April 3: NOTE OF GRATITUDE TO FACULTY MEMBERS FROM PROVOST JOE GLOVER AND PRESIDENT KENT FUCHS

Dear faculty colleagues,

We want to take this time to extend our profound gratitude for your tireless work and resilience since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Three weeks ago you were asked to move all instructional activities online.  We thank you for successfully and smoothly doing so, while helping students make the transition as they dispersed, many of them under considerable stress.

Amid this disruption, and continuing to the present, we know many of you find yourselves called to provide even more support and care to undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.  We greatly appreciate the faculty’s attentiveness and thoughtfulness—especially when so many of you are also caring for your own loved ones.  A special shout out to all academic advisors for your important role and the extra load you carry. 

Thank you to the many faculty who have been able to continue their scholarship and creative activities.  Special thanks are also due our clinical faculty who are providing exceptional care in the line of fire, to our library faculty, who are critical to our mission, and to our extension colleagues who continue to deliver community support across Florida.  Thank you, all of you, for your commitment to your work and for your creativity and resourcefulness. 

We know you are striving to be your very best as a faculty member.  We hope you do so while accepting that perfection is not possible amid so much disruption and uncertainty.  Again, we are so proud and grateful for how you are responding to this pandemic, particularly your leadership and pursuit of excellence and how you are caring for each other and those in the UF community.

With admiration,

Joe Glover, Provost, and
Kent Fuchs, President