March 24, Operational Update
March 24, 2020 Update (View on YouTube)
Transcript:
President Feinstein (00:00):
Well, good morning everybody. Tuesday, March 24th, and this is our daily operations
status report. We have a busy couple of days. As we all know, tomorrow starts online
instruction for the campus and I ask that we exercise patience, understanding, that
we stay committed to each other's wellbeing and remember that we do not tolerate discrimination,
and your continued compassion is essential as we face these challenges together in
the days to come. So appreciate all of your work. I'm now going to ask Dan Maxey,
our Chief of Staff, to moderate the conversation. Dan...
Dan Maxey (00:41):
Thank you, President Feinstein. The Cabinet Coronavirus Task Force and all of our
subcommittees continue to work hard at our efforts, and I want to take a special moment
to thank all of the individuals who give us daily updates on this call. I know that
compiling information to share in this additional communications forum takes a little
bit of work and time from each of you, but appreciate the effort that you're all putting
in, and we're hearing good feedback from the UNC community about this call and the
updates that you're providing. So thank you for all of the work that you do. I'm going
to turn it over to Blaine Nickeson first. As always, make sure that you unmute your
microphones and turn on your cameras when it's your turn. Blaine, you want to get
started?
Blaine Nickeson (01:34):
Good morning, everybody. I'm sure you saw the news yesterday that the Denver mayor
announced a stay at home order effective at 5:00 PM today. Shortly after that the
City of Boulder followed suit, and there's certainly a lot of interest in when other
municipalities or counties might make that kind of a decision that we'll be following
closely. On the case counts, we have 720 positive cases which is up 129 or up 22%.
Of note is the state is now including positives, confirmed lab positives as well as
symptomatic people who have been in close contact with a positive. So if you're tested
positive and then my wife develops the exact same symptoms, they're likely going to
count her as a positive as well. There's been nine deaths so far. 72 people are hospitalized,
which is up 14 and we have two new counties in Colorado reporting cases, which brings
the total up to 31 counties reporting cases. 6,224 people have been tested. That's
up 788 or about 14.5%.
Blaine Nickeson (02:37):
Here in Weld County, our latest reporting is 71 cases, which is up from 48 the day
before or an increase of nearly 50%, so definitely getting a lot of testing done here
in Weld County. We are talking daily with the County and Greeley Emergency Operation
Centers. The county is working on contingency plans for additional hospital capacity
as well as transition between hospital care being at home. Particularly, if someone
has been treated and is on the road to recovery from COVID-19, they may not be able
to go to their home because they could have somebody, a vulnerable population that's
living in their home, and so they're starting to think about where they might be able
to house those folks on an interim basis, and we continue those conversations with
them. Of note also, yesterday afternoon, the Big Sky Conference announced that they
were canceling all athletic activities including practices and workouts. Those are
now suspended through May 15th. So those are the bulk of the updates I have this morning.
I'll turn it back over to you, Dan.
Dan Maxey (03:38):
Thanks, Blaine. Next I'm going to call on Mark Anderson, Provost and Senior Vice President
for Academic Affairs to share an update on impacts to our academic mission. Mark.
Mark Anderson (03:50):
Thank you, Dan, and good morning. We continue to spend today converting our classes
to alternate delivery format. The feedback I'm getting is that people are really stepping
up, and we've not had any real issues in converting our courses to an alternate delivery.
Anecdotally, I've spoken to a few faculty people. One faculty person in the College
of Performing and Visual Arts who teaches piano, who's been talking with colleagues
across the country on alternate ways of teaching, and so people are really stepping
up. We've not heard of any courses yet, although we're continuing to monitor, that
are having a difficult time. We want to remind everybody that we'd like every course,
every faculty person of every course, to reach out to their students before the end
of today to help them with that transition.
Mark Anderson (04:42):
This week is a critically important week, and we really need to be very empathetic
with the students in reaching out to them and helping to try to rebuild that community
of individual courses to the extent possible in this alternate delivery timeframe.
We also are having normal key card access to offices and buildings this week, and
we're asking folks to go to their office, collect the materials they'll need to continue
their instruction and to continue their scholarship activities to the extent possible.
This week, at 5:00 on Friday, the campus will go into lockdown, and only folks who
have been identified as essential personnel will have key card access to buildings.
