MARCH 23, 2020 — Editor’s note: The following message was sent via email today from President Taylor Eighmy to all students, faculty and staff:
The past week was a big transition for all of you as we all embraced our new reality as an online learning institution with a primarily telecommuting workforce. I thank you all, once again, for your determination and resilience as we face these new challenges and opportunities together as a community.
Today’s Stay Home, Work Safe Orders issued by San Antonio and Bexar County require that we pivot just a bit more into the next phase of our operational plan. Our current approach is already quite close to what is now required moving forward.
Our city and county officials recognize that UTSA, as a higher education institution, will need to continue critical services and operations to support our on-campus residents and our important research mission—especially in regards to advancing research that serves the national interest during a pandemic. We have worked closely with them to designate personnel with essential functions who must have continued campus access to perform their work.
While online instruction continues, this next phase necessarily involves scaling down additional campus services, locking most campus spaces and moving even more employees to telecommuting status. I know this next set of adjustments will require more juggling and abrupt changes for some of you, but our current extraordinary circumstances require new levels of nimbleness to keep our community safe. Our fundamental obligation is to help prevent the coronavirus from spreading in our community and overwhelming our local hospitals.
This new phase of operations involves the following steps to ensure the health and safety of the entire Roadrunner community.
Campus Services and Facilities
With few exceptions, remaining campus services will be virtualized to the extent possible, and most campus facilities will be locked-down.
Escalating our Telecommuting Plan
Starting tomorrow, all employees are required to work from home except for a very limited group identified as critical and essential to maintaining campus operations. These include designated employees within facilities, public safety and a limited number of other campus operational units. Supervisors have contacted employees within these designated groups regarding work schedules. All other employees should refer to the messages sent last week to staff and faculty containing detailed information on telecommuting.
Please view my video message to the community regarding these latest developments. And, as always, refer to our coronavirus website for answers to frequently asked questions.
Thank you for your willingness to do your part for the well-being of our Roadrunners, San Antonio community, state and country. I have faith that our guiding principles—to sustain the health of our community and the academic success of our students—will pull us through these challenging times.
#UTSATogether
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Dr. Michael Doyle has had an immense impact on the field of catalysis and organic chemistry. Join in a one-day symposium. In order to honor Dr. Doyle’s colossal career accomplishments with his upcoming retirement, we are holding a one day symposium event
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Student Union Paseo, Main CampusThe University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development and the commercialization of intellectual property - for Texas, the nation and the world.
To be a premier public research university, providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment.
We encourage an environment of dialogue and discovery, where integrity, excellence, inclusiveness, respect, collaboration and innovation are fostered.
UTSA is a proud Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) as designated by the U.S. Department of Education.
The University of Texas at San Antonio, a Hispanic Serving Institution situated in a global city that has been a crossroads of peoples and cultures for centuries, values diversity and inclusion in all aspects of university life. As an institution expressly founded to advance the education of Mexican Americans and other underserved communities, our university is committed to ending generations of discrimination and inequity. UTSA, a premier public research university, fosters academic excellence through a community of dialogue, discovery and innovation that embraces the uniqueness of each voice.