MESSAGE OF HOPE 

Dear CAPPA community

I hope this letter finds you and your loved ones well and healthy.

In our home, we are now starting to get into a routine. Both our children have a full school schedule on Zoom each day, followed by homework and projects. That, along with our continual Zoom and Teams meetings, has meant we have needed to upgrade our Wi-fi to cope with all the extra traffic, but we are now all up and running without too many glitches. Our Portuguese Water Dog, Savannah, loves having everyone at home all day. Some of you may have now met her as she tends to pop in and introduce herself when I have Zoom or Teams meetings. We have started to appreciate many of the smaller things in life – the sound of traffic has subsided, many more birds are playing in our backyard, and neighbors we never knew existed are walking the neighborhood while practicing physical distancing.

 These past two weeks have gone really well for CAPPA. I couldn’t be more proud of our faculty, students, and staff for the incredible work everyone has done. We successfully moved classes and administration to an online format in an incredibly short amount of time. THANK YOU for being so cooperative and patient!

We now have a CAPPAcares campaign underway (#CAPPAcares). As part of this initiative I am holding a bi-weekly virtual Chat with the Dean for our students, a virtual happy hour with faculty and staff, we have created a new web page that features important updates on both university policies and actions in response to COVID-19, a video message from the Dean that includes a list of resources for COVID-19 related aid from across the metroplex that may be useful for our students, and much more.

As part of the campaign, we have created a Help and Hope gallery. It will feature images and stories by our students, faculty, and staff. Sketches, photos, models, and collages that members of CAPPA want to show; in addition to stories and poems of what keeps you going during this period of physical distancing and what you are doing to lend a helping hand to those most in need. Here is a link to the webpage we have created: https://websites.uta.edu/cappacares/ 

I have been hearing of so many special incidents of creativity, generosity, and kindness that members of the CAPPA community are showing others. The thought is that by showcasing these everyone’s spirits are uplifted, bringing people closer together despite the isolation we have all been plunged into. Please feel free to send along your gallery ideas to Onome, our CAPPA communications assistant (onome.aganbi@uta.edu).

The preciousness of our community comes from how we share, care, give, and help each other through this difficult time.

I and the CAPPA faculty, staff, and leadership are here for you, and together we are getting through this one day at a time.

Stay healthy and well. And keep doing good things!

Adrian Parr