From the Dean: Welcome back to spring semester

Dear staff and faculty,

I hope that each of you found some time to rest and recharge over the winter break as 2020 demanded a lot of us. However, I know that despite the break, many of us are still tired—physically and emotionally—from all that 2020 brought and the ways 2021 has started (e.g., increase in COVID-19 cases, elections, a riot at the Capitol, the potential for additional violence next week), and I encourage you to continue to care for your physical and mental health and those around you.

I am grateful for the ways we responded as a College to the myriad challenges of the year and continued to provide excellent instruction and support to our students and service to our community. You showed extraordinary resilience in navigating changes to how and where you were able to do your work, and I am proud of the ways we have adapted and adjusted.

Despite the many trials of 2020, there were several bright spots, the brightest of which was the naming of our College for Mary Frances Early in February. As we approach the one-year anniversary of the naming and the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of UGA, I am proud of the things we have set in motion since then to enact our commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion. For example, multiple departments and programs are attending to professional growth and development related to anti-Black racism and civic engagement through readings, discussions, guest speakers, and syllabus review. A steering committee of individuals from the College and the Clarke County School District is providing leadership to infuse diversity, equity, and inclusion and social-emotional learning into our educator preparation work. Our student ambassadors have advanced proposals for making our College a more welcoming and inclusive place, and we are acting on those proposals. And plans are underway for our annual Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Conference, which is always a thought-provoking highlight of the year. There is always more work to do, but I am pleased with the ways we are moving from words to actions.

I want to draw your attention to two events occurring in February to mark the 60th anniversary of the desegregation of UGA, for which the College is a co-sponsor. The first is the annual Mary Frances Early Lecture, which will be delivered by Nikki Giovanni at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 2 on the UGA Graduate School’s YouTube page. The second is the closing session for the month, titled Education in Georgia: Looking Toward the Future, which will feature Mary Frances Early in conversation with College senior and Rhodes Scholar, Phaidra Buchanan, and moderated by Mary Frances Early Endowed Professor of Teacher Education Cynthia Dillard. The event will take place virtually at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 25 and requires registration.

One of the challenges of 2020 was the speed and completeness of communication related to COVID-19, and, unfortunately, that is going to continue in 2021 as information often changes before we can get communication out. Such is the case with the vaccine as information about vaccine priority has changed multiple times since December 24. More detailed information about the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine will be forthcoming later this week. UGA has received doses of both brands of vaccine, and some of our colleagues have already received their first dose through the University Health Center. The plan is to be able to vaccinate everyone, but the speed at which that can be done depends on the availability of the vaccine.

As we begin another semester that promises to be full of both bright spots and challenges, I encourage you to take the time to reach out to and check-in with one another and with students and to continue to enact the sense of community that is a hallmark of the Mary Frances Early College of Education.

Denise Spangler
Dean