Hi, everyone!
I'm Catenya McHenry, joined by Lil Mills
for our August Q&A.
We took a little bit of a break this summer,
and now we are back full swing and ready to begin a brand new semester.
Lil, it's great to see you, as always!
- Gosh, thank you, Catenya, and I am so happy.
This goes out to both faculty and staff as well as our students,
our returning students and incoming students.
- Yes. We have now added students to the list
because there are a lot of things that we talk about that are
important to students and student facing
as well as staff and faculty.
So, we have a lot to cover today. - Right.
- That we will talk about regarding reopening campus, vaccinations, masks,
COVID-19 testing, and just what things will look like.
So, let's first start with vaccinations and whether or not they are mandatory.
Let's talk about that.
- No, Catenya. Vaccinations are not mandatory,
but strongly encouraged.
I've had both of my Pfizer shots. I feel so much safer in the world
because I'm fully vaccinated, but all we can do is encourage that
as a best practice for health and safety.
- And we are reopening campus, full reopen.
Some messages have gone out from the President's office
as well as the Provost's office, so if you haven't seen those messages,
make sure you check your inbox.
So, yes, we are reopening, and events are back on schedule,
so let's talk about -- - They are, Catenya!
Because the McCombs School is often the beta test for things.
Our one-year specialty MS programs have been in-person since July,
our working, professional, and full-time M.B.A. classes are already in-person,
and again, we have been encouraging all those students to arrive
fully vaccinated, to be tested, and absolutely self-quarantine
if they test positive.
And when you come to campus, you will see a lot of your faculty members in masks,
which is preferred and encouraged, and of course, we encourage students
to wear masks as well to protect themselves,
their classmates, and their faculty members.
- Absolutely. And I think one of the purposes of doing
these Q&A's is to make sure we have clarity around messages
and to eliminate as much confusion as we possibly can.
So, you've mentioned testing -- - We're trying.
- so let's talk about COVID-19 testing and who will be encouraged to do that
and those groups that it will be mandatory for.
- So, if you live in a UT residence hall on campus,
there's a new requirement that you test negative for COVID
before you will receive your dormitory key.
For the rest of our students, we're requiring that they get
a COVID test in the 72 hours of arriving on campus,
submit that to the University Health Services,
and if they test positive for COVID, they should absolutely
quarantine themselves, not come to class during that quarantine period,
and this is a measure to protect everybody,
including each of you.
- It is recommended that you get tested in the town where you live
before you come to campus. - Absolutely.
And you know, UT wants to be mindful of the financial costs to students,
so we hope you feel like you could do this testing
before you arrive,
but once you're on campus, it is free,
and we're going to try to deploy it at scale to make sure that
everybody arriving on campus who still needs to get their test done
can get it done quickly,
and there are free vaccine shots.
You can think of one being reserved for you personally
if you haven't been vaccinated.
University Health Service will absolutely make that available to you.
- And you can go schedule an appointment or find more information
at the ProtectTexas website, which we'll have on our screen.
Let's talk a little bit about hybrid classes.
There are big questions around whether or not hybrid classes
would be offered.
- So, over the spring and summer, we did take our learnings from last year
and decide to have some of our classes be fully remote for educational purposes
when we thought that was the best delivery mechanism.
Everything else is in person, but we've given each faculty member
the option for the first two weeks of class
to cohort their class if they choose
to temporarily reduce the density in class.
I would not describe that as a hybrid offering.
Instead, just for those two weeks, you would go to each of your classes
half of the time,
and the way to find out if your particular faculty member
is choosing to do that would be to look at
your course Canvas page pretty quickly the week before classes.
What I expect is that many of your faculty members
will just show up and teach in person to the full set of students registered
for that course.
But we've left that up to each of your faculty members.
The Provost's instruction to the faculty
is that each of the students should be attending
every one of their courses at least once per week in person,
so we are still a residential campus, and even in the midst of some
health and safety concerns, the faculty and the staff that support us
are eager to see you on campus.
- It's important to note, too, that we are recording this
early in August, and we realize things are continuing to evolve,
so recently, the university has made some tweaks and updates
to its masking guidelines and masking policy.