In Academic Affairs, we're collecting a list of people who are essential personnel,
and we're getting those to Kirk Leichliter by Wednesday of this week. And I think
that's all that I have for this morning. I have to go off to Academic Council, CDHE,
so I'll stay for a couple of minutes if there's any questions, but then I'll have
to exit the call and go to another meeting.
Dan Maxey (06:00):
Thank you, Mark, and I appreciate your sticking with us for a few minutes here while
we have these reports so that we can share this information with the community. Next,
I'm going to ask Assistant Vice President for Facilities Management, Kirk Leichliter,
to give a report on impacts to our facilities.
Kirk Leichliter (06:18):
Good morning, everyone. In the mechanical electrical trades, we're continuing our
building checks and rounds. In general, we're finding things that are typical in normal
operations. We did however, find an example yesterday of a problem with the heating
system serving the central campus res halls. The thing hadn't failed such that the
building automation system would pick it up but it wasn't working, so it just highlights
the needs to continue those building checks. Warehouse and mail services, most departments
on campus have been in touch with our staff to coordinate how access is going to work
for those services. We did bring in an extra staff member for a couple of days to
assist with sorting and handling a bunch of student packages that we received for
the res hall, so we'll get those organized so that they can be picked up by the students.
Custodial, we're working both shifts, although on shortened days, depending on their
location, and we'll be reviewing where residence hall students are located and what
buildings have essential staff so that we can make adjustments next week to minimize
the custodial staff on campus.
Kirk Leichliter (07:31):
Environmental Health and Safety has been busy little bees. Yesterday spent a good
deal of time working on the inventory of protective equipment as requested by the
governor's office. They've been working with the Card Office to get special ID cards
for the extremely essential staff members. These cards allow access to the campus
if there was a broader stay at home order, so those are very limited. If we miss people
and that type of thing, there's no problem, that we could transport those folks if
necessary. So don't worry if you're not on that list and haven't been contacted.
Kirk Leichliter (08:18):
Glenn has started joining a Monday, Wednesday, Friday conference call that's put on
by Weld Emergency Management that includes numerous agencies around the county, so
we will have a yet another pipeline of information to and from the campus. He's also
providing daily email updates to Weld County and City of Greeley Emergency Management
Agencies regarding the status of campus and some of the issues we're dealing with.
Greeley and Weld Emergency Management and the local hospitals are still interested
in availability of campus facilities, should the need arrive, much as Blaine mentioned
for recovery facilities and such. So the logistics and infrastructure group will continue
planning on how we might assist with that effort. I believe that is it for today.
Dan Maxey (09:14):
Thank you, Kirk. Marshall, you're up next for reports on Human Resources-related impacts.
Marshall Parks (09:22):
Good morning, all. Payroll is actively working with departments currently to implement
the continuation of pay for our student employees through the end of April. As promised,
the detailed instructions went out yesterday to students and supervisors, and they're
very busy making that magic happen. A special thanks to Kathy Crider and the Payroll
team who today are concurrently running a payroll for 1,700 employees and managing
all of the important necessary details to continue to support our 1,400 student employees
financially. So much appreciated to the team in Payroll and particularly our partners
in the Housing department who have so many student employees and are actively working
to make that all work. So thanks to all of those folks. One other topic today, the
communications team has developed some faculty and staff guidelines for email and
phone etiquette. For emails, employees who are working from home should not send an
out of office reply about working remotely.
Marshall Parks (10:23):
For those of us who've been communicating on campus, we're getting a lot of those
bounce backs, so if people who are working from home, we shouldn't be sending an auto
reply. Only employees who are on paid admin leave during the time should be sending
an auto reply. We have specific language and instructions that we'll be sharing out
today later on the main FAQ page, and we'll communicate that out probably through
UNC Today also to get that to all employees to clean that part up. Also, for phones,
employees continue to list their office phone on their email signature. Voicemails
that come to that number will be sent by your email. It works smoothly.
Marshall Parks (10:56):
There's also some other specific guidance for phone communications as provided on
the IM&T COVID 19 info page to make sure that we're managing those things professionally
also. And lastly, to kind of reiterate what Andy said, let's be sure we're practicing
some compassion and patience with one another. Everyone's working hard to make this
work, and I'm very appreciative of all the hard work that's going on out there. And
again, take care of each other. That's all for me today. Thanks.
Dan Maxey (11:25):
Thank you, Marshall. I appreciate those updates. Our final report today comes from
Dean of Students, Gardiner Tucker. Tuck.
