Dear fellow Spartan colleagues,

Normally at this time of year, we welcome many of our faculty members back to campus and wish everyone a successful academic year. The landscape of this year’s fall semester looks much different, as we find ourselves still in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. 

For many of you, there will not be a return to campus this semester as you continue to work and teach remotely. Others of you have continued working in-person on campus or are preparing to return to a much different environment than the one you left, to campus with far fewer people than usual, wearing your masks and maintaining social distancing.

We continue to work closely with members of the HR Subcommittee of the Reopening Campus Taskforce to provide guidance to units and colleges as they work through their reopening plans. New questions and challenges arise daily, and while we are doing everything possible to address and anticipate these items, we need your feedback to help identify areas you have concerns over or gaps we need to focus on. You can submit your feedback here(anonymously if you wish). We also encourage you to continue to visit the Together We Will website for the latest information for you as a staff or faculty member and the MSU HR website for coronavirus information and resources for employees and departments.

As we continue to focus our efforts on how to ensure your health and safety-related to your work at MSU, it is also important for us to continue to move the University forward. The pandemic has revealed in greater measure areas where more work must be done; one of those areas is related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Both President Stanley and Provost Woodruff have identified DEI work as priorities in their leadership agendas. We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the DEI Plan outlined on the President’s website, as well as Provost Woodruff’s letter of greeting to the campus community. 

On behalf of MSU Human Resources and Academic Human Resources, we want to thank each of you for your continued work and dedication to the University, our students, and our land-grant mission. These are challenging times, but Together We Will. We wish you a safe, healthy, and successful academic year.

Sincerely,

Sharon E. Butler
Associate Vice President
MSU Human Resources

N. Suzanne Lang, PhD
Interim Associate Provost and
Associate Vice President
Academic Human Resources