Dear Faculty and Staff Colleagues-
As we begin the new academic year, I would like to encourage you to make student, faculty, and staff wellness your highest priority. We need to recognize that wellness serves as the foundation for learning and success. As we know from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, no one can perform intellectually or professionally when their basic human needs are unmet. By taking the time to intentionally increase our focus on creating a culture of wellness on campus, we can make Sac State a better place to work, learn, and thrive.
Student Wellness
The well-being of our students will always be our top priority. After a year of increasing concern over campus safety, President Wood is putting safety front and center in his new administration by creating the Presidential Taskforce on Campus Safety and committing resources—including hiring 7 full time counselors—to address this pressing need. Ensuring that our students have the support they need to achieve their goals and live happy, healthy lives is a responsibility that falls to each of us. Indeed, a recent poll by Inside Higher Ed found that a majority of students say they want their professors to be involved in promoting students’ physical health and wellness.
An important part of promoting student wellness is by making sure they feel welcome and included in their classes. The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) provides many excellent resources for getting faculty started on Fall courses. This includes guidance on a setting up a safe, accessible, and equitable classroom and using inclusive language in syllabi to ensure students with diverse skills, abilities, and cultural or social backgrounds feel they belong. CTL also Getting Started Resources can also help you with course modality, using Canvas, communicating with students, academic assessments, and getting help when you need it.
We also have a special responsibility to protect our students from sexual assault and support those who have experienced it. I encourage faculty to include a Title IX statement on all syllabi with the following information:
Sexual assault on campus is a violation of our students' rights under Title IX. This law factors into Sacramento State's policies on investigating and providing resources for anyone who has experienced sex/gender discrimination, harassment, sexual misconduct (including sexual assault and rape), sexual exploitation, dating or domestic violence, stalking, and related retaliation. With limited exception, all university employees who know or have reason to know of allegations of the above listed prohibited conduct must promptly inform the Office for Equal Opportunity (OEO). Employees are required to disclose all information including the names of the parties, even where the person has requested anonymity. The OEO will determine whether confidentiality is appropriate given the circumstances of each incident. This incident reporting tool is available for that purpose.
Promoting academic honesty is another way of supporting our students. A variety of campus stakeholders are researching best practices as we learn to accept the reality of AI in the classroom and can help you if you are struggling. Please visit the CTL’s collection of ChatGPT Resources or consider attending the upcoming seminar on instructional uses of AI at 12 p.m. on September 1 hosted by Dean Sidorkin of the College of Education.
Faculty and Staff Wellness
We can’t care for our students if we don’t care for ourselves. That’s why I’m so happy that Human Resources has launched a new Employee Wellness webpage for faculty, staff, and managers. This site contains tools and employee benefits to support the physical, financial, and social wellbeing of Sac State employees and our families.
As we prepare for our students to return, please engage with these resources. When we treat our students and each other with kindness, we embody our goal of being a healing campus. We are one university, and we only succeed when we succeed together.
Sincerely,
Carlos Nevarez
Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
