Dear Colleagues,

We are now just a couple of weeks away from welcoming everyone back to our campus. While the beginning of the academic year is always filled with excitement and anticipation, there is also a need to clarify expectations regarding the management of COVID-19.

There has been encouraging progress in our ability to return to normalcy since last year. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are readily available at UVU to all employees and students. We encourage you to protect your health and the health of others by getting vaccinated.

Still, the pandemic continues — and much of what was put in place in the past academic year will continue into this one, impacting the way we interact on campus and how we educate students.

Some of the basics for the new school year include the following:

• Stay home if you are ill. Employees experiencing COVID-19 symptoms should not come to work. UVU provides a generous leave policy for full-time employees, and we encourage you to use your accrued leave to recover from illness.
• If you need to quarantine because of exposure to COVID-19, we encourage you to work with your supervisor to allow temporary remote work.
• Masks are encouraged on campus. We can no longer require them by Utah law. Please be respectful of an individual’s choice regarding this topic. If you feel unsafe in an unmasked environment due to your health concerns, it is acceptable to ask those around you to wear a mask.
• UVU will continue COVID-19 testing and administering the vaccines into the fall and most likely throughout the academic year. Any vaccine mandate is under the control of state and local officials.
• State legislation passed in 2021 requires us to be at a minimum of 75% capacity in terms of face-to-face courses offered this fall relative to the number offered during fall 2019. That means a majority of our students will be on campus and in need of our support.
• If you cannot work in a face-to-face environment because of health-related concerns, you must seek accommodation through HR.
• We will continue monitoring classes, programs, and buildings as we did last year to help mitigate the spread of the virus. You will be notified if you have been exposed on campus. Those who are not vaccinated may be required to quarantine.

• Cleaning protocols put into place to keep our environment safe will continue. We encourage you to keep practicing good health hygiene and utilizing the hand sanitizer stations.
• Domestic travel is back open per normal guidelines. International travel is based on current situations both here and at your destination. Please work with your supervisor to determine if university-related travel is an option.
• As always this is a fluid situation, so things can and probably will change. We will be in touch on a regular basis.

 

More information can be found on the COVID-19 site. Please contact your supervisor if you have any questions or concerns.

We appreciate you and the support you provide to our faculty, students, and each other. Your efforts are making a difference. As we move forward, please be aware of your own needs and well-being. We have many resources and are adding to those all the time, so please reach out. The events of the last year are hopefully subsiding, but we will all feel the effects for years — we need to be mindful of and help each other.

 

Sincerely,

Marilyn Meyer
Vice President of People and Culture

Wayne Vaught
Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs
Provost