Resources for faculty and staff

In order to protect the health of our community, the UW requires all students and personnel to be vaccinated against COVID-19, with certain exemptions allowed. Please review the vaccination requirement page for information about how to submit your attestation or declare an exemption.

Supervisors are required to verify vaccination status of personnel. Supervisors can view a vaccine attestation report in Workday.

No. Do not treat vaccinated and unvaccinated employees differently as you develop plans for returning staff to the workplace. Regardless of vaccination status, all employees who return to onsite work must follow the UW’s COVID-19 prevention guidelines, which may include wearing masks, following physical distancing and completing daily attestations.

To offer a hybrid or online course at the University of Washington Tacoma, the faculty member must be an iTech Fellow certified by the Office of Digital Learning. The policy established by faculty makes this requirement and defines campus, hybrid, and distance learning courses as follows:

• Campus Course  - up to 39% of scheduled in-person class time may be replaced with online learning tools and content.
• Hybrid Course  - between 40-99% of scheduled in-person class time is replaced with asynchronous online learning tools. At least one in-person class meeting is required.
• Distance Learning (Online) Course -  100% online where in-person interaction is entirely replaced with asynchronous online learning tools. Cannot require a synchronous online presence of all students.

The term remote was used by UW during the 2020-21 academic year to designate emergency teaching conditions. UW is now using remote as the designation for courses where a faculty member has an approved Disabilities Support Office (DSO) accommodation that allows them to teach 100% remotely.

Faculty who have completed the Technology Teaching Fellow certification at UW Seattle are probably well-prepared to also be certified as iTech Fellows, and can submit their courses to the Office of Digital Learning for review.

Decisions about flexible classroom modalities are the purview of the UW Tacoma faculty. While hyflex and other flexible classroom modalities are not prohibited, we do not expect or require instructors to teach the same course section in multiple instructional modes. This is effective spring quarter 2022, and in effect through academic year 2022-2023.

Beginning March 28, 2022, UW policy is that masks are optional in all campus spaces. Individual offices or faculty cannot set their own policies on masking. You can make a polite request that your students wear masks in your classroom, but you cannot make it a requirement or in any way penalize students who do not honor that request.

Faculty are responsible collectively for decisions about the best ways to deliver the curriculum based on students’ needs, accreditation requirements, etc. Please check with your administrative lead (dean, associate dean, program director, division chair) regarding any additional requirements, as these decisions are made within your school or program.

The recommended filter level for COVID-19 conditions is 13 or higher (the maximum level for these filters is 16). Our facilities team has installed MERV 13 filters in the HVAC systems throughout campus. They have also increased the air intake to 45%, meaning indoor air is exchanged 8-9 times per hour with fresh outside air.

There is no requirement for social distancing in the classroom. The science suggests that vaccination, universal masking, and high-quality air filtration systems (all in place at UW Tacoma) provide substantial protection from virus transmission.

Our facilities team (via a contractor) is currently testing the air quality in a sample of classrooms that represents the various HVAC conditions at UW Tacoma. If they find that we are not up to public health standards set by UW, they will install and maintain air purifiers in those classrooms.

Please encourage students experiencing symptoms to stay home. Just because a student coughs or has a runny nose doesn’t mean they have COVID, but testing will be available to students on campus and faculty should let students know of these resources.

• UW has three types of telework plans: 
  • Occasional telework arrangements are infrequent and not regularly scheduled. Occasional telework does not require a formal agreement, however, supervisor approval must be documented through email.
  • Hybrid telework allows an employee to work remotely up to two days (16 hours) per week. A formal telework agreement is required and must be approved by the unit's Vice Chancellor.
  • 100% Remote telework (or any plan with more than two days per week of telework) requires Vice Chancellor and Chancellor approval.
• Any plan beyond occasional telework must be documented in a formal agreement.

We recognize there is a need to empower supervisors to develop temporary arrangements during these times when all of us will experience emergent situations (e.g. temporary daycare or school disruptions, COVID symptoms or illness, or quarantine). That flexibility isn’t intended to allow for 100% telework for the whole quarter, but temporary arrangements in order to accommodate those emergency situations that arise.

If there is a longer-term request to accommodate a medical condition (e.g. beyond short-term / exposure/isolation/symptoms/illness), we want to follow our accommodation process to ensure we are supporting the medical need. The COVID public health emergency allows some additional accommodations as noted at the Public Health Emergency Accommodation website.

Because most students are back on campus for in-person instruction, we expect offices will be open and accessible for students, faculty and staff.

Ideally, that means an in-person, staffed office open Monday - Friday, 9AM - 5PM. But for some smaller offices, temporary flexibility with staff may not allow for that. In those cases, keep these things in mind:

• Communicate clearly how students (or faculty/staff) can access your services.
• Be accessible – if you are teleworking, let students know how they can contact you.
• Be responsive – timeliness matters for students (and all of us).
• Be creative – work with your peers to share ideas on how to best keep things going.

At the University of Washington, faculty do not formally track paid time off for reasons other than sick time off under the Faculty Sick Leave Policy. Faculty sick leave (i.e., paid sick time) covers: a) your own serious health condition as certified by your health care provider; b) temporary disability due to pregnancy, childbirth, or recovery therefrom; or c) care for a family member with a serious health condition.

If you have been directed to self-isolate for up to 14 days, you should continue to follow your unit’s procedure for short-term absences. For example, this might involve informing your supervisor (chair/director/campus dean/dean), who can help you arrange for remote work or with reassignment of responsibilities. And for specific suggestions related to research activities, see the updates from the Office of Research.

If your absence occurs during a time in which you are otherwise entitled to receive a salary from the University, you will continue to receive your salary. If your condition changes and you have a serious health concern, you may be entitled to use up to 90 days of faculty sick leave, using the process outlined by Academic HR.

Using President Cauce’s declaration of “extraordinary circumstances” under Executive Order 27, the Office of Academic Personnel is implementing a provision for automatic eligibility to waive the 2019-20 or 2020-21 academic year from the mandatory promotion clock. This is similar to the automatic eligibility to have a year waived from the promotion/tenure clock in the case of the birth or adoption of a child. Automatic eligibility means that the faculty members must request a clock waiver, but upon request it will be automatically approved.

The details for seeking an extension to the promotion/tenure clock through this clock waiver provision are available on the Office of Academic Personnel website.