Dear Faculty and Staff,

We hope that you and your loved ones are healthy and safe.

You may recall the University realized the need to develop solutions to mitigate the financial losses from COVID-19 during the remainder of this calendar year, as well as identify potential future operational models to adapt to the new normal. 

To that end, a campuswide New Normal Task Force (NNTF) was formed by President Khator.  Your participation in a survey was requested to solicit ideas and solutions for addressing challenges and opportunities in the short term (less than six months) as well as the long term (two years and beyond).  The feedback was substantial with more than 1,075 responses from faculty and staff members.

After evaluating the feedback from the survey, the task force identified 12 thematic issues that have been broadly categorized into administrative, academic and auxiliary focused areas.   The NNTF plans to develop recommendations, as appropriate, to address the topics identified in the faculty and staff survey where other committees or administrative units are not yet providing insight and recommendations. In the meantime, the task force has formally developed initial recommendations concerning two of the specific topics that emerged from the survey, namely micro-credentialing and student pipelines, and have provided those to President Khator and Provost Short.

Additionally, the NNTF has started an effort to address the realities facing higher education and specifically the University of Houston in the post-pandemic world and the new normal. Going forward, the task force will focus its efforts on understanding and responding to the impact of the new normal in six key areas, including instruction and pedagogy, workforce and talent recruiting, repositioning of research, academic workplace, globalization of talent and education, and college athletics.

We thank you for your support and invite you to visit the New Normal Task Force website for a more in-depth look at how the task force continues to utilize your valuable feedback in developing its recommendations.  As the work of the task force progresses, additional work product will be posted on the website.

Sincerely,