Broken Pipeline Forces Winter Intersession to Switch to Full Remote

Due to a major broken pipeline, heating in some campus buildings is not stable. In an effort to minimize instructional disruption and allow various operational personnel access to buildings and other impacted systems to make necessary repairs, campus facilities will be closed until all heating systems have been thoroughly inspected, tested, and stabilized.

Student Instruction

Given the uncertainty of an exact repair completion date and the condensed Winter Intersession schedule, courses offered on-campus will now be changed to 100% online for the entire winter term. To ensure students receive the type of interaction that they were expecting when they enrolled in an on-campus course, hybrid courses will be hybrid live online and face-to-face courses will be fully synchronous live online. There will be no days or time changes. For courses that cannot be converted to an online format, more information will be forthcoming.

Student Laptops for Remote Instruction

Students who need equipment for remote instruction will be given information on a laptop loan program including when, where, and how devices can be picked up.

Student Support Services and Other Non-Instructional Campus Operations

All staff, faculty, and management who provide non-instructional support services will return to their on-campus work schedules as soon as heat is restored to all buildings. This could be as early as Thursday, January 6. A campus update will be provided as more information is known about progress on the repairs. In the meantime, managers have been instructed to contact their direct reports regarding appropriate work assignments until heat is fully restored.

COVID Testing

For employees assigned to work on campus, antigen testing (nasal swabbing) will still be done the first week of January to ensure that the limited people working onsite are COVID-free. For employees temporarily assigned to stay remote, COVID testing will not be required at this time. Once building heat is restored and non-instructional personnel begin receiving on-campus work schedules again, more information regarding testing will be provided at that time.