May 8, Operational Update
May 8, 2020 Update (View on YouTube)
Transcript:
President Feinstein (00:00):
Well good morning everybody. Friday May the eighth, we made it to Friday, and this
is our daily operational status report. This is our last daily report, and as you
heard from Dan Maxey yesterday, beginning next week these updates will be weekly on
Thursday morning at 9:00 AM. So a couple of updates for today. First I'll be sharing
a graduation video with all of our graduates tomorrow celebrating their accomplishments,
and there'll be a little surprise as well from Governor Polis. A bit of news regarding
the Joint Budget Committee that met yesterday. The JBC currently plans to keep the
higher education budget flat for fiscal 21. If they are going to make any cuts, they're
going to wait until next Tuesday, until after they look at the revenue forecast. It
was a very emotionally charged meeting. It's actually available online if you want
to watch it and I'd be very happy if our budget were to remain flat, and I will update
you certainly on any change to this next Thursday when we meet again.
President Feinstein (01:06):
A little bit of what I'm going to be doing today. I'm meeting with our cabinet to
talk about the budget. I have a meeting right after this with our University Foundation
and also with our athletic staff. This evening I'll also be stopping by a celebration
of the graduation of a number of our Latinx students, and the overall celebration
of the class, which 2020 with comedian Bill Santiago and the event begins at five
o'clock and I hope that all of you can can join us. And with that I'm going to turn
the conversation over to Dan Maxey, our chief of staff, to moderate conversations
with our other coronavirus task force leads. Dan.
Dan Maxey (01:48):
Thank you President Feinstein. It's a cloudy morning here in Greeley, breaking a real
streak of blue sky mornings we've had all this week, but it is the last day of finals
week, and I want to congratulate all of our students on making it through the end
of what was a very challenging spring semester. And I also want to take a moment to
thank all of the panelists and guest presenters who have helped to keep us connected
through the spring semester. We've been doing these daily update calls mostly on weekdays
but for a while on weekends too for about two months, and this has been a really important
part of maintaining community and keeping our students, staff, faculty and others
informed, so I want to thank all of you for your contributions to this over the last
couple of months and look forward to transitioning this into a new phase as we begin
to prepare for the fall.
Dan Maxey (02:37):
The cabinet and coronavirus task force both will meet today, and this will be the
final meeting today for the coronavirus task force in its current iteration. Next
week we'll begin to prepare for transition from our response operations to a recovery
posture and a reentry posture, and we'll be sharing more updates from that group each
week on Thursday mornings as the president indicated. As our daily panel gives reports,
please remember to unmute your microphones and turn on your cameras. First up is the
chair of our coronavirus task force, associate vice president for administration Blaine
Nickeson. Blaine.
Blaine Nickeson (03:15):
Good morning Dan. Good morning Andy. I don't have any office mates in with me today,
but in the last couple of days folks may have noticed that my young son and daughter
were in the camera view at times, and I had a number of people reach out to me and
thank me for normalizing the fact that what we're all dealing with about having children
at home and in our workspace and it being a very challenging time for everybody, so
I'm glad that I was able to do that, and I'm glad they weren't horrific during any
of our calls. Yesterday, a number of us from UNC met on campus with staff from King
Soopers about the large drive-through testing site we'll be hosting on the campus.
Blaine Nickeson (04:01):
Look for more detail soon, but our plan is to utilize the Y and L parking lots adjacent
to Candelaria Hall and Nottingham Stadium for the testing site. It'll allow for plenty
of queuing space for cars as we aim to test over 300 people each day. The plan right
now is to start next Thursday, and my thanks to our Facilities Management department
and our UNC Police department for their assistance in getting this up and running
and making it happen.
Blaine Nickeson (04:31):
Today's the last day of the stay at home order in most of the Denver metropolitan
area. That means the entire state will now be under the governor safer at home order.
At this point, it's up to us on how things look in a few weeks. If we continue to
stay home as much as possible, we wear masks when we have to go out and practice good
social distancing, hopefully we can continue with this reduced level of restrictions.