We know in the spring that that was lifted,
and graduation, you could see people's faces and smiles,
so let's talk about the new updates to the masking policy and guidelines.
- Well, again, I recommend you always have your mask with you.
I have one at hand all the time, Catenya.
And what I expect you will see is many of your faculty
wearing a mask and encouraging you to mask in class,
but it is not mandatory.
Here's the appeal I would make to you students.
We have so many faculty and staff who are raising young children
who are not yet eligible to be vaccinated, children 12 and under,
and these faculty and staff members are coming to campus
to give students a rich residential learning experience,
and that's a little scary for my colleagues
with young kids at home.
I have four toddler grandchildren.
It's part of why I'm glad everyone on an airplane
is wearing a mask.
So, as a favor to our faculty and staff, I hope all of the students
will be trying to maximize the way we protect Texas together.
- Absolutely. Going back just one step, a little bit.
In regards to COVID vaccinations, coming back to campus, you know,
I think parents are also as concerned as some of the students are,
so what's your message to parents that may, you know,
may be watching this or it may have been forwarded to them
by their student?
What's your message to parents overall?
- Gosh, we are so proud that your child got into UT
and that you're trusting us with their education and safety.
We have been messaging to faculty and staff
throughout the spring and summer to please get vaccinated
and to wear masks in dense, indoor locations,
and we're going to continue to take that seriously
and encourage the best practices we can for your students,
certainly while they're on campus with us and to the extent we can
to encourage good behavior off campus.
- Well, what would trigger a complete UT shutdown?
What would have to happen for the campus to go back in lockdown,
as we were previously?
- Gosh, I wouldn't even describe us as ever in full lockdown, Catenya.
We didn't have a trigger last year, and we don't have one set this year.
Last year -- Last summer, 70% of McCombs faculty
were willing to come teach in person with everyone masked,
and that was before we had a vaccine.
We now have a variant of the virus that is more contagious,
but vaccines are free and widely available
to people 12 and over, and so I don't know of any plans
that would create a specific trigger, but as you say,
we'll update you with new information any time we get it.
- Absolutely.
Another topic that I think is on the minds of faculty and staff
as they are thinking about coming back to campus
and also we've implemented new flexible working arrangements
is parking.
And you know, parking on campus can be a little bit of a challenge,
but there is a new option now for parking by the day,
so can you talk about that?
- Sure. I know that in the old days,
everyone was here five days a week and they would buy an annual parking pass.
Now that we flexible work arrangements, you might find the $5 a day parking pass
on our PTS, Parking and Transportation Services,
website a better arrangement if you're a faculty and staff member
coming occasionally.
And what's that called, Catenya? I know you know.
- Yes. It's called the Occasional Parking Pass.
Appropriately named. - It is. It is.
- And as we welcome faculty and staff, McCombs faculty and staff,
back to campus, you'll have a retreat.
Of course, this particular Q&A will be posted for the month of August,
but what are some of the things that you will be talking
to faculty and staff about, encouraging them,
and you know, I know that one of your important points is connection
and reconnecting,
so what are some of the things you want staff and faculty
to know about returning?
- So, I'm going to spend some time at the faculty and staff retreat
talking about how over the next one, three, five years
that we can reconnect not just with each other post-vaccination
as we're back this year but leverage all of our
exceptional research and teaching out into the world.
We say here, "What starts here, changes the world,"
and I want McCombs to throw its doors open even wider.
So, we have 100,000 alumni.
I want us to get the systems and the personal invitations
that engage them better.
And Austin is an exploding ecosystem of high-tech and venture capital money,
and I want us to be just the number one source of talents
so our students get jobs and that lifelong education
where it's a pipeline from that exciting economy
back to our graduate programs, back into our executive education,
and to do that, we're going to start on our back porch.
Ethan Burris and Brene Brown, who is on our faculty this fall,
will teach us their lessons from research and tips from the field
about meaningful connection and how we do that with each other
and with our students.
- Excellent. Well, happy fall semester. Thank you so much for joining us today
on the August Q&A. We will see you next time in September.
Have a great start to the semester, everybody.
We'll see you soon!
- Thanks, Catenya.
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