Welcome Messages and Resources
Chancellor Javier Reyes shared a welcome message with the UMass Amherst community on September 9, 2026. This message contains many helpful campus resources for faculty, staff, and students and ways to get involved in the UMass Amherst community.
Senior Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education Farshid Hajir shared a welcome message with the UMass Amherst community on September 11, 2026. This message contains many helpful resources and updates on the campus efforts around digital accessibility, general education review, open educational resources, and Disabilities Services for students.
Accessibility and Belonging
The Americans with Disabilities Act is a federal law that protects the rights of people with physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life function. These include (but are not limited to) walking, talking, breathing, thinking, seeing, hearing or working. It also applies to persons who have a record of having substantial impairment or are regarded as having such an impairment.
Title II of the ADA applies to all state and local agencies defined as "public entities". It requires that these public entities ensure their programs, events, and services be made accessible to persons with disability so as to not discriminate against them. UMass Amherst counts as a public entity.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has updated Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), introducing significant changes that will impact public universities and their employees. These revisions require that all digital content and services provided by public entities, including higher education institutions, be accessible to individuals with disabilities. The DOJ established a deadline of April 24, 2027 for all digital content and services to be accessible.
As you prepare for the start of classes, we encourage you to take advantage of the many resources and flexible support options available to you.
The university remains committed to ensuring equal access to educational opportunities for students with disabilities. As a reminder, the Faculty Senate requires a statement regarding Disabilities Services to appear on all syllabi.
Please keep in mind that at the beginning of each semester, Disability Services (DS) experiences a substantial increase in requests for accommodations. While DS continues to process requests as efficiently as possible, some students may be in the process of applying for accommodations and awaiting review. You play an especially important role in supporting student success during this period.
Disability Services has provided a helpful guide with best practices for faculty to use, not just at the beginning of the semester but in all your work with students. You are encouraged to familiarize yourself with these guidelines and take full advantage of the resources provided.
Instructors will be informed by Disability Services of students in their course who need accommodations. When planning for a course accommodation, information sought from instructors by Disability Services can be found here. Instructors who seek additional information can easily access other resources and information provided by Disability Services on their website.
In our commitment to inclusivity, students can specify their pronouns in SPIRE, which will also appear on class rosters. Please familiarize yourself with this information and use students’ pronouns as indicated in SPIRE. Many new students only provide their pronouns upon arriving on campus, so please be sure to use the most up to date lists directly from SPIRE (in preference to lists that may have been printed out or prepared earlier during the summer) as they are most current. For more information and suggested resources/assistance, please visit the Stonewall Center website.
Academic Regulations and Syllabus Policies
Academic Regulations can be found on the University Registrar website. These regulations represent the university’s official position on a number of academic areas including academic integrity, absences, and academic grievance procedures.
Academic Support and Opportunities
With more than 170 courses supported and 9,000+ individual students served through 70,000 student visits, the Learning Resource Center (LRC) and Office of Undergraduate Research and Studies (OURS) are valued academic resources for our campus community.
The Learning Resource Center (LRC) serves as the central unit for undergraduate academic and research support. It provides four different branches of academic support for undergraduates:
- Peer Tutoring (drop-in and by appointment)
- Academic Success Coaching (ASC)
- Supplemental Instruction (SI) (small-group review sessions)
- Success Toolkit - Level Up Your Learning (metacognition and academic skills workshops)
The Office of Undergraduate Research and Studies (OURS) helps students find and access undergraduate research and scholarly opportunities on and off campus. OURS also maintains one of the nation's largest open-access, searchable databases of undergraduate research opportunities, keeping students informed about current research projects and openings across the university.
OURS is also home to PROPEL, a program designed to match students with research mentors within and beyond their majors, fostering interdisciplinary engagement in undergraduate research.
I invite you to explore the LRC and OURS websites and encourage your students to take advantage of these resources at any stage of their undergraduate journey.
