March 14, 2021

Greetings colleagues,

As we open the second semester of the 2020/2021 academic year, I am happy to share with you information about what is happening at the University.

1. Congratulations to the winners of the Israel Prize. This year we are blessed with three winners: As I reported in the previous update, Yair Zakovitch from the Faculty of Humanities is the winner of the Israel Prize for Biblical Studies. Ben-Ami Shillony from the Faculty of Humanities is the award winner in the field of Far East Studies; and Eli Keshet from the Faculty of Medicine won the Israel Prize in the field of Life Sciences.

Ben-Ami is one of the founders of the Department of East Asian Studies at the University and has headed it for long periods of time. He has contributed greatly to the study of Japanese society and politics during World War II and the Imperial Institution in Japan. Thanks to his scientific contribution, Ben-Ami is also highly regarded in Japan, where he was awarded the Gold and Silver Star by the Emperor of Japan. Eli has made pioneering contributions in understanding the mechanism by which conditions of oxygen deprivation stimulate the growth of new blood vessels, and has shown that this process has far-reaching effects on the development of many diseases. Eli's discoveries have led to the identification of the main factor responsible for encouraging the growth of new blood vessels into cancerous tumors. These discoveries have contributed to the development of drugs that inhibit the development of tumors.

All three winners excel not only in their research activities but also in their personal qualities, contributing to the academic administration of the University, to training scientists and to performing exceptional public activities. The Israel Prize for scientific research is being awarded this year to a total of six recipients (the other three are Nitza Ben-Dov in the field of literature research, Ariela Lebenstein in social work and probably Oded Goldreich in mathematics), of whom half of the winners are faculty members at our University, and five of the six recipients are Hebrew University graduates.

2. Congratulations to the winners of the University Excellence Prizes. Every year, the University awards two achievement prizes to faculty members in the Rector’s Prize ceremony: the Rector's Prize for Excellence in Research, Teaching and Active Participation in Academic Community Life, the winners of which are selected from candidates submitted by the deans; and the Milken Prize for Consistent Excellence in Teaching, the winners of which are selected based on the student survey regarding teaching satisfaction.

The Rector's Prize for Excellence in Research, Teaching and Active Participation in the Life of the Academic Community is awarded this year to the following faculty members: Inbal Arnon (Psychology, Social Sciences), Avi-Hai Hovav (Dentistry), Oded Millo (Physics, Natural Sciences), Shalhevet Attar-Schwartz (Social Work) and Gil Segev (Computer Science). The Milken Prize for Consistent Teaching Excellence is awarded this year to the following faculty members: Ruth Mayo (Psychology, Social Sciences), Roni Holler (Social Work), Orna Reichman (Clinical Medicine), Oren Froy (Biochemistry, Food and Nutrition Sciences, Agriculture), and Noa Saka (Education).

In addition, three special excellence prizes are awarded this year: a special prize for the computerized teaching technologies staff and those who made a crucial contribution to the success of our (temporary!) transition to online teaching: Shlomi Ventura, Eli Levy, Yohai Ofran, Efrat Furst, Tamar Klein, Rotem Kakon, Viviana Regev, Michal Ramot, Michal Shodl and Roy Shenhar. A special prize will also be awarded to Uri Orgad (Veterinary School), for his outstanding contribution to teaching at the Veterinary School for nearly forty years; and a special recognition prize will be awarded to Dorith Shaham (Medicine) for her unique contribution to the advancement of medical education.

We convey our warm congratulations to all of the prize recipients. The prizes will be awarded at the Rector's Prize Ceremony which will also include excellent Bachelor and Master Degree students on Wednesday, April 28, 2021 on Mount Scopus campus. All faculty members are invited to attend the ceremony.

This year, the doctoral degree convocation ceremony will be held on Thursday, July 8^th, 2021.

