April 1, 2021

Dear students,

Our community is feeling a lot of fatigue right now, along with stress, anger, sorrow, and frustration. This past week has been especially hard, I know, and so have many of the weeks that came before it. You know from my weekly messages that I usually write with guidance for the days ahead, and today I do write with that kind of information only because it is so timely. But my main message today is to tell you that I have been listening to you and to the leaders you have turned to, and that I hear you. Your feedback, particularly about mental health and the burden of academic work, is guiding my efforts, and I thank you for it.

I do need to share information that you will be able to use next week as you start thinking about classes for next semester. Starting April 6, you will be able to see expanded descriptions of fall 2021 courses on Canvas, where you can check if any classes have special April sign-up dates, also listed on the University Registrar's website. Then, on May 3, Yale Course Search (YCS) will manage the rest of early registration and will stay open for a month, until June 4.

Most of the process can wait until you are done with classes and finals, but if you are interested in applying to classes with limited enrollment, set a reminder to sign up for them before May 24; based on your feedback, and thanks to new YCS capabilities, signing up for most limited-enrollment courses now only calls for you to add the course to your worksheet. Initial notices about availability will be available four days later, on May 28, but you can still apply for limited-enrollment courses until June 4, the last day of early registration, then again in August, when registration reopens and you can continue shopping for classes.

Finally, a note about vaccinations, since many of you become eligible for them today. I hope you are having success making an appointment; Dr. Christine Chen's message to students offers useful instructions, and the Campus COVID Resource Line is also available to help you at 203-432-6604. If you cannot secure an appointment today, or if the appointment is far away, please keep checking back at the local sites. Yale-New Haven Health, in particular, is continuing to open up new appointments near campus. I appreciate everything you are doing to limit viral spread at a time when infection rates are still very high in New Haven, both on campus and off.

With best wishes for the weekend and the week ahead,

Marvin M. Chun
Dean of Yale College
Richard M. Colgate Professor of Psychology; Neuroscience; Cognitive Science