Â鶹ÊÓƵ

Announced at the end of May, the CU Boulder community is making preparations for a COVID-19-ready campus for the fall semester, with classes beginning on Aug. 24. Three groups were established to assist in the implementation of the Road Map to Fall 2020:

• COVID-19-Ready Campus Team
• Academic Instruction Team
• Resource Alignment Team

These teams are hard at work building the infrastructure and procedures that will be necessary to mitigate risk and facilitate research and teaching this fall. As part of this iterative process, the teams are committed to sharing regular updates on their progress.

News from the COVID-19-Ready Campus Team

• The facilities task force and Office of the Registrar have collaborated to lock in classroom space for roughly 80% of in-person classes.Ìý
• The HVAC subgroup is analyzing Dining Services and cafe areas to ensure systems are operating sufficiently ahead of students’ return.
• The heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, or HVAC, risk mitigation document is published on the Infrastructure Mitigation Efforts webpage.
• The cleaning subgroup created standard operating procedures for use of disinfecting foggers. These machines are a complementary measure to primary disinfection of high-touch surfaces, helping with fabric, seating, chairs and underneath tables. Training of custodial staff on use of foggers will begin soon.
• The outdoor/transportation demand management subgroup is working with B-Cycle on additional bike rental stations at the CINC building, Farrand Hall and Bear Creek Apartments, as well as an expansion of the station at SEEC.Ìý
• The opening weeks of contactless pickups at Norlin Library are going well.Ìý
• The opening date for the Gemmill Library, or math library, has been tentatively set for Aug. 10, and the William M. White Library, or business library, is set to open prior to the fall semester with safety measures continuing to be in place for both.Ìý
• The University Libraries are collaborating with Facilities Management to set up nine classroom spaces in Norlin Library to help accommodate campus needs for classrooms.
• In relation to the updated Student Code of Conduct, Student Affairs is now working on training and open forums related to how faculty can address situations where students are not complying with campus health and safety measures, such as wearing facial coverings in class.Ìý
• The COVID-19 course has been launched through Canvas and as of 6 a.m. on July 27, 18,488 students had taken the course. The deadline is Aug. 1 for all students.
• Contact tracing has officially begun on the CU Boulder campus.Ìý

Protect Our Herd

• The first set of operational and safety-related signage (over 90,000 signs) for the Protect Our Herd campaign has been ordered and is due to arrive Aug. 5. Facilities Management is coordinating with building proctors and managers to post the signage in time for the return of students to campus.
• The Protect Our Herd website launched, and will continue to be updated with information and resources for the campus community.
• The Downtown Boulder Partnership has agreed to provide Protect Our Herd signage/banners for the Pearl Street Mall in collaboration with Strategic Relations and Communications.Ìý
• The Protect Our Herd Campaign is developing signage for campus outdoor spaces and digital signage in various campus buildings like the UMC.
• The Protect Our Herd campaign is developing tactics to boost awareness and completion of the Daily Health Questionnaire required of all students, faculty and staff prior to coming to campus each day.Ìý

News from the Academic Instruction Team

• The Office of the Registrar, in conjunction with the schools and colleges and the Program in Exploratory Studies, has completed pre-registration of first-year students in selected courses within their academic cohorts. First-year student enrollment in additional courses is taking place July 20-31 (by assignment). Registration for all new and continuing students will reopen on Aug. 3.

• The facilities task force has completed its evaluation of non-traditional spaces on campus that can be converted to classroom use in fall 2020, and is adding these spaces to the campus inventory. The Office of the Registrar is completing revisions to the class schedule that include these new classroom options.
• OIT is installing Crestron Mercury X video conference systems to bring the total campus inventory to 406 remote-capable classrooms. In these upgraded spaces, instructors, using their own computer and dongle, will be able to teach both in-room and remote students at the same time, and to record the class for students to view at a later time.

• The Office of the Registrar has completed most class schedule updates from the initial requests submitted by departments and programs through their schools and colleges, and plans to finish these updates and complete most room assignments by Aug. 3. New requests by departments and programs for added classes and sections will be completed next. Room assignments will continue to be made and modified over the next few weeks based on changes to the classroom inventory and on newly updated technology capabilities of instructional spaces. 

• The implementation team will soon be issuing the fifth edition of academic instruction guidance. This edition will focus largely on topics important to individual faculty, instructors, lecturers, graduate part-time instructors and teaching assistants as they finish planning their fall 2020 classes. These will include health and safety protocols related to faculty and student illness; guidelines and syllabus statements for student conduct in the COVID-19 era; attendance policies; and effective teaching practices in the remote classroom, the hybrid classroom and the in-person masked classroom.

News from the Resource Alignment Team

• The Resource Alignment Implementation Team (RAIT) approved the purchase of 250 stand-mounted hand sanitizing stations that can be easily relocated around campus as needed.Ìý
• The team approved a plan to expand hybrid-remote ready classrooms on campus through an agreement between the Office of Information Technology (OIT) and the Leeds School of Business. The agreement includes 14 centrally scheduled Leeds classrooms, bringing the inventory of hybrid-remote classrooms on campus to 406. The Leeds School manages the classrooms and recently upgraded touch panels, and RAIT approved funding to purchase 14 cameras that would bring the classrooms up to OIT’s standards for hybrid-remote teaching.Ìý
• RAIT also approved funding for new signage for the classrooms.

Do you have a question or comment about implementation team work on the Road Map to Fall 2020? Submit a question or comment.