December 7, 2017
Dear Members of our Campus Community,
Although UC Santa Barbara is a significant distance from the Thomas Fire and no danger is posed to our physical campus, UCSB is announcing that all remaining classes on Thursday, December 7, have been cancelled. Given the uncertainties the fire presents, this difficult decision will allow us to assess logistical issues in advance of finals week, which is scheduled to begin Saturday.
The campus remains open and operational, though health officials recommend people remain indoors as much as possible. We look forward to returning to normal operations and will continue to provide regular updates via ucsb.edu, The UC Santa Barbara Current, and social media postings. We will closely monitor the situation throughout the day and will send a message this evening regarding campus operations for Friday, December 8.
We encourage students who are having respiratory issues or have medical conditions that affect breathing to visit Student Health Services. The usual academic accommodations will be made for these conditions in light of the circumstances.
We are grateful to our entire campus community for their patience and understanding during this difficult time. We recognize the significant impact the fire is having on our students as we reach the end of the academic quarter. Student Health Services and CAPS remain operational for urgent needs. The Division of Student Affairs will be providing a detailed list of services for today.
UC Santa Barbara staff members impacted by the fire should consult their department managers about their circumstances and needs. Information about leave time, compensation, and impacts of curtailed operations is also available by contacting Cynthia Señeriz, director of human resources, at 893-8137, or Farfalla Borah, employee and labor relations manager, at 893-4482.
For those of our affected colleagues and students who may need schedule flexibility due to this emergency, we urge managers and faculty members to accommodate individual circumstances.
Intermittent power and communication outages continue to be possible as a result of the fire. We will continue to provide updated information about fire-related impacts to campus departments and units on The Current (http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2017/018562/thomas-fire).
The news page on The Current also contains links to other sources of information on the Thomas Fire, including http://www.readyventuracounty.org, which contains an updated incident summary and details about evacuations, closures, and shelter facilities.
On behalf of our campus, I would like to extend our sincere thanks to the firefighters, first responders, and Red Cross as well as to all our government officials and other local leaders who are working around the clock to keep our community safe. I also again want to thank our faculty, staff, and students for your continued dedication and care and concern for our community.
Sincerely,
Henry T. Yang
Chancellor