For any undergraduate student whose academic performance places them at risk of failing a course, academic alerts can be submitted by instructors through the Navigate student success platform. An alert triggers an email to a student from their Undergraduate Academic Dean’s Office, and they are advised to connect with their instructor and campus resources such as tutoring, advising, or study skills support. If you have concerns related to course engagement, such as declines in attendance, disengagement from the course platform (LMS), and/or lack of responsiveness to academic outreach, it is appropriate to request support from the Dean of Students’ Office.
Class Absences
Three basic rules apply to all excused absences and how they are treated by University policy or at the instructor’s discretion: (1) Students must still meet all class requirements; (2) Instructors must offer reasonable assistance in making up missed work (e.g., making arrangements for attendance at labs or discussion sessions that meet at other times; providing makeup exams or labs where feasible); (3) Instructors may not require students to take a make-up exam in a format substantially different from that of the original exam.
Students may be absent from a class due to physical or mental health issues, family illness, religious observance, official university sponsored events/activities such as athletics and field trips, or other extenuating circumstances. In recent semesters, we have transitioned to a practice of asking students to take responsibility for informing faculty members in a timely fashion of such circumstances. Students may refrain from attending classes, due to inability engage in learning or to prevent infection transmission. Students are not required to visit University Health Service except as needed to care for their illness and should not be directed to any medical care facility merely for the purpose of obtaining a verification note. Assistance provided to students who must miss class for a variety of reasons is greatly appreciated. At the same time, it is appropriate for instructors to let students know what level of absence places them at higher risk of not being successful in their particular class. I strongly encourage you to consult CTL’s advice on how instructors can establish expectations that encourage class attendance yet also provide flexibility for students.
Many extenuating reasons for a student absence may not be documentable (e.g., student is not feeling well but does not seek medical attention), and instructors should use their best judgment in evaluating student absences. The Dean of Students’ Office should not be contacted to verify a student absence as that office is not in a position to perform this function. In exceptional circumstances, when students or family members notify the Dean of Students’ Office of unusual or extended absences, and are unable to contact instructors directly, the Dean of Students Office will notify instructors with this information.
Please be sure that you are familiar with the university’s policy on Class Absence for Religious Observance so that you are best prepared to support our students in observing religious and spiritual practices. You may find it useful to consult this calendar listing a number of religious holidays and traditions observed by many members of our community.
As our campus aspires to create a stronger sense of belonging among all students, faculty, and staff, we are guided by recent research which affirms that “students who report experiencing greater support for their own worldview also show increased appreciative attitudes toward others” (Rockenbach et al., 2017). As such, we encourage you to learn about and support the unique needs and observances of each student you work with. This is particularly important since individuals from the same broader religious/spiritual background may observe different practices, including praying, fasting, and attending services at different times or on different days. I encourage you to work with any student who would like to request a reasonable accommodation that fits with their particular situation and abides by the university policy on religious observances referenced above. Please contact the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life at [email protected] if you have additional questions regarding how to best support our students.
The Academic Regulations document contains the policies surrounding examinations. In-class exams (during the scheduled meeting time block of the course) must occur during that scheduled time block. Instructors should not require students to come early or stay late beyond the scheduled time of the course to take the exam (as students may have other classes or obligations preventing them from being able to do this). If additional time is needed, evening exams outside of class time can be scheduled. Evening exams should be scheduled from 7:00 – 9:00 pm on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays and can be done through the Registrar’s Office. Examinations during the semester that occur outside of class time should be announced to students as soon as possible and preferably listed on course syllabi.
It is university policy that all final exams be given during the scheduled final examination period at the end of the semester. In courses in which no final examination or other class activity is scheduled during the final examination period, no examination should be scheduled during the final weeks of classes nor during the Reading Period. Non-cumulative exams must be scheduled during the final examination period if there is no cumulative final for the course. Non-cumulative exams may be scheduled during the last week of classes only in classes in which an additional final exam is also scheduled.