April 3, Operational Update
April 3, 2020 Update (View on YouTube)
Transcript:
President Feinstein (00:00):
Well, good morning everybody. Friday, April the third, and we made it through another
week. We're going to take a little break this weekend from the daily operation status
reports for Saturday and Sunday, but we will be back in action on Monday morning and
start with additional conversations then. So for now I'm going to ask Dan Maxey, our
chief of staff, to moderate conversations from our coronavirus task forces. Dan, take
it away.
Dan Maxey (00:34):
Thank you, President Feinstein. The sun's come out again in Greeley. So in addition
to it being Friday, the sun is out just in time for the weekend. I hope that everyone's
able to get outdoors a little bit this weekend. Just remember to observe social distancing
and recreate close to home. The cabinet coronavirus task force as well as its various
subcommittees meet again today, and we'll also take breaks over the weekend, although
activity will continue over the next several days through the weekend. So daily panel gives
reports, I'm going to ask everyone to unmute their microphones and turn on their cameras.
I'm going to turn things over first to the chair of our coronavirus task force, assistant
vice president for administration — associate vice president for administration, sorry,
Blaine Nickeson, for our developing issues report.
Blaine Nickeson (01:18):
Thanks, Dan. I appreciate that. I'll be brief this morning, actually. Yesterday we
saw a couple of school districts in the area of UNC announce that they won't resume
classes in person for this school year. That includes Poudre School District and Thompson
School District, and I widely expect that a number of other districts will make that
same announcement today. The reality is that it's just, it's highly unlikely that
folks are going to be able to return to that kind of normal life and in-person gathering
within the month of May. And as I've shared with some of our prior updates as well,
we know that for families and for students that brings some of the same losses and
sacrifices that our students here at UNC are feeling, that lack of a commencement
ceremony, that lack of culmination of traditions like prom. And so we know that that's
impacting our families as well.
Blaine Nickeson (02:15):
So just important to know that that's happening, and we should see, again, some more
of that today. On the case count side of things, we're up about 386 positive cases
to a total of 3,728 — 3,728. 19 more deaths yesterday, up to 99 including a deputy
sheriff in El Paso County, which is the first first responder, I believe, that we've
had fall victim to COVID-19 in the state. 710 folks hospitalized, up 15%. We're over
20,000 for total of testing, 20,411, which is up about 11%, but detected cases are
now in 51 counties here in Colorado.
Blaine Nickeson (02:57):
There was a news piece yesterday, I believe it was through 9NEWS, but sort of echoing
what I've been talking about, and that's that Weld County really is sort of an outlier
for the wrong kind of, for bad reasons. Weld County has the highest number of deaths
in the state, tied with El Paso County, with El Paso County with 16 deaths. 376 positive
cases here in the county. But day-over-day, the cases increased 21%. About 20% of
those cases in Weld County are tied to nursing homes or rehabilitation centers. And
there's at least seven of those in Weld County that have positive cases right now.
So again, we continue to engage with our local emergency response and health partners
and to support them in the important work that they're doing to try to keep everybody
in Weld County and beyond safe. So that's the extent of my report this morning. Dan.
Dan Maxey (03:52):
Thank you, Blaine. Next up is Dean of Students, Gardiner Tucker, to give a report
on impacts to student life. Tuck.
Gardiner Tucker (03:59):
Good morning, Bears. The first thing I'd like to talk about is a story. So apparently
there was a faculty member, and I do have the headphones for Andy, thank you Andy
... a faculty member happened to be searching through the bushes outside of one of
the academic buildings ,and suddenly a window opened on the third floor of the building,
and a person leaned out and called down, "No, no, it's behind the bush over there."
So what happened was a faculty member had been using a document camera in their classroom,
and they were so used to the document camera when we closed the buildings, and we
started teaching from home, that person was so attached to their document camera and
tried to use the new technologies, but struggled with them.
Gardiner Tucker (04:46):
So one of the staff said, "Well, I can help you. I'll bring one of those document
cameras out from the building, and I'll hide it behind a bush. Then you come at this
time and pick it up, and I won't be there so that we keep social distance." Well,
the faculty member came and was searching through all the bushes and happened to have
the wrong bush. So Chris Vegter, the director of MCB Technology, leaned out the third
floor window and yelled down to her and said, "No, no, it's behind that bush."
Gardiner Tucker (05:12):
So she was able to get the document camera and teach from home. And I think this illustrates
how we go about helping one another in times of need and that there's a lot of new
things we're trying to learn, but sometimes you just need the thing that you're used
to in order to teach your best. So well done Chris on that. So my next student impact
is some students face obstacles to register for this coming summer or fall. So we
need to find ways to remove those obstacles so that students can register. So to speak
to us about this today is Geri Landwehr. Please welcome Geri.
