Dear Students, Faculty and Staff,

As we begin the final weeks of a semester disrupted by this unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, I want to share this short video message with all of you. 

I do not pretend that things will be easy.

The classes you have designed or chosen to take will be delivered in alternative ways. Your research and scholarly work may be disrupted, as you develop new and creative ways to move your project forward. In some cases, you might be performing essential duties that can only be done on campus, while others are working remotely. And for the foreseeable future this university will be a place where almost all of our faculty, staff and students are separated by unexpected distance. This is a distance that we will overcome through our shared compassion for each other.

The weeks to come will bring all of us challenges of many different kinds whether academic, professional or personal. I encourage you to look for support when you need it. And I encourage you to lend your support to friends or coworkers or even complete strangers when you see that they need it.

I am confident that when we have come through this, we will look back and see the resiliency of our university community was exceeded only by our care for one another when it mattered most.

Wherever you might be today, you are always a member of the Illinois family.

Robert J. Jones
Chancellor