3.  Teaching during the second semester of the 2020/2021 academic year.  During the first days of the semester, until the Passover holiday, teaching will be mostly online. But immediately after the Passover holiday, starting April 4, 2021, we will transition to teaching that will take place mostly in classrooms on campus. Please note that according to University’s policies, all faculty members should return to teach on campus. As detailed below, in appropriate cases, it is possible to obtain a permit to teach remotely, but as a rule, the lessons will be held in classrooms.

a) The beginning of the semester, from March 14, 2021 to March 22, 2021, is a preparation period. During this period, teaching will take place online, except for teaching laboratories and practical and clinical training, which will be held in its regular (in-person) format. All instructors and students will be able to participate in the limited teaching activities that will take place on campus during this period (only a health declaration is required), except for clinical teaching, which according to the Ministry of Health's guidelines, is already restricted to green pass holders only.

b) Later in the semester, starting April 4, 2021, attendance in classrooms, teaching labs and practical or clinical training will be limited to those with a green pass only (the green pass is granted to persons who have been vaccinated with both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, or who are recovering/recovered from COVID-19). The restriction applies to teachers and students alike. Entry to the campus will be allowed also to those who do not have a green pass, by presenting an up-to-date negative result on a COVID-19 test (we hope that we will be able to place checkpoints at the campus gates for a rapid COVID-19 test). However, entry to classrooms will be restricted to those with a green pass only.

c) As of April 4, 2021 as much of the teaching as possible will be conducted physically, on campus. According to surveys conducted in various units, about 80 to 90 percent of students have reported that by April 4, they will have a green pass, and about 70 percent of all students reported that they want to study in classrooms. Due to limitations regarding class attendance for those with a green pass only and a limit of up to 300 students per lecture hall (and 75% of the maximum number of seats in the class), we must hold a significant part of the lessons in “parallel teaching” format. In this format, a minority of students enrolled in the class will participate remotely. In cases where an excess of demand is expected (according to the data, this is expected in only a few courses), the department secretariat will handle the placement of students who can come to the classroom on campus.

d) As a rule, all classes will be held on campus. There are two limitations in this context—infrastructure limitations and limitations related to teachers.

(1) Infrastructure: On some campuses, not all classrooms are equipped with a system to broadcast the lesson. In courses assigned to classrooms without cameras, teachers should contact the students registered for the course this week and check the possibility that after the Passover holiday the class will take place in the classroom, if all students have a green pass or if the teacher estimates that the class can be broadcast via Zoom from the laptop (in small classes).

(2) Teachers: Until further notice, teachers who do not have a green pass will teach remotely. In addition, teachers with a green pass, who for special health reasons need to teach remotely, may submit a reasoned request to the dean of the faculty and the Rector. As a general rule, applications for remote teaching based on pedagogical considerations regarding opposition to conducting parallel teaching will not be approved. Even if students want to continue learning online, instructors may not allow this without receiving approval in advance from the dean, and such approval, as a general rule, will not be granted.

e) The postponement of the date of return to study on campus is intended to allow preparation for parallel instruction. In the coming days, and before the Passover holiday, all instructors should test operation of the lesson broadcasting system. The Teaching and Learning Unit has prepared technical guidelines and advice pertaining to the pedagogy of parallel teaching; they are available here. As outlined in the guidelines, we must recognize that it is difficult to include those who are learning from a distance in the same way as those students physically present in class. I estimate we will be able to return to full teaching in the classroom in the coming weeks.

f) The guidelines published at the beginning of the year regarding the recording of lessons and making them available continue to be valid, for the purpose of online instruction and for the purpose of parallel instruction. It is crucial that lesson recordings be available to students. The recordings improved the quality of learning and student satisfaction with teaching. Experience shows that recording lessons and making the recordings accessible to students did not impair class attendance and there are no known cases of recordings being misused. In classrooms where this is possible (and in online lessons) the lessons should be recorded (this is done automatically), and the recording should be made available for the use of students studying in the course. The recordings are only available to students who are registered for the course. The recordings will be deleted at the end of the exam period, and will not be used in any way without the teacher's consent.  As you will recall, at the request of the academic staff organization, a teacher may determine that the lesson will not be recorded. For this purpose, on each course page on Moodle, there is a reference to restrictions on the permitted uses of recordings as well as instructions on how to prevent recording. Recording classed and making them available to students is critical to the success of online teaching this semester as well, and just as we expect students to behave courteously and responsibly, this duty applies, even more so, to us.

For any questions related to the teaching format, please contact the dean or the deputy dean for teaching matters in the relevant faculty.

4. Research activities and campus entry restrictions. As stated above, as of April 4, 2021 entry to campus will be restricted to those who have a green pass or who present an up-to-date COVID-19 negative test. Until the Passover holiday, entry to the campus remains unchanged, requiring only a health declaration (or presentation of a green pass). But there is a caveat here: the activity in the research laboratories is already limited (as of March 14, 2021) to those who have a green pass or who present a recent negative COVID-19 test. However, in the period up to April 4, in light of the fact that entry to the campus is not restricted, the application of this restriction is subject to the discretion of the head of the laboratory. In this respect, please take into account vaccinated persons who are not citizens of Israel and thus cannot yet receive a green pass. We are working to solve this issue.

