Dear Colleagues,
Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic has stretched us as an institution in many ways, and we want to express our appreciation for your collective willingness to look for new and innovative solutions to continue our mission. You have helped us to take the best actions available to us as quickly as possible to ensure the continuity of operations.
The implementation of our remote work protocols and our pay continuation protocols were among those critical actions to protect the personal health and professional well-being of our employees. In accordance with Gov. Pritzker’s Tuesday announcement, we will be continuing our current remote policy at least through April 30, 2020.
We want to assure everyone that these policies were carefully reviewed and vetted with state and federal authorities to ensure their compliance with applicable regulations and ethics requirements. COVID-19 requires us to move with urgency, but we will never compromise our legal or ethical obligations as a public institution.
As part of our commitment to that public transparency, it is important that our university attempt to create a full record of these emergency actions we have taken and an accurate accounting of their costs. Our ability to measure and document how our entire workforce was able to function in this disrupted and dispersed environment will be extremely important.
We have already received a request for data from the Illinois Board of Higher Education on this issue and we expect more of these from other agencies going forward. Additionally, having these data will be essential in ensuring our community’s full eligibility for any future state or federal assistance related to COVID-19 losses.
In the days and weeks ahead, we will be asking for your assistance in implementing some temporary practices to help us establish these important measures. The campus budget office and Illinois Human Resources have been in regular consultation with college, department and unit staff to develop tools and processes that give us the information we will need in the least burdensome manner.
We ask that you watch for new guidance from these offices around these important efforts to document our emergency actions and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thank you for your hard work and tireless efforts to help our entire university navigate these unprecedented times.
Sincerely,
Robert J. Jones
Chancellor
