August 7
Dear Campus Colleagues,
I echo the messages sent out earlier today – CRAZY amounts of appreciation to everyone who has worked since March to ensure that our campus has remained a safe place and that our students have been able to keep learning and engaging with one another and our campus. And crazy and much appreciation for all of the work that has been undertaken to prepare for our return to campus instruction, student life, and collaborative work spaces.
I know that we’ve all heard our community commitment to following the 3Ws over and over again – I want to reiterate how important these are for the health and safety of our campus community. In addition to following the 3Ws, one of the most important actions that all faculty, staff, and students can take is to complete a self-symptom check on a daily basis.
Beginning Sunday evening, you will begin to receive automated emails from COVIDUpdates@unca.edu reminding you to engage in self-symptom checking for COVID-19 symptoms (an example of the email is at the bottom of this email). While it may feel redundant, these reminders are a part of our UNC Asheville Expectations of Mutual Respect & Care for All. If you have not read the Expectations recently, please do so: https://coronavirus.unca.edu/return-to-campus/community-expectations/.
I also want to let you know that we have an aggregated dashboard of UNC Asheville faculty, staff and student COVID-19 cases. That dashboard will be available on https://coronavirus.unca.edu/ on Monday. Individual cases will not be disclosed and we will protect and respect the privacy of all member of our community.
We have created a secure and confidential form for faculty, staff, and campus visitors to report COVID-19 positive cases (or potential COVID-19 positive cases). This confidential and carefully protected form will be sent to all faculty and staff on Monday and any responses to that form will come directly to Human Resources. While this information will help inform the numbers on our dashboard, the individual information will remain highly confidential to Human Resources and the Buncombe County Health Department where contact tracing is needed.
Thank you again for all that you do, and please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions or concerns.
Heather
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Heather Parlier
Vice Chancellor for Human Resources, Institutional Equity and General Counsel