Higher ed WFH stats
March 13, 2020 8:35 PM Subscribe
How can I find out how many institutions of higher education are encouraging employees to work from home due to coronavirus? (Feel free you post what your institution is doing!)
Response by poster: That is truly impressive but seems to be limited to whether schools have moved to online classes. I’m wondering about how many are encouraging faculty and staff to work from home. Thanks!
posted by HotToddy at 8:46 PM on March 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by HotToddy at 8:46 PM on March 13, 2020 [1 favorite]
Oregon State University is encouraging faculty and staff to work at home whenever possible. Resources
posted by Knowyournuts at 9:38 PM on March 13, 2020
posted by Knowyournuts at 9:38 PM on March 13, 2020
University of Oregon is letting staff work out flex/WFH options with their individual units/supervisors. I suspect this means some units are putting more implicit pressure on their staff to continue coming in person than others.
Anecdotally from social media it seems like a lot of campuses are trying to cut both ways right now, moving most faculty/students off campus but keeping campus offices open as of now.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:46 PM on March 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
Anecdotally from social media it seems like a lot of campuses are trying to cut both ways right now, moving most faculty/students off campus but keeping campus offices open as of now.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:46 PM on March 13, 2020 [2 favorites]
I am on staff at the University of New Mexico. This applies to just my research center. We had a meeting on Tuesday to discuss working from home, got the technology on Wednesday (which is coincidentally when the state got its first cases of Covid 19), and some of us on Friday took the initiative to work from home, with full support of our director.
posted by NotLost at 9:59 PM on March 13, 2020
posted by NotLost at 9:59 PM on March 13, 2020
According to my husband, Caltech sent out an email encouraging work from home where possible, although for some research positions it isn't possible so who knows.
(Husband is a Caltech staff scientist, but he's not on campus so we can't report on conditions there directly--he works for LIGO Livingston in Louisiana.)
posted by yhlee at 10:00 PM on March 13, 2020
(Husband is a Caltech staff scientist, but he's not on campus so we can't report on conditions there directly--he works for LIGO Livingston in Louisiana.)
posted by yhlee at 10:00 PM on March 13, 2020
Cal State system: "Employees will continue to come to campus to maintain operations and support the academic enterprise."
posted by spamandkimchi at 10:24 PM on March 13, 2020
posted by spamandkimchi at 10:24 PM on March 13, 2020
Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences is (a) piloting remote work this coming week and (b) requiring most research labs to go remote for the next 6-8 weeks. (source)
posted by shb at 2:50 AM on March 14, 2020
posted by shb at 2:50 AM on March 14, 2020
Our 50,000 students at 8 large and small community campuses have been told to stay home. 3500 staff members are required to be at work. I'm awake in the night worried about.... everything.
posted by toastedbeagle at 3:30 AM on March 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by toastedbeagle at 3:30 AM on March 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
Carnegie Mellon is at “staff who want to work from home can request it, and we’ll strongly encourage supervisors to say yes where practical.” But things are shifting rapidly and I suspect we’re moving toward shifting more staff off campus. It mostly seems like student services and getting classes running remotely were (rightly) the primary focus for the last weeks, and now campus has finally got that policy sorted out, they’ve remembered that staff are here too and they have to figure out what to do about us.
posted by Stacey at 3:31 AM on March 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Stacey at 3:31 AM on March 14, 2020 [2 favorites]
CUNY is officially expecting staff to come in. My particular director has moved to wfh three days a week, come in two days, with all the staff staggered throughout the week.
posted by Liesl at 6:03 AM on March 14, 2020
posted by Liesl at 6:03 AM on March 14, 2020
Ohio State University has been encouraging work from home when possible. We were on spring break last week, so most faculty were already not in, and they extended through next week before we go online for the remainder of the semester, so it felt like we went 100% remote work almost immediately. Except for a few of us