Dear Colleagues,
In accordance with the CDC and Governor Inslee’s guidance, to protect the health of our students, staff, faculty and community, I am directing all unit directors within our college to implement these policies, effective immediately:
- Voiland College employees will be transitioned to telework.
- Today: All individuals in a high-risk group [1] are expected to begin teleworking. Each individual should develop a telework agreement in collaboration with their supervisor. The development of this agreement should be completed via email or Zoom communications and will likely be finalized in the coming days, after teleworking begins.
- By March 17, all other employees (including graduate students) will work with their units and supervisors to determine what activities cannot be completed remotely and develop a plan for completing these duties with a minimum number of on-campus employees. Colleges offices will remain open although some unit offices may close. When an office must be kept open, the unit and employees are expected to share the on-campus responsibilities across a number of employees so that each has some portion of their week teleworking and some portion in the office.
- Faculty will deliver their courses from home. If delivery from home is impossible, faculty will be able to deliver their courses from their office or lecture hall in which social distancing guidelines are followed.
- For this purpose, all graduate students will be considered ‘employees’ and will transition to teleworking except for essential activities that cannot be completed remotely. Essential activities, such as maintaining animals, unique reagents, and essential equipment and materials, can continue.
- Telework template forms to be used by staff, faculty, and students with their supervisors will be available shortly.
- The attached telework best practices checklist may be useful in preparing for transition to telework.
- As the motivation for this actions is to promote extensive social distancing, employees working remotely will be expected to remain in their homes working on WSU tasks during all work hours except when they must leave their homes for WSU work-related activities or emergencies.
- All employees will continue to be paid as normal from their current accounts.
- ALL meetings will be moved to Zoom delivery or phone calls.
This applies independent of the physical locations of the individuals attending the meeting. - For activities that cannot be transitioned to telework, employees must maintain at least 6 feet of separation between themselves and others.
(So, never more than one person in an elevator, probably never more than one person in an individual office…) We will evaluate offices to ensure that the 6’ distancing between individuals is maintained and explore staggering work schedules as needed to ensure distancing. - All planned work-travel will be re-evaluated by the unit leader. All non-essential work travel will be postponed or cancelled.
Given the severity of the situation, I personally encourage you to consider if personal travel is needed or unnecessarily increases the risks for you and others.
In addition, I am directing Voiland College unit leaders to develop operational plans so that we can continue to communicate quickly and deliver our services effectively. These plans will include updated faculty/staff contact information as well as staffing continuity/chain of command contingencies to ensure we our able to assist each other in a time of need. Look for more on this from your unit leaders.
Finally, we are aware that there are undergraduate students who will continue to live in Pullman and may want to take advantages of Voiland College resources. All tutoring and advising has been moved to Zoom engagement. We continue to explore what access students may have to our shops and maker spaces. We do not have resolution on this topic at this time but will update you as information is available.
I understand that these are unsettling times and appreciate that you may be worried about the future. Know that we are all working together to ensure that this pandemic passes through our communities with the least possible disruption. Your unit leader or his/her designee will reach out to you to discuss your individual situation. I encourage you to proactively evaluate what parts of your job can be completed via teleworking and what can’t to help us rapidly make this transition.
I understand these policies will have a major impact on many of you, and many challenges will need to be resolved in order to enact them. Let’s work together to find a balance that ensures we’re meeting our students needs while also working to minimize the impact of this virus on our communities.
Thanks to all of you for what you’ve already done and are continuing to do to prepare for online delivery of our courses next week. Continue reading below my signature if you’re interested in how we got here and why we’re responding in this manner.
Be Safe Cougs!
Mary Rezac (she/her/hers)
Dean, Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture
Washington State University
Email: mary.rezac@wsu.edu
Phone: 509-335-5593
Twitter: @VCEA_Dean
vcea.wsu.edu
How did this situation develop and why are we responding in this manner?
In this rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic, many are wondering what should the appropriate response be to curb the virus transmission within our close-knit college community.
For example, on February 27th, School of Design and Construction faculty members began to question whether the spring break study abroad trip they had planned for Spain was a good idea. At that point, there were fewer than 20 cases of COVID-19 in the country. The CDC guidance indicated no travel concerns. On February 28th, in consultation with SDC School Director Ryan Smith, we decided to cancel the trip. Immediate response was mixed. Some participants were relieved while others were frustrated. Some thought the risk was small; the flu killed more people; the trip could continue, they argued.
With the luxury of two weeks of additional data, it is clear that the cancellation decision was warranted.
We are now being asked to make decisions on how to respond to COVID-19 in our local communities. The Puget Sound is farther along the virus transmission process than our other locations, but we know that this virus will come to us. The question that remains is how will we respond?
Where are we now? As of 3 p.m. PST on 3/15/20, there were 169,113 confirmed cases in the world with 6,494 deaths. The US had 3,502 cases and 63 deaths. Of those, 769 (22%) of the cases and 42 (67%) of the deaths were in Washington state.
Wuhan Province in China, where this virus is believed to have begun late last year, and Europe have been aggressive in mandated ‘social distancing’. Commerce has been shut down. Schools are closed. Public gatherings are prohibited. Yet, the responses appear to be have come too late in the transmission process to significantly reduced the growth curves. While the number of cases in the US remains a fraction of the global total, the rate of increase mirrors that of other countries. The rate of additional new cases after the 150th case was identified is essentially identical for Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and the US. We’re just a few days behind (see below).
So, if wait three or four days, we can expect the US (or at least Washington state) to look a lot like Germany, France and Spain. Give us ten days and we’ll likely look like Italy.
The US is now in an exponential growth phase and is doubling every three days. If this continues, there will be about 100 million cases in the US by May. Yet, if we intercede, the spread can be slowed.
What’s to be done? While the transmission of COVID-19 in Europe and the US are on similar trajectories, Hong Kong and Singapore took a different path. The figure below shows that the virus has been circulating in the US and Singapore for about the same amount of time, but the US had nearly 20 times more cases.
Hong Kong and Singapore have reacted to this virus aggressively.
They mandated social distancing and aggressively identified and quarantined virus carriers. We need to learn from Singapore’s success and adapt it to our situation. While you and I aren’t in a position to increase testing or quarantine carriers, we can support extensive social distancing.
A recent article in the Washington Post examined simulations of possible virus transmission trajectories under four conditions – a free-for-all, an attempted quarantine, moderate social distancing and extensive social distancing. [Generously, these simulations assume that each individual recovers and cannot go on to be re-infected. We know that the former isn’t correct and the latter remains questionable.] It is important that the total number of severely ill individuals that exist at any given time be minimized. Otherwise, we run the risk of overwhelming hospital facilities and personnel.
The simulations clearly show that social distancing can significantly reduce the number of individuals infected. Sunday, both the CDC and WSU have provided guidance (PDF) for measures to increase social-distancing and minimize the spread of disease in Seattle. The new policies described in this memo are VCEA’s response to the CDC and WSU guidance in an attempt to ‘flatten the curve’.
[1] Individuals over the age of 60, with certain underlying health conditions (PDF), and pregnant women.