From The Dean’s Office
To Our Mansfield Buckeye Network:
While each day of our present situation brings change, I am amazed at how the Mansfield Buckeye Community is adapting and adjusting to protect the health and safety of our students, faculty and staff while maintaining “business as usual” as much as possible. Our highest priority is the safety and wellbeing of our community. In addition, we are focusing on continuing to provide a great learning experience for our students.
You may have heard that the provost extended both spring break and the semester by one week. There will be no more in-person courses this semester; instead, our faculty, with the guidance of Associate Dean Dr. Dawn Kitchen, are laser-focused on adapting our learning environment to a virtual format. As you can imagine, this effort entails a complex mix of technological support, equipment, creating lectures and learning activities online, and transitioning course assignments, exams and assessments. In addition, our wealth of student support services—from tutoring and library instruction to counseling and academic advising—are moving to virtual formats. The Student Success team, under the leadership of Assistant Dean Dr. Donna Hight, remains centered on helping students achieve at their highest potential. New websites have been created for students, faculty, and staff to help with this transition: https://keeplearning.osu.edu, https://keepteaching.osu.edu, and https://it.osu.edu/keepworking.
Student residents in Molyet Village, our university-owned and managed student housing, have been asked by the university to return to their permanent residence, with hardship exceptions granted on a case-by-case basis. Buckeye Village Apartments is privately owned and remains open, although most student residents there have elected to return to their permanent homes. At this time, we have approximately 50 students remaining in the two housing complexes. We are working to keep our food pantry stocked and other emergency needs met for all of our students so that they can complete this semester successfully.
We hope you and your loved ones stay safe and healthy. This is a challenging time as we all face heightened pressures and uncertainties. At such times, hope matters more than ever. We need to draw on our Buckeye resilience and lift each other up. Again, our energies are focused especially on helping our students, many of whom are under incredible stress.
For updated campus information, please click the red-button link below. Please do not visit campus for the time being without calling ahead, using the contact information listed on the linked website.
Please consider extending some Buckeye Love to someone in our circle today.
In the spirit of Buckeye community,
Norman W. Jones, Ph.D.
Dean and Director, The Ohio State University at Mansfield
