COVID-19 Professional Impact Statement

What is a COVID-19 Impact Statement?  A COVID-19 Impact Statement is a document of up to two pages in length in which a faculty member describes the ways in which the pandemic has affected, both positively and negatively, their effectiveness and/or productivity. This could be in instruction & instructionally related activities and/or research, creative & scholarly activity, and/or in service. 

Is a COVID-19 Impact Statement required?  No, the statement is optional. It is one option that CSULB is providing to help faculty members with the impact of the pandemic. It is likely to be helpful to you to reflect on the ways in which your work may have been affected by the pandemic, and it may be helpful to your reviewers to have context for the ways in which your work has been affected. You may want to discuss whether or not to provide a statement with your Department Chair/School Director/Program Director.

Where will the COVID-19 Impact Statement appear? You may add a COVID-19 Impact statement to your candidate file when undergoing any personnel review (range elevation, lecturer evaluation, mini-review, reappointment, tenure, promotion and ETF). The document provides context to those reviewing the file.

Are there things I should not include in a COVID-19 Impact Statement? Yes, if you had a leave you may choose to include this information, but you should not include the reason for the leave/nature of the leave, simply the timing and duration of the leave.  You should also avoid providing any other information that is personal in nature.  While we recognize that a faculty member’s personal life may have affected their work life during the pandemic, personal information cannot be used to make personnel decisions and such information can increase the chance of implicit bias playing a role in the personnel process.

What might a professional impact look like[1]?

Teaching and Advising Examples

• Moving classes online might have led to negative impact in terms of re-distribution of workload away from scholarship, service and other aspects of instruction.
• Impact on SPOT results[2] given the move to alternative modes of instruction.
• Informal student care or advising support added to workload.
• Faculty member covered another faculty member’s course for some period of time (which is positive in terms of service but might have diverted the work time the faculty member had for scholarship or service)
• Moving class to alternative modes of instruction resulted in improved pedagogical experience of some kind (e.g., increased office hours attendance, etc.)

Research Examples

• Cancelation of
  • Conference presentations / keynotes / invited talks.
  • Performances
  • Exhibitions
  • Artist/scholar-in-residence appointments
• Pivot in response to COVID-19 led to new avenue for scholarship.
• Scholarly expertise of relevance to pandemics led to more scholarly opportunities and collaborations.
• Closing of specialized facilities or access to research/creative resources (field work sites, archives and libraries, human subjects, performance space, data-gathering /collaboration travel, etc.)
• Grant funding
  • Restricted
  • Expanded opportunities for those in COVID-related research fields.
  • Paying students although not making expected progress in research – time spent re-defining how to achieve research objectives.
• Cancelation or delay in the appearance of publications due to publisher’s closures or restrictions
• Delays in publications due to reviewer inaccessibility
• Other responsibilities and workload foci left little time for scholarly activities.

Service Example

• Service leadership workload increased in support of staff, students, faculty (positive in terms of service although might negatively impact time available for other areas of specialization like scholarship or teaching, etc.)
  • Clarify the level of the service leadership (program, department, college, school, institution, community, national, etc.)