In this week’s Thursday Thoughts, above, see the dress Chancellor May, Simone and Jordan did NOT pick out for LeShelle for Christmas. The chancellor also addresses financial aid due the campus through pandemic relief funding. Plus, new music and comic books.

To the UC Davis Community:

All through the pandemic, UC Davis has been doing the kind of public outreach that is a hallmark of our land-grant mission, including, most recently, providing essential information about vaccines.

On last week’s UC Davis LIVE, for example, our experts Stuart Cohen and Stephen McSorley addressed the vaccines’ safety and efficacy and encouraged people to get vaccinated as soon as they are allowed so that we can achieve herd immunity as quickly as possible. Read our coverage and watch a recording.

Unfortunately, we have also seen vaccine misinformation, and we’ll address that with another set of experts on next week’s UC Davis LIVE, 11 a.m. Thursday, January 28, on UC Davis’ Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels.

Our outreach also includes a series of symposia organized by Distinguished Professor Walter Leal. The most recent featured our experts on the topics of testing and vaccines, held Jan. 13 and available for viewing here.

We are also noting the importance of maintaining COVID-19 safety protocols even after getting vaccinated until we achieve herd immunity or know for sure that the vaccine stops asymptomatic transmission of the virus.

Healthy Davis Together

Our efforts in outreach and public service extend to our partnership with the city of Davis in Healthy Davis Together. We had seen what the pandemic was doing around the world — sickening and killing so many people — so, when federal and philanthropic funding became available, we saw an opportunity to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and help our university and city community stay as healthy as possible.

Healthy Davis Together provides information and resources, including the same asymptomatic testing that we provide for our students, faculty and staff, free of charge to residents of the city of Davis.

In addition, Healthy Davis Together is sponsoring a contest, the “In It Together” Challenge, open to all UC Davis students — undergraduate, graduate, post-doc and professional school — aimed at encouraging and sustaining our healthy protocols: face coverings, physical distancing, hand-washing and regular, asymptomatic testing.

Be sure to take a look at the prizes, which include something that could be of big help to many students: free rent! That is, Healthy Davis Together will pay students’ rent in Davis for a quarter (up to $2,500), and not just for one grand prize winner but for twenty students! Hundreds of gift cards to local businesses also are being given away with values ranging from $80 to $700. Keeping our community healthy includes supporting our local business community, and we’re glad to have the opportunity to partner with them through Healthy Davis Together.

“In It Together” presents a new challenge every two weeks, such as using your social media to share COVID-19 safety precaution tips from reputable sources or hosting virtual events with friend groups or other living pods. The Level 1 deadline is today, while Levels 2, 3 and 4 will conclude Feb. 5 and 19, and March 5, respectively. You’ve got to complete all four levels to have a shot at one of the grand prizes.

Campus Ready and UC Davis Health’s Center for Healthcare Policy and Research are partners in a contest called “Every Aggie Together,” for students, staff and faculty, inviting them to create public campaign messages to encourage everyone to wear masks correctly and consistently. Prizes include a MacBook Pro, iPad Air and Apple Watch, and the first 500 participants will receive specially designed UC Davis face coverings.

Find complete contest information here.

Looking forward

Here’s a reminder of our plans for spring quarter. It will be a quarter of mostly remote instruction, much like winter, but with more in-person offerings, with some of them designed specifically for graduating seniors. The mode of instruction for each course will be noted in Schedule Builder, and departments and programs have been asked to post detailed course structure information on their websites by the start of Pass 1 registration. Our plan at this time is to return to full in-person instruction in the fall. We are hopeful that if we stay the course now, we will all be able to gather together in person and celebrate at summer’s end.

Let’s keep building on our momentum. Thanks for doing your part to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Gary S. May
Chancellor