But if we don't, if we try to jump right back into our old normal, the data that I
watch on the daily hospital beds in use will show a significant increase and our leaders
will be forced to take more draconian measures to protect our healthcare system from
being overwhelmed. So please just keep that in mind as we move forward.
Blaine Nickeson (05:17):
For statewide data, there's 18,371 confirmed positive cases. It's up again about 500
since yesterday or 3%. That 3% daily case growth has been pretty consistent for the
last a few weeks. The number of folks hospitalized currently is 628, and it's down
a few since yesterday's report. While that continues to trend lower, we saw another
day of an uptick in people hospitalized with suspected COVID-19 pending the test results.
In the last two days an increase from 142 to 170, which while a relatively small number
of cases is a 20% increase, so continue to watch that closely. Big day for testing
yesterday, over 92,000 tested, that's up about 6,300. That's a major jump in testing
which is great to see. UNC will be doing our part to add to that testing capacity
in less than a week. Deaths are up 23 since yesterday, 944, and here in Weld County,
about a two and a half percent increase in case counts since yesterday, and there
were three more deaths locally, bringing that total to 114.
Blaine Nickeson (06:29):
So Dan, that's all I have this morning, and I'll go ahead and turn it back over to
you.
Dan Maxey (06:34):
Great, thank you Blaine. We are working with the folks at King Soopers right now on
the various media releases and information that will go out to the public, so there's
going to be a pretty massive publicity effort on this to make sure that folks know
about it. I can't remember if you mentioned this Blaine in your report, but there
will be a registration process involved to participate in the testing center on campus
or the testing site on campus, so if any of you are in the Greeley area and plan to
utilize this, make sure that you look for the publicity about this and register in
advance. They will only be taking individuals who have preregistered for a screening
at the site, so look for more on this.
Blaine Nickeson (07:26):
Yeah Dan, that's right. They've got a pretty robust website where they'll screen people
through. You don't need a doctor's note to participate, but they do want to sort of
walk through and make sure that folks that are symptomatic are the ones that are being
screened. They've got a pretty slick system. They deployed this on a number of places
across the country, so I got the impression yesterday in meeting with them that they're
a pretty well-oiled machine so I'm excited to see how it works out starting next week.
Dan Maxey (07:56):
Likewise. Thanks again, Blaine.
Blaine Nickeson (07:58):
Yes.
Dan Maxey (07:59):
Next I'll turn it over to our dean of students Tuck Tucker for his report on impacts
of student life and I can't wait to see what sort of hat Tuck has on today.
Gardiner Tucker (08:07):
I can't compare it to your hat. You win today. The first thing I'd like to say from
Student Impacts is "Way to go students. It's the end of final exam week and you've
hung in there for a strange and unusual but successful in different ways semester,
and congratulations graduates."
Gardiner Tucker (08:25):
I don't know if you realize, but over the process of being in a virtual world we've
covered many, many departments, almost every department on campus, how they've transitioned
to online presence. We've shared multiple students' stories about how you've overcome
struggles and challenges to be successful. We've covered service stories that during
these times people reach out and help each other, the Bear spirit is strong. We've
talked about budget issues and how we're tackling those. Policy changes to benefit
students during a strange time. We've talked and discussed national issues, technological
issues, so it's been quite a couple of months that we've been virtual, and I have
a couple of videos that are very symbolic of graduation, but tomorrow's video from
Andy will be the culmination of our graduation experience. Let me share some of these
with you. First up, we have Meagan here. We'll start her from the start here.
Meagan (09:25):
Being a Bear has brought me some of my best friends, and I know that our time at UNC
will bond us for life, so that's why I'm proud to be a Bear.
Gardiner Tucker (09:37):
So I think this is symbolic of the feeling of making connections as part of the Bear
community and helping people to feel successful as they move through their years here
and they've made lifelong bonds. This one is from the tutoring center, thank you Melissa
Hoffner, and it's symbolic to me because the tutors have helped students across all
disciplines, across every college, and they represent our graduating seniors, so this
is 30 seconds.
