News for and about University of Portland faculty and staff.
Please join the diversity, equity, and inclusion office as we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a virtual keynote by UP alumnus Taylor Stewart ’18 on January 18, 2021 at 6 p.m.
New this year: University of Portland will also co-produce a special MLK Day Teach-in with Reed College, Portland Community College, Portland State University, and Campus Compact of Oregon the Saturday following MLK Day ON.
Details and registration can be found here.
The Committee on Teaching and Scholarship (TAS) invites all eligible faculty to submit proposals for funding from the Arthur Butine Faculty Development Fund. Please use the most current application forms which are now available for download from the Butine Moodle site. Also, a reminder that applicants must discuss their Butine proposals with their respective deans (and chairs for CAS applicants) before submitting an application. Contact Diane Sotak, tas@up.edu, with questions.
Anna Horlacher, associate director of alumni and parent relations, has accepted a position with a consulting firm in Portland, and will be wrapping up her service at the University during the first week of February. Anna is a proud UP alumna from the Class of 2012. She joined the alumni and parent relations team in 2015, and over the past five-plus years has demonstrated a strong sense of professionalism, energy and commitment, both to her work and to the University.
Anna has been lead coordinator for the annual Alumni Reunion Weekend, served as liaison for many alumni chapters around the country, and has helped support the GOLD (Graduates of the Last Decade) program. Beyond these core duties, Anna worked on numerous alumni events and also worked closely with campus colleagues on a wide range of projects and initiatives to engage and support alumni.
Fr. Ed Obermiller, C.S.C., special assistant to the vice president for University relations, will assume the role of interim director of alumni and parent relations.
She has been a great colleague to many within the campus community and to so many alumni from all parts of the country. Please join in thanking Anna for her dedication and service to the University.
As the University begins to finalize plans for welcoming approximately 1,000 students back to campus this month, new safeguards are in place to reduce the risk of COVID-19 on campus.
Employee Designations
Each staff member has been classified in one of the following categories based on expected level of contact with students or one another:
If you do not know your employee designation, please contact your area vice president as you will need this information to proceed. Please note: the No Contact group does not participate in testing but should utilize the screening application when coming to campus. Exclusively Remote employees do not participate in testing or screening.
Symptom Screening
If you were on campus in the fall of 2020, you are most likely familiar with the CAMPUS CLEAR symptom screening application. Faculty and staff in the High Contact, Low Contact, and No Contact groups will continue using the CAMPUS CLEAR application to screen for symptoms when coming to campus. If you are not in one of these testing groups described above, you can skip to the Symptomatic COVID-19 Testing portion of this message.
Staff in the High and Low-Contact groups will also need to start using the new CARBON HEALTH mobile application for scheduling testing appointments and reviewing results. This is in addition to using CAMPUS CLEAR for symptom screening. You will receive an invitation to register on January 11, 2021. Please register upon receipt and follow these instructions (in this specific order):
To start the program, you will:
For technical support for the application, please contact up-support@carbonhealth.com. More information will be shared from CARBON HEALTH soon.
Asymptomatic COVID Testing
To ensure a safe and healthy campus, we are asking staff in the High Contact and Low Contact groups to participate in baseline and surveillance testing. Those in the No Contact, Exclusively Remote and Tested by Athletics groups do not participate in the testing listed below.
For High Contact and Low Contact groups, please read the directions below carefully to ensure you know how to proceed.
Baseline Test 1: All staff in the High Contact and Low Contact groups are required to get a baseline COVID test between the dates of January 15, 2021 and January 21, 2021. Please work with your supervisor, if necessary, to get your test during regular business hours. Follow the steps below to procure a COVID-19 test. NOTE: The Cares Act may expire after January 21, 2021 so it is imperative not to miss the timeline. Please make a plan upon receipt of this message!
Option 1: Kaiser. For Kaiser members, log in to KP.org
Option 2: For non-Kaiser members, procure a COVID-19 test by contacting your primary care provider to request a COVID-19 test, notifying them you need one to return to work.
Option 3: You can also visit a local Walgreens, Rite Aid, or drugstore that is providing COVID-19 testing. OHSU is another option. The Cares Act should cover this cost. If you are a Kaiser member, you can contact Kaiser member services about reimbursement options as needed.
Option 4: If you have a personal hardship or are unable to fulfill this requirement, please contact Sean Ducey who can provide additional resources or support at ducey@up.edu.
Baseline Test Results: Staff and faculty are asked to show evidence of test results by completing the following form: Covid Baseline Test Results – Spring 2021.
Baseline Test 2: Starting the week of January 25, staff with a High Contact designation ONLY will be scheduled for a second baseline COVID-19 test. You do not need to do anything at this time; Sean Ducey will send you an email with a link to sign up for your second baseline test. The testing center will be located on campus in the Lund Family Annex across the street from the Chiles Center. Please note: Low-Contact staff and faculty will not participate in the second baseline COVID-19 test.
