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<p class="MsoNormal">Dear EE and CpE Undergraduate Students,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> I know that many of you have been wondering about the phased re-opening.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">During the summer, the Russ College and the School of EECS had to make several multi-faceted decisions regarding which courses would be offered fully online, and which students would be returning during Phase 2. At the time, there were
many unknowns --- how many students would be allowed to return, and when. Part of the complexity involved the unknown nature of how the pandemic would progress and the fact that some faculty, with pre-existing health conditions, needed to be assigned to
courses that had no face-to-face contact. Our School had several faculty members who fit into that category.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">For this reason, we prioritized students in courses that needed to be on campus to access specialized equipment for Phase 2 of the re-opening. In particular, We prioritized students taking EE 2213 (Instrumentation Lab) because of its crucial
role in the curriculum. Unfortunately, this limited group of students invited on campus, did not include many students in Electrical Engineering or Computer Engineering who had either already taken the course, or who had yet to take the course. We wish
that more students could be brought back to campus and that these decisions had been made earlier. But, given the fact that social distancing requirements resulted in limited capacity in the dormitories, we are not surprised by the limited number of students
that are being allowed to return to campus. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We are trying our best to accommodate everyone during this pandemic, to keep everyone safe and to deliver a quality experience for everyone at the same time. Because of the uncertainty surrounding what would happen during the semester,
our School proactively developed laboratory kits for all courses with a laboratory component so that students could perform the labs at home. For example, if you are taking EE 1014 or EE 3954 this semester, you should have received one such lab kit.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We are committed to high quality in-person instruction. As soon as it is safe to return to that mode of instruction, we will do so. We remain hopeful that a vaccine will become available in late Fall or early Spring that we will
see a return to “normal” operations. We miss being on campus and working with you face-to-face either in a classroom setting or providing academic and career advising.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">----Best Regards,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">----Costas Vassiliadis, Undergraduate Chair, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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