Gardiner Tucker (10:41):
And then finally, we have one ceremony that Andy just mentioned coming tonight. Cultural
Services is celebrating all 2020 Class Graduates in a night of comedy with Bill Santiago
at 5:00 PM Instagram live, so please join us for that event. So I think all of these
are symbolic of the changes that we've been through and what we've accomplished together.
So congratulations graduates, and that concludes my report.
Dan Maxey (11:08):
Thank you Tuck. Next we'll turn it over to Provost Mark Anderson. And if Mark's not
wearing a bandana or better today for hat day, I'll be disappointed.
Mark Anderson (11:20):
Thank you Dan, and the Oscar for Best Performance in a Daily Update call goes to Gardiner
Tucker. Today is indeed a day of celebration. Normally we'd be having commencement
exercises later this evening and tomorrow, and I just want to celebrate our students
and really thank Tuck for highlighting all the student activities over the course
of the last six weeks. We would be having the graduate students, specialist degrees,
master's degrees, and doctoral degrees earning their diplomas this evening. I'll give
a really quick shout out to Cindy Wesley and the Graduate School for all that they've
done in transitioning the processes that graduate students have to go through, particularly
as they're completing their dissertation defenses during the spring semester. Also,
a shoutout to our faculty who've been mentoring these students throughout the year.
They've really risen to the occasion to help the students complete their dissertations
and really have a meaningful dissertation and thesis defense.
Mark Anderson (12:31):
I've had the opportunity to sit in on a few, and they're very meaningful. I know for
me personally, I took much greater satisfaction in the successes of my graduate students,
particularly at their defense, than for my own. Dan has been playing really hard rock
music, I'm much more akin to a softer orchestral music or jazz, and Andy and I had
the opportunity a little bit earlier this week to celebrate our Jazz Studies program
and our Jazz students who won a number of Downbeat Awards for their performances,
and we'd like to congratulate those students.
Mark Anderson (13:13):
Finally, just a reminder that the buildings will be open today. Between 10:00 AM and
noon, Candelaria will be open, and between two and 4:00 PM Gunter will be open for
faculty and staff to retrieve their materials for teaching over the summer and being
engaged in research. And Dan, I thought you said top hat, so I apologize.
President Feinstein (13:42):
Are you going to be ushering them in in your outfit into the building, just out of
curiosity?
Mark Anderson (13:47):
I will do whatever it takes, Andy.
Gardiner Tucker (13:50):
Great idea.
Mark Anderson (13:52):
That is all I have for today. Congratulations to our students. Congratulations to
our faculty. Today is a day of celebration.
Dan Maxey (14:01):
We'll make sure to put the velvet rope line up, Mark. Thank you for that report Mark,
and thank you for the laugh there, I appreciate the backdrop and dressing up for our
graduates today. We have no Facilities or Human Resources reports today on our last
daily report, but before I turn it over to President Feinstein one last time for our
daily calls, I want to say congratulations again to our UNC graduates. You made it,
and look for some congratulatory notes from us later on. With that, I'll turn it back
over to the president.
President Feinstein (14:42):
Thanks Dan. And I feel a little underdressed to be frank with you, so I'll have to
work on my attire moving forward. But one thing that I am wearing, you'll see I'm
wearing a Living CAP hat, C-A-P, and we have two very close friends, Bob and Bonnie
Phelps who are great supporters of our university, created this model to try to show
support for the campus and also award students that follow this CAP creed. And I'm
just going to read what CAP stands for.
President Feinstein (15:11):
The C is Contribute by volunteering time and personal skills, talents, abilities,
experience and passion around issues and service and community. Achieve is for displaying
a bias toward action and performance, overcoming obstacles and setbacks, and accomplishing
goals. And the P is from Pay it forward by impacting the lives of others in meaningful
and positive ways, through random and planned acts of kindness, caring, and giving
back. So I think those are great words to live by, and it's something I want to share
with the campus on this last day of our semester and certainly in celebrating all
of our students who are graduating. So congratulations. Thanks everybody for tuning
in, and we'll see you here next week, Thursday at 9:00 AM. Take care, everybody.