challenges that we could address for other groups before restart, please let us know.  In broad strokes, all PIs should be thinking in terms of minimizing the number of students in labs to allow for social distancing, keeping group meetings in virtual formats, etc.
2. While we do not yet have a clear picture of the format of fall instruction (face to face, virtual, or some hybrid), anyone who is concerned about face to face instruction should please share these concerns with Martha or me.  These concerns will change with the course of the pandemic, but let’s keep lines of communication open.
3. As a reminder, our departmental online graduate will be held tomorrow at 6:30 PM.  Kayla will be sending out an email reminder with more information.
4. An invitation to a zoom version of the Staff Banquet held on May 12 was just sent out by Mary.  While we’ll all have to supply our own drinks and food, we can at least spend a little time celebrating our staff together.
5. Thanks to all of you who contributed photos and your memories of Dennis.  ITG has prepared a beautiful video tribute which we’ll share at a virtual wake on the evening of May 22.  More details, soon.