Protecting the health and safety of our employees is a paramount consideration in our efforts to plan and prepare for re-opening campus for in-person instruction in fall 2020. Currently, the Oregon Health Authority and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that people who may be at greater risk to serious illness from COVID-19 because of their age or a serious underlying health condition shelter in place. We anticipate that this recommendation will continue through the fall term. 

 

Given the need for advance planning -- and assuming that childcare is available and that K-12 schools are open -- faculty and graduate employees (GEs) who want to request permission to work 100% remotely through the fall 2020 term must complete this form by Friday, May 8. 

 

We will review every request to work remotely and hope to allow faculty members and GEs to work from home or, depending on their underlying duties, put in place other mitigation accommodations that allow faculty and GEs to safely work on-campus to the extent we are open. It is important to note that we do not know how many requests we will receive, and priority will generally be given to faculty and GEs who are part of the population that may be more vulnerable to serious illness from COVID-19. It is also important to note that even if faculty or GEs do not self-identify as someone who wants to work from home, the university may ask faculty and GEs to work from home based on the needs of the institution, in order to implement state and federal re-opening guidance or to otherwise promote social distancing.

 

 

Faculty and GE responses to this survey will be maintained privately by the ADA Coordinator & Associate Director of Employee and Labor Relations and will only be shared on a need to know basis. Once received, the names of faculty and GEs who have requested permission to work remotely will be compiled and submitted to academic leadership for individual review and consideration. This list will not specify which faculty or GEs have requested permission to work remotely because they are in a vulnerable population and who has requested it for other reasons. 

 

If academic leadership has concerns about the operational impact of a certain faculty member’s or GE's request, then they will consult with Employee and Labor Relations on appropriate next steps. Depending on the circumstances, Employee and Labor Relations may disclose to the academic leadership that the faculty member or GE in question may be more vulnerable to serious illness from COVID-19. In some circumstances the faculty member or GE may be approached by Employee and Labor Relations to explore whether potential additional precautionary measures could be made to effectively enable the person to safely work on campus. 

 

 

It is our goal to re-open campus with appropriate social distancing measures to ensure the health and safety of our campus community. At this time, Human Resources is not requiring medical or other documentation to confirm that a faculty member or GE may be more susceptible to serious illness from COVID-19. However, the university may need to follow up with a request for medical documentation in the future and/or request more information from the faculty member or GE related to their request to work remotely.

 

Nothing about working 100% remotely in the fall changes the duties and expectations for your position.

 

Finally, it is important to understand that the high-degree of flexibility that the university is able to offer faculty and GEs to work remotely through the fall term is directly connected to its response to COVID-19.  While the university generally supports flexible work arrangements, it is very unlikely that it will be able to maintain this level of flexibility outside of its COVID-19 response efforts.