September 21, 2020

This message is being sent on behalf of Provost and Senior Vice President Patrick Phillips and Vice President for Finance and Administration Jamie Moffitt. Please pass this along to your units or others who might need this information. We will also be communicating a similar message to faculty, staff, and students.

The safety at all University of Oregon campuses is a top priority. Providing safe, in-person experiences for our students and staff is also critical to everyone’s success. The decision to transition many in-person instructional activities to primarily remote delivery has understandably created a number of questions about what students, faculty, and staff can expect on campus during fall term.

To provide UO community members with a clearly defined, well-communicated, and safe in-person experience, we will open key facilities, with adequate staff and support, while maintaining our current limited access status in all other buildings.

Building status
This COVID-19 building status map shows buildings listed in one of three categories: open, limited access, or restricted. This means:

• “Open” facilities will be physically unlocked at strategic entryways during the posted hours, and will be available to faculty, staff, and students for various activities.
• “Limited access” facilities will remain locked and accessible to those faculty, staff, and students who need access through their UO ID card or via other controlled access.
• “Restricted” facilities will remain locked but will be accessible to faculty and staff through their UO ID card or other controlled access. These facilities will be available to students by appointment only.

If a building is not on the map, it should be considered to have a default status of “restricted.” Please contact Krista Dillon of the UO Incident Management Team at kristam@uoregon.edu with any questions about your building status or access for faculty, staff, and students.

Other important information about building access includes:

• Everyone in the campus community should be prepared to show their UO ID card when accessing open facilities. UO ID cards will be required to gain entry to limited-access and restricted buildings. Individuals who do not already have card access to limited-access and restricted buildings may need to make appointments to access those facilities.
• Spaces in open buildings will be available for scheduling in-person student engagement and events. Scheduling must be done using the campus-wide scheduling system – EMS.
• Some spaces can be scheduled by a school, college, or department. Questions about scheduling spaces outside your unit’s normal spaces should be directed to UO Scheduling and Event Services.
• UO’s Duck Rides, a student ride service, will run until 10:30 p.m. daily to accommodate getting students home safely from any buildings they are using. Weekend operations may vary.
• Information about all building access and hours will be posted to the Coronavirus website.
• Designated eating areas will be established, and information will be posted both inside and outside any open facilities. This will allow those wanting to avoid places where individuals are unmasked to know what is inside. Building managers in limited-access and restricted facilities may designate specific eating areas within their buildings. Those locations must follow physical distancing guidelines.
• Some informal learning and eating areas in tents outside will be available for the first two months of the fall term.
• “Open” buildings will have plans for monitoring face covering and physical distancing compliance. Departments in limited-access or restricted buildings should already have resumption plans that identify how physical distancing will be achieved. Information about departmental resumption plans can be found here.
• Use of the administrative and academic building access forms will be discontinued. The research-related access form will remain in use until further notice.
• Deliveries on campus in limited-access and restricted facilities may continue to require that departments in those buildings have staffing plans so that deliveries can be made. Unfortunately, central resources are not available to set up a central receiving program.
• If your unit is interested in setting up a tent that provides cover for outside interaction, please contact Luke Helm in Campus Planning and Facilities Management at lhelm@uoregon.edu.

Contact tracing
A person’s presence inside a building does not, in and of itself, warrant contact tracing. Therefore, we will not conduct contact tracing based on building access or entry, or ask facilities managers to develop plans around this. A supervisor will be asked to help identify close contacts of an employee who has worked on campus if that employee is deemed positive for COVID-19. Departments should immediately contact the Case Management Team at 541-346-2292 or careteam@uoregon.edu with any information about potential or confirmed cases, or exposures involving students, faculty, or staff in their department.

Contact tracing may be necessary when it comes to in-person events. Therefore, departments and student groups hosting in-person activities will be required to complete rosters with appropriate information for contact-tracing purposes, and the rosters will need to be submitted for record keeping. An in-person event roster template can be found here and completed rosters should be submitted to uoem@uoregon.edu.

Ensuring communication with students
We recognize that this change in operations will impact how we engage with our students and colleagues. To avoid any unnecessary confusion, it is imperative that department web pages have clear information about when and how students can contact staff and faculty in person, by phone, or by email. We are also working to communicate that information centrally though the UO Campus Map, so please share your operating plans with Krista Dillon (kristam@uoregon.edu) of the Incident Management Team.

If your department is operating in a limited-access or restricted facility, please communicate how and where your students can enter the facilities, and under what conditions. Many of our limited-access buildings have scheduled in-person instruction. That means enrolled students will be granted card access to those facilities, but other students may need to be granted access. Requests for students needing regular access for purposes other than an in-person class should follow the normal request process where the department asks on behalf of the student by sending an email to fass@uoregon.edu. Card access requests will be handled by the Key and Access Office in the EMU.

Student Interaction
In the coming weeks, we will be welcoming more than 3,000 new students to campus. In addition, there are a limited number of classes — primarily labs, studios, and creative-practice courses — that will bring some of our continuing students back to campus. The facilities access plan is designed to provide a number of buildings that can be available to support a safe, supportive, and enriching experience for our students. 

Support and engagement activities are being developed across campus, but a critical part of student engagement will continue to be the interactions students have within academic departments. We know many deans have already worked with their units to develop staffing plans to engage and support students, which includes in-person staffing in order to assist students who are able to access their buildings. If your unit does not yet have these plans, please work to develop them. The guidance contained in this memo should help identify spaces that students are able to access and help plan for either the need for an in-person presence or the need for signs or other communication to direct them to how to contact faculty or staff.

All in-person activities should follow appropriate safety protocols, including the following:

• Physical distancing: Ensure that space used for meetings allows for more than 6 feet between individuals. Consider using conference rooms or larger spaces than individual offices to allow for distance.
• Face covering use: All individuals must be masked. For more information on the university’s face-covering regulations and recommendations for managing interactions with students or others not wearing a face covering, please visit the FAQ for face coverings on the university’s COVID-19 website.
• Cleaning: Surfaces and high-touch areas should be cleaned in between meetings. Cleaning supplies can be ordered through Science Stores. Keep hand sanitizer available for meeting participants.
• Roster: Be sure to document attendance at in-person events as described above.

We understand that employees across campus have unique challenges created by local K-12 schools that have changed their operations, as well as additional responsibilities that COVID-19 may have brought upon them and their households. Despite these issues, we’re confident that units can find ways to provide the necessary in-person engagement and support for our students. If this is not possible, units should deploy strategies that clearly communicate with students how to connect with individuals in their departments to get any questions answered.

Sincerely,

Patrick Phillips
Provost and Senior Vice President

Jamie Moffitt
Vice President for Finance and Administration