Welcome back, Warriors!  

As we prepare for the fall term, we are excited about seeing and working with you in person again!  We have missed those quick chats, discussing things over lunch, sharing ideas, seeing our students, and all of the positive interaction that fosters collaboration and engagement, builds teams, and creates that sense of community that we have come to enjoy.  Simply put, we’re eager to return to the Wayne State we’ve come to appreciate.  We are looking forward to participating in the many campus traditions that make this WSU community so vibrant and important to our faculty, staff, and students.  And, the campus needs you!

We recognize that this will be another transition for us. So, we have developed a phased approach to gradually return individuals to the campus over the summer so that we may be prepared to welcome our students back to campus this fall.  The Return to Campus Guide and Checklist provides various tools and resources to help leaders plan for this transition.  In the coming weeks, supervisors will be talking with their teams to devise a schedule that meets the needs of the department, its faculty, staff, students, and other customers.  We recognize the benefits of offering flexibility under the appropriate circumstances and plan to offer our new Flexible Work Arrangements under a pilot program for six months beginning September 7^th. We encourage everyone to be flexible while we work to make this a smooth transition so that we can continue to accomplish our mission, work towards our vision and live our values. 

We would like to thank all of you who participated in our return to campus survey. We had an incredible response rate of 45%. We appreciate your passion for returning to campus, your concerns and suggestions. We listened and shared your feedback with the appropriate areas and incorporated it in the Return to Campus Guide. We will also be launching additional training and other support resources in the coming weeks so please watch your emails. We will be communicating regularly to keep you informed, but you may also contact your HR Consultant with questions.

We are so grateful for your hard work over the past 15 months.  Your spirit and commitment are what makes us Warrior Strong!  We can’t wait to see you soon!

Carolyn P. Hafner,
Associate Vice President
and Chief Human Resources Officer