Surveillance Tests: All faculty and staff with High and Low Contact designations will be part of ongoing surveillance testing from February 1, 2021 to May 7, 2021. Employees will be assigned to pods or stratified random samples based on anticipated contact groups. You will be notified a week in advance when you are selected for surveillance testing at which point you can schedule a test using the CARBON HEALTH application.
Symptomatic COVID Testing
Any staff member who experiences COVID-19 symptoms during the spring semester is required to: (1) report symptoms to Human Resources, (2) immediately refrain from coming to campus until approval to come back to campus is provided by Human Resources, and (3) contact your health provider for symptomatic testing, isolation instructions, and treatment planning.
Support
In the spirit of collaboration and good will, we ask for your patience as we roll out this comprehensive screening and testing plan for our campus community. We have put a lot of thought and care into this plan but expect there to be some challenges from time-to-time. If you need support with scheduling or rescheduling testing or have questions about the app, please contact up-support@carbonhealth.com. For more general questions or to provide feedback, please contact one of us.
Matthew Rygg, Associate Vice President for Student Development
Joe Kaleel, Director of Campus Events
Sean Ducey, Associate Director of Campus Events
Librarians and the Digital Lab Coordinator are available to meet with your classes online, or through asynchronous videos, to cover information literacy and multimedia topics. Now is a great time to schedule us! Send instruction requests to reference@up.edu (information literacy) or velazco@up.edu (multimedia).
New hours of operation for postal and shipping services in the Printing and Mail Services Office will take place effective Monday, January 4, according to director Mary Scroggins. The new hours will be 8 a.m. to noon; 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, with faculty and staff personal mailing package hours from 10 to 11:30 a.m.
For more information contact Scroggins at scroggin@up.edu.
For UP community members interested in learning about and acting against discrimination, the Clark Library offers a guide about anti-oppression as a starting point to resources on ableism, racism, sex/gender identity discrimination, and classism. The guide was inspired by the human dignity concept in Catholic social teaching and includes resources on this concept, as well as resources on holding civil conversations. Contact Heidi Senior to suggest additional resources or offer feedback.
Staff and faculty are invited to come together across departments and discuss anti-racist texts in small groups. This spring our conversations will focus on the ReadUP selection, How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, and episodes of the University of Portland’s Black Student Union original podcast, Black on the Bluff. For further information and to register, visit the site.
For more information contact Rebecca Seibert, international education, diversity, and inclusion, at seibert@up.edu.
The Provost’s Office and the Office of Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement would like to remind people that self-nominations for the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentor Award and Outstanding Graduating Senior in Undergraduate Research Award are accepted and request that faculty members make qualified students aware of this opportunity. Both awards are given on Founders’ Day.
Click on the link(s) below to learn more about the candidate profile for each award. Applications for both are due to ur@up.edu on February 5, 2021. All complete applications will be considered, regardless of whether a formal nomination was submitted to the Office of Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement office.
Oregon and Washington State have reported an increase in fraudulent unemployment claims. Impostors are filing claims for unemployment benefits by using the names and personal information of people who have not filed claims. For more information about this issue, please visit the Oregon.gov and Oregon Department of Justice websites.
When unemployment claims are received by the Human Resources Department for active University employees, Human Resources may reach out to the employee to confirm that they did in fact file for unemployment. If an employee reports that they did not file a claim, Human Resources will file the claim as fraudulent with the Unemployment Office and provide the employee with the resources listed below.
If you think a fraudulent unemployment claim has been submitted under your name, please contact Human Resources (hr@up.edu).
The Unemployment Office recommends the following steps and resources to protect your personal and financial information:
Complete the UI Fraud Referral Form: Visit the site at this link and click “Report Identity Theft” on the left hand menu. (Also linked here)
Protect Your Finances: Visit www.IdentityTheft.gov to report the fraud to the FTC and get help with the next important recovery steps. These include placing a free, one-year fraud alert on your credit, getting your free credit reports, and closing any fraudulent accounts opened in your name. IdentityTheft.gov will also help you add a free extended fraud alert or credit freeze to your credit report. These make it more difficult for an identity thief to open new accounts in your name.
Review your credit reports often. For the next year, you can check your reports for errors every week for free through www.AnnualCreditReport.com
Contact the three major credit bureaus: Report to the credit bureaus that the fraudulent claim was made using your identity and provide them with the case number from your police report (if you have one). You can have a fraud alert put on your identity or freeze your credit. Doing either is free by law. To place a fraud alert, contact one of the three credit bureaus listed below.
File a nonemergency police report with the agency whose jurisdiction you live in. For information from the City of Portland visit their website linked here.
Additional Resources
The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provides ID theft assistance to University employees. They have resources available on their site linked here.