Gardiner Tucker (11:34):
Good morning, everybody. Let's see, I've got a few reports today. I have three student
impacts that I wanted to emphasize. The first one is that students, because of this
transition to alternative forms of education delivery, may be less confident in their
academic abilities than they were when face-to-face in an in person classroom scenario.
So one of our strategies to help manage that impact is to continue provide academic
support to students requesting help.
Gardiner Tucker (12:09):
So for example, our Tutorial Services, which was mentioned in a letter from Andy last
week, is providing one-on-one tutoring for students who have questions about going
online or studying material online or working with the content of material. They're
providing supplemental instruction via virtual methods. And tomorrow, March 25th, when
classes resume, they are offered virtually through Sunday, May 3rd, so for the rest
of the semester. So tutorial services will be offered from March 25th through Sunday,
May 3rd, and contact Melissa Hoffner at Melissa.Hoffner@unco.edu, which is on the
Tutorial Services website. So that's the first student impact.
Gardiner Tucker (12:59):
The second one is, starting tomorrow, students who have not needed nor asked for help
in the past. So now that we're coming back to classes online, students that have not
asked for help may now need help in ways that they didn't realize before. So it's
important for us to keep track of other students that may not have shown signs of
needing support, so it's good to report that. So to, our strategy for helping with
those students is to offer non-counseling support and guidance through these issues
as their lives change in ways that they're not expecting.
Gardiner Tucker (13:40):
So for example, our Student Outreach and Support office in the Dean of Students suite
was mentioned last week in Andy and Katrina's letter as well. They're doing now phone
and digital meetings. They're helping to address issues like food insecurity, which
may increase during this time; housing insecurity, same thing, it may increase at
this time; mental health concerns that arise during times of stress and personal crisis,
whether it's with the student themselves, their family, or their situation that they're
in, which is changing. So it's not a counseling service. In other words, it's not
confidential, but it's guidance for students to help manage these issues on a day
to day basis. So as the student gets to us, we assign them their own case manager
who will be the student's point of contact in guidance through these issues. So you
can find that at the Dean of Students website through the link, and reach them at
sos@unco.edu
Gardiner Tucker (14:47):
Now, my final student impact is one that I have direct experience with. The graduate
school is no longer having in-person meetings or the departments, grad departments
are no longer having in-person dissertation defenses, comps, exams or proposals. So
they have moved online, so they have virtual options for our doctoral students. Now,
an example of that is HESAL, which is the Higher Education and Student Affairs Leadership
Doctoral Program, moved yesterday, what may be the first dissertation defense online,
and we did it through Zoom. I'm on the dissertation committee, which is why I know
about this. So we had some mechanics to work out and how we speak and how the student
presents their slides, but it ended up working quite well. And I'd like to congratulate
Erin Datteri-Saboski, now a Ph.D. in Education at UNC. So congratulations to her,
and it's a true sign that our academic life continues. And that concludes my report.
Dan Maxey (15:56):
Thank you, Tuck, and congratulations, Erin. That's great news and glad to hear that
these critical activities are proceeding and happening efficiently as we all transition
to this new way of communicating with one another. The unfortunate thing of all of
this is that we're all getting really good at communicating by Teams and Zoom and
Skype and a lot of other different formats. So I'm glad that these activities can
continue, and I appreciate, Tuck, that wide range of updates about some of the various
things and want to echo Tuck and others in encouraging our students to reach out if
you need help.
Dan Maxey (16:41):
I know that we have a lot of students watching this daily update video each day. We
provided information about various services. If there are services that you are unsure
about or that you're not sure how to access, please reach out to us and let us know,
and we'll make sure that we share that information not only with you, but make sure
that that information is made available to other students by our FAQs and other platforms.
So thank you again, Tuck, and we'll make sure that we continue to share information
directly with students, not just here, but in a variety of other forums. I'm going
to turn it over to Andy for some final words.
President Feinstein (17:28):
Thanks, Dan, and I offer congratulations to Erin as well. I'm so impressed by how
our campus has come together to address this challenge and the way in which we've
leveraged technology is truly remarkable. More work ahead, but I am just so pleased
and proud of how we're addressing these challenges. So as I've been saying every day,
please stay safe, be healthy, and we'll see you here again tomorrow morning at 9:00
AM. Take care, everybody.