Dear Colleagues,

We hope you have had a chance to recharge and refresh over the past few months. While it’s still July, the start of the regular Fall semester (August 24) is just around the corner. To help you prepare for your upcoming courses, we are sharing the latest guidance and resources, many of which are informed by valuable feedback from faculty.

In collaboration with the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), we now offer two documents and two webpages to support your syllabus preparation:

  • A streamlined checklist that identifies the items that each syllabus must contain to ensure we maintain compliance with various external entities. Please compare your syllabi against the checklist to ensure all necessary elements are present.
  • A refreshed syllabus template that fleshes out the checklist with suggestions and guidance from the experts in the CTL on making your syllabus a thorough and effective tool for student learning. We encourage your engagement with the resources in the template.
  • Consolidated programmatic and policy information on the Instructor Resources and Resources to Support Students in the Classroom. The latter can be linked to from your syllabus or Canvas page. As you are updating your syllabi for the Fall, please review these policies and resources and incorporate course-specific guidance, as appropriate.

Communicating your expectations to students at the beginning of class will help them succeed and save you valuable time throughout the semester.

Additional key resources and reminders as you plan for the Fall semester:

  • Beginning in Fall 2026, the last day of classes has been changed to ensure that there are 14 Mondays in a regular academic term. Academic calendars can be found on the Office of University Registrar website and more information about the calendar change and other changes can be found on the Provost’s Academic Administration website.
  • Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop in ways that impact teaching and learning. We continue to update guidance and resources, including suggestions for AI-related guidelines to incorporate in syllabi and how to address academic integrity concerns. Although faculty have autonomy on whether and how AI should be incorporated into courses, they should be aware that students now learn and work in an AI-enabled environment that continues to evolve rapidly. Instructors should periodically review their assignments and assessments with current AI capabilities in mind and communicate clear expectations for AI use. When AI use is permitted, instructors and students should only use AI tools provided by the university that have been cleared for protected information to ensure FERPA compliance.
    • In particular, faculty are rightly concerned about the availability of new “homework agents” that can log into learning management systems, complete assignments, and submit work on behalf of students. As a first step to address this new development, guidance to be shared with students will now include the following statement: “Do not share your WashU Key password. Sharing your password or login session with other people or agents will enable them to access your personal information and is a violation of university policy.  It is your responsibility to protect your information and the university by NOT sharing your WashU Key password.” We strongly recommend that you reinforce this message to your students through either your syllabus or other means.
    • The Office of the Provost will continue to monitor developments in AI that impact our instruction and we will share insights and guidance as they become available. For faculty who want to increase their understanding of AI-aware teaching, we want to highlight the many opportunities for professional learning offered by the CTL before and during the semester. Before the start of the academic year, all incoming undergraduate students will complete WashU’s AI Literacy module, which introduces responsible AI use, common limitations of AI systems, and the expectation that students follow course-specific AI policies established by their instructors.
  • Our preparation for emergencies and teaching through disruptions was tested in Spring 2026 by two events: a (thankfully) false active shooter alert and an extended Canvas outage. Representatives from campus-wide offices, including the Office of the Provost, have been working to better understand the campus response and to develop guidance, policies, and resources (including training opportunities) to better communicate expectations and response strategies for various kinds of emergencies. Although this important work is ongoing, we want to highlight the following aspects as we prepare for the Fall semester:
    • All instructors are entrusted with the care and safety of their students while they attend their classes, participate in labs or discussions, or sit in seminars. Instructors play an invaluable leadership role in stressful emergency situations by knowing what to do in the event of an emergency and applying it to their individual classroom setting. If an emergency does occur during class, instructors are expected to stop instruction, assess the situation, and calmly respond, including following any directions sent via WashU Alert messages or any guidance found on emergency.washu.edu. 
    • Instructors are rightly concerned about the potential for future disruptions given their responsibility to educate our students in the limited time that they have them during the semester. The CTL has developed guidance to help instructors plan for teaching through disruptions.
  • The Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement wishes to remind the campus that instructors and students play an essential role in a vibrant and functioning democracy. The Midterm Election will take place on Tuesday, November 3, 2026.  The deadline to register to vote in Missouri in this year’s Midterm Election is Wednesday, October 7, 2026.  More information regarding registration can be found on the Student Consumer Information Page. 

We hope you enjoy this last month of summer and wish you success in the academic year ahead!

Andy Butler, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Educational Initiatives
Vijay Ramani, Senior Vice Provost for Graduate Education and International Affairs