5. Teaching Satisfaction. The teaching satisfaction survey in the first semester indicates a continued increase in student satisfaction. Thanks to the great investment made by our wonderful teachers and teaching assistants, the transition to online teaching has not hurt the trend of improvement in teaching satisfaction that has been continuing for the last three years. We can assume that the more extensive use of assignments and other tasks during the semester ("formative assessment"), some of which are done in groups, also made an important contribution to the continued increase in student satisfaction with instruction at the University. We recommend that instructors continue to use these formative assessment methods in the second semester.

This is an opportunity to thank the heads of the teaching department in the faculties and the secretariat staff for teaching and students in the departments, who have been working under difficult conditions for an entire year, under exceptional workloads.

Satisfaction is ranked from 1 to 9 (when including a factor for the course characteristics, in large undergraduate degree courses the range is up to 10.1):

	Satisfaction with the course					Satisfaction with the teacher
Academic Year	2018/2019		2019/2020		2020/2021	2018/2019		2019/2020		2020/2021
Semester	A	B	A	B	A	A	B	A	B	A
University average	7.79	7.75	7.83	7.92	7.98	8.19	8.24	8.23	8.33	8.36
Law	8.2	7.91	8.09	8.16	8.3	8.48	8.28	8.46	8.39	8.59
Humanities	8.03	8.02	8.11	8.07	8.19	8.45	8.47	8.51	8.49	8.56
Education	8	7.97	7.84	8	8.1	8.34	8.35	8.21	8.22	8.43
Social Sciences	7.64	7.61	7.67	7.9	8.03	8.14	8.1	8.19	8.39	8.42
Social Work	7.81	7.58	7.9	8	7.86	8.29	8.12	8.3	8.42	8.31
Business Admin.	7.88	7.57	7.71	7.86	7.97	8.1	7.77	8.04	8.06	8.27
Occup. Therapy	8.04	8.07	8.04	8.28	8.73	8.5	8.53	8.51	8.59	9.03
Dentistry	7.78	8.48	8.48	8.53	8.54	8.14	8.54	8.37	8.47	8.7
Medicine	7.65	7.87	7.71	7.99	7.99	8.06	8.45	8.22	8.58	8.62
Brain Sciences	8.14	7.63	7.35	8.06	7.85	7.71	8.37	7.98	8.45	8.46
Pharmacy	7.48	8.17	8.1	7.99	7.84	7.85	8.46	8.14	8.34	8.29
Natural Sciences	7.5	7.51	7.6	7.81	7.82	8.01	8.01	8.02	8.29	8.25
Agriculture	7.9	7.78	7.91	7.71	7.81	8.4	8.27	8.38	8.32	8.35
Medical Sciences	8.12	7.93	8.18	7.96	8.19	8.24	8.2	8.25	8.15	8.22
Computer Science	7.57	7	7.82	7.62	7.95	8.23	7.67	8.16	8.07	8.16
Nursing	7.57	7.6	7.13	7.68	7.42	7.79	8.15	7.78	7.55	7.59

 

6. Promoting equality in the academic staff. Our efforts to promote equality among senior academic staff members have been only partially successful. Regarding gender, the proportion of women in senior academic staff is on an upward trend. Among all faculty members in the regular academic track, we have seen an increase from about 26% women faculty five years ago to about 32% women faculty today; and among full tenured professors, there has been an increase from about 16% to about 22%. Although the goal of gender equality has not yet been achieved, at least some progress has been made. This is not the case with regard to the absorption of Arab faculty members. Although there is an increase in the number of Arab faculty members, their proportion among the total number of faculty members is still very low (about 2%). One measure that we would like to take in this regard is contacting post-doctoral students from the Arab sector. I would appreciate it if you could inform Ms. Michal Barak, Head of the University’s Diversity Unit, of the contact details of outstanding Arab post-doctoral students, as well as details of outstanding doctoral students who you are familiar with personally. The information will help us encourage researchers from the Arab sector to apply for scholarships and relevant calls for candidates, and to provide them with counseling services.

We gladly welcome your comments and suggestions.

Best regards,

Barak Medina, Rector