Resources for faculty and staff

In order to protect the health of our community, the UW will require all students and personnel to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by autumn quarter, 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.

As of the end of July 2021, of UW Tacoma’s 830 class sections for autumn 2021, 9% are categorized as hybrid and 9.5% are DL. For comparison, UW Bothell expects 16% hybrid, 3% DL and 1% remote.

Most students registered last spring and built their schedules based on that information. This doesn't mean you absolutely are locked into what you chose then, but please consider the impacts to students if you make a change. Students have different needs depending on where they are in their college journey and how privileged they are in terms of support towards their educational goals. Further, both international students and those receiving veteran’s benefits have limits on how many online or hybrid courses they may take without jeopardizing their educational benefits or visa status. These students need courses that are principally or fully in-person. Some faculty have particularly challenging situations during this continued pandemic, and offering a hybrid course may help. Please weigh this against the UW goal to provide a primarily in-person experience for our students and the ripple effects on students’ education, work, and family responsibilities.

Faculty are to offer their courses through one modality: in person, hybrid, or online, according to the definitions created by UW Tacoma Faculty. Student are not able to select whether they attend in person or by Zoom. Our classrooms are not equipped for simultaneous in person and online instruction (called Hyflex). UW Tacoma's policy is that Hyflex instruction is not permitted. More information

Yes:

• Please make sure that your course is listed in the time schedule with the accurate instructional mode along with details about instructional meeting times etc. Our primarily commuter student population depends on this information. Our staff also depend on this information for advising, classroom/laboratory cleaning, events scheduling, etc. Please help our students and our staff by making sure that the time schedule is accurate.
• We do not expect instructors to teach the same course section in multiple instructional modes. Please focus on preparing your courses in the mode you have selected: in-person or hybrid or DL. The policy of our campus is that we will not offer simultaneous in-person and online instruction (also called HyFlex). We do not have any classrooms equipped for HyFlex instruction.

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.

UW’s guidance about face coverings answers many questions about exemptions, enforcement, etc.  The revised masking mandate allows certain faculty to remove their mask under certain conditions to conduct class. For faculty who may not want to remove their mask, portable microphones are available if the classroom does not have a microphone configured in the podium and/or you do not teach from the podium. Please contact IT about access.

Please review Information about how to help students behave responsibly with mask-wearing. You may consider addressing the masking mandate in your syllabus or on your Canvas site so that students are reminded of the information ahead of time.

These masks have been recommended by DRS for working with the hearing impaired:

• https://safenclear.com/product/the-communicator-surgical-mask-with-a-clear-window/
• https://rafinova.com/collections/all-masks-1/products/adults-smile-mask-ear-loop

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.

Most employees are continuing with remote work through Sept. 10, 2021.

Employees are expected to return to in-person work on Monday, Sept. 13, 2021 unless they have a telework or hybrid work agreement approved. All on-site work must continue adhering to all appropriate safety measures and the unit’s COVID-19 Prevention Plan.

Units will apply the Back-to-the-Workplace Guidance for Staff for the period beginning Sept. 11, 2021 to their operations. This guidance is supplemented by UWHR’s Return to on-site work page, which includes on-site work and telework resources for managers and employees.

The new telework guidance for staff provides unit leaders the flexibility to work with their teams on how to incorporate more telework into their operations in ways that are consistent with achieving their unit’s missions and business needs. As we do this, certain functions should be prioritized for in-person work, including essential and clinical operations, instruction, research, student services, and services provided to the public, as well as the support services that underpin our teaching, research, clinical and service operations.

Taken together, these guidelines will enable us to safely achieve our missions and come together in community with each other, while still providing flexibility and making use of the innovations developed during these challenging times.

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.