Business Affairs issues update on university operations, hiring

MARCH 15, 2020 — Editor’s note: The following message was sent via email today from Chief Financial Officer and Vice President for Business Affairs Veronica Mendez to all faculty and staff:

As the circumstances surrounding the ongoing coronavirus outbreak remain fluid, I am writing with important reminders about the week ahead, guidelines for employees returning from travel, temporary changes to the hiring process and more. 

Campuses Remain Open

At this time, UTSA campuses remain open and business operations continue as usual. On Monday, please report to work as expected at your designated location. If you must be absent for any reason, authorized leave policies remain in effect. As you know, we have a responsibility to our students to provide services and support. By continuing our work and ensuring the campus and its resources are open and available, we help our students continue along their path of academic success.

Travelers Returning to Campus

President Eighmy recently announced updates to travel guidelines, including a ban on all university-sponsored international and domestic travel. To continue to protect the health of our campus community, we have revised our international travel policy to require all faculty, staff and students who traveled home via plane from any international location (regardless of CDC Level) to follow these steps prior to returning to campus:

• Self-isolate for 14 days.
• Report travel to Global Initiatives.
• Faculty and staff should contact the Occupational Health Team at 210-458-5304. Students should contact Student Health Services at 210-458-4142.
• Report absences to your supervisors. As noted above, authorized leave policies remain in effect.

Please note that these rules apply to both university-sponsored and personal international travel.

Regarding domestic travel, if you’re returning from Washington state; California; Washington, D.C.; the city of Boston or the greater metropolitan New York area, you are strongly encouraged to self-isolate. This list may change over the course of the week, and we will update the community as needed. Travelers should be prepared to self-isolate if new mandates are implemented.

Employees at Risk for Serious Illness

We understand that some employees may be at higher risk for COVID-19 or have a medical need to remain off-campus. Your health and safety are very important to us. If you fall into a higher-risk category or feel you have a medical need to work from home, please follow the HR accommodation process by notifying your supervisor, obtaining medical documentation, completing the request for telecommuting and submitting these materials to HR for review.

If you have questions or need further guidance, please contact Human Resources for assistance:

Preparing for the Next Operational Phase

UTSA’s executive leadership continues to plan for all coronavirus-related eventualities. In the event of a campus closure, plans are in development for employees to telecommute. If those plans are implemented, we will notify you and provide instructions. To prepare for this possibility, we encourage you to review the recent technology resources announcement for steps you can take to help ensure you have the necessary technology resources.

At this time, we ask departments to begin putting plans into place to move documents into UTSA’s cloud-based networks. Please migrate any essential files that are currently housed in the I: and S: drives to a Microsoft Teams group page or a personal OneDrive for easy access off campus. By migrating these documents now, you can mitigate the need to use a VPN to access your files. OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams are approved to house Category I files for document sharing.

Non-Mission Critical Staff Hiring Suspension

If we implement our next operational planning phase, we anticipate that we will move to a primarily telecommuting workforce. Given the challenges of onboarding while moving to telecommuting, all staff hiring for positions not defined as mission critical will be suspended until further notice, effective immediately. This includes postings for new or vacant positions. Planned or in-progress staff job postings or offers will require approval from your area’s vice president prior to submitting to Human Resources.

 If you have current job postings, they may remain posted. In-person interviews should not take place until further notice, although phone or virtual interviews are permitted. Alternately, you may opt to remove your posting from the UTSA jobs website and repost at a later date.

Job offers that have been extended and accepted will be honored to the extent possible. For those departments with new hires that have a start date of March 16 through April 30, please contact your Onboarding/Employment Services Specialist for guidance. Any job offers for non-mission critical staff positions should anticipate a start date of May 1 or later.

This hiring suspension does not apply to faculty searches.   

Thank you for your hard work, dedication and patience as we navigate this fluid situation. We will continue to carefully monitor the outbreak, making operational adjustments as needed, with the health and well-being of UTSA’s campus community as our highest priority.

For full information on the coronavirus, please refer to the university’s Coronavirus Updates webpage.