Geri Landwehr (05:49):
Morning all. So I wanted to definitely thank the president and cabinet for accepting
our proposal to lift past due holds for students who are registered for spring and
still had a balance. We removed 1,151 holds, sent out updated emails to students letting
them know what we were doing and what this meant to them. We also manually removed
118 holds from students who owed prior to spring, but they might be VA students or
have a third party paying. So we also worked with them as well.
Geri Landwehr (06:22):
I cannot thank IM&T enough for helping us identify the students, helping us put those
holds on. It will be a great asset to these students and it's very helpful for our
office as well so that we're not going through individually as they call and trying
to assess each individual situation. As long as the students pay their balance, including
the credit that they might have from dining and housing, we'll take that into account.
As long as they have those balances paid to below $200 by the time summer or fall
classes start, they'll be good to go, and we won't drop classes or anything. I'm sure
that we'll have some situations where we may have to work with students individually
at that point in time, and we're more than happy to do that. But again, thank you
so much. I know the students definitely appreciate it.
Gardiner Tucker (07:14):
Thank you, Geri. This is a great breakthrough too and helps keep our students momentum
and focused on their goals. So this is a great teamwork effort. The next student impact,
there are two actually in a row here, students because of lost jobs or income or other
factors may be facing housing insecurity, which means they don't know where they're
going to sleep or stay or are struggling in other ways is one student impact. So we
need to find alternatives for housing. And the second one is students that are living
on campus in the halls are far more isolated, often away from family, friends and
fellow students, than they were before. And so there are fewer staff in the residence
halls to assist. So we need to find ways to add support for those students. So here
to talk to us about both of these student impacts is Dr. Colleen Sonnentag, the Assistant
Dean of Students. Colleen.
Colleen Sonnentag (08:09):
Morning everyone. Thanks for having me. So as Tuck mentioned, we will have students
who are continuing to experience food and housing insecurity. And unfortunately those
are circumstances that our students face outside of a pandemic. So what our office
has done with the Student Outreach and Support area is set up a process with Housing
and Residential Education. And so if students, faculty or staff are aware of a student
who needs to explore an alternative living situation, please have them submit a student
of concern report which can be found on the Dean of Students website. And so that
will allow us to have a case manager reach out to assist them with, again, alternative
housing options, whether those are in the community or through Housing and Residential
Education here on campus. And so we can help students in that process and hopefully
also provide some support for the underlying issue that's causing that housing insecurity.
Colleen Sonnentag (09:08):
Student of concern reports, many of you are familiar with those. We take those throughout
the year all the time for students in crisis. And so again, food and housing insecurity,
if a student is ill or injured or if they have a friend or family member who has an
illness or someone close to them has passed away, please continue to submit those
share concern reports with us, and we will continue to do outreach remotely from a
safe social distance.
Colleen Sonnentag (09:37):
Then Tuck, you had mentioned social isolation that students may be experiencing in
the residence halls. So our team is working on a coordinated outreach plan involving
members of the Division of Student Affairs as well as other campus partners. And so
our goal is next week to contact, via phone or video call, every residential student
that we have on campus just to check in, see how they're doing, see if their needs
are being met, and provide some human connection in case something has come up and
they just sort of don't know where to share that. So I'm excited for us to connect
with our students who are here in person right now, and just provide some friendly
face maybe.
Gardiner Tucker (10:27):
Excellent. So both of those programs are ongoing to help our students who may be struggling
at this time. I think the key is that oftentimes we think, "Oh, we're done with the
struggles, so now let's move on." And a lot of our students continue to find themselves
in difficult situations, so both of those programs should help our students throughout
the end of the semester. Thank you, Colleen.
Gardiner Tucker (10:50):
OK. The final word here for my report is a picture that I'm going to share my screen.
This is Colleen's dog, you just heard from Colleen, Granger, and he's showing his
support for Northern Colorado, UNC. So wanted to show you that image on a Friday and,
again, it reminds us of how we're integrating our work lives, our pride for UNC and
our personal lives during this time. So thank you for sharing that picture, Colleen.
And that concludes my report.
Dan Maxey (11:27):
Thanks Tuck, Geri and Colleen for those reports. Next I'm going to turn to Provost
Mark Anderson to give his report on impacts to the academic mission. Mark?
Mark Anderson (11:37):
Thank you very much and good morning. I will point out that there is mechanisms through
police dispatch for faculty to get into their offices if they need to retrieve some
essential equipment, and maybe Kirk can can touch on that a little bit. We don't have
to hide things behind bushes. Anyway, Faculty Senate is, and the faculty really have
had a robust discussion about pass-fail. There'll be taking a vote on changing the
grading options for the spring. I want to thank all the faculty who've been engaged
in that conversation. I've been included in a lot of email exchanges, a lot of great
questions, a lot of concerns, and I really appreciate the thought that's gone into
this because it's not quite as simple as a lot of people would believe just to change
the grading option to a pass-fail. The deans have also been engaging their faculty
leadership in talking about summer and preparing for the summer. And so one of the
things that the deans and I have been doing, and the deans have been engaging their
faculty in, is planning for the future.
Mark Anderson (12:47):
What's going to happen in the summer? It looks like based upon the conversation, we'll
finalize this, that we'll have to go to continuing to be an online format for summer
instruction, with the possibility of having some face-to-face later in the summer,
but planning for any contingency that might happen. And finally I want to give a shout
out to Lyda McCartin in CETL. Throughout all this, CETL has really been a great asset
for the campus. And just to point out a few things that CETL has done. They've been
offering a lot of webinars and video presentations, first and foremost about prioritizing
curriculum during a remote teaching situation. It's been offered three times, and
it's been recorded. So if you weren't able to participate in that a webinar, you can
go to their website and see the recording. They've also done webinars about how to
record lectures for asynchronous delivery, and Lyda is setting up a system for individual
meetings with faculty who might need some one-on-one consultation on their instruction
and improving their instruction in this environment.
Mark Anderson (14:04):
In addition to some support for moving instruction into online environments, CETL
has continued to offer seminars on just regular instructional practice. Things like
how to create equity-minded syllabi. And they continue to plan for the future in new
faculty orientation for the fall, getting ready for onboarding our new colleagues
that we've hired over the course of this academic year. So I think it's really important
to acknowledge CETL, Lyda McCartin, Kim Black for all the efforts that they've put
forward in helping us to transition our instruction from a traditional mode to the
new mode, but also helping us recognize that we need to get ready for the future,
and being prepared for the summer and in the fall. So I very much appreciate that.
And that's all I have this morning, Dan.
Dan Maxey (14:59):
Great. Thank you, Mark. The final two reports that we normally host each day, we are
going to start transitioning to reports as necessary. Kirk Leichliter wasn't planned
to give a report this morning, but in light of technology behind bushes, I will ask
Kirk if you can jump in and just remind everybody of what the protocol is for gaining
access to facilities if you are a part of the lockdown.
Kirk Leichliter (15:28):
Sure. Good morning everyone. Mark's exactly right, for those one off access needs
for things that were forgotten or remembered late, calling the police department is
the way to go. They've been helping folks as necessary. We do believe that we have
completed the card access system reprogramming necessary to match up to the list that
we've been provided, so those one-offs would be through the police department.
Dan Maxey (15:57):
Great. Thank you, Kirk, and in the meantime I hope your grounds crews will be careful
about mowing around MCB.
Kirk Leichliter (16:04):
No, I'll ask them to watch.
Dan Maxey (16:07):
The human resources report is one of the other reports that we'll move to an as needed
basis, but Marshall Park does have a brief update this morning from one of our insurance
providers and their plans for providing coverage related to COVID-19. Marshall.
Marshall Parks (16:23):
Yeah, thanks Dan. I do have an update this morning for our faculty and exempt staff
who are on our health insurance plan that I obviously hope they never have to use,
but last evening Anthem announced that their members will not have to pay anything
out of pocket if they get care for COVID-19 from doctors, hospitals, other healthcare
professionals between April 1st and May 31st, and that includes testing. So no out-of-pocket
costs for any of our faculty or staff on our health insurance if unfortunately they
end up in that situation. They also extended through June 14th what I had announced
last week, I believe it was, or early this week, that there's no charge for a telehealth
visit with any doctor in their plan. So I think some really nice updates and good
things for our faculty and staff who are on our insurance plans. So if anybody has
any questions about that, feel free to call our office, and that's all I have today,
Dan. Thanks.
Dan Maxey (17:24):
Great. Thank you, Marshall. Appreciate that update from our insurance providers. Thank
you to everyone who's tuned in live and to the recording today. Going to turn the
floor back over to President Feinstein. Andy.
President Feinstein (17:34):
Thanks, Dan. And I'd also like to thank everyone who presented today and provided
updates. And as a reminder, we will not be meeting tomorrow or on Sunday, but we'll
be back on Monday for another update. So stay safe, be healthy, and we'll see you
here again on Monday morning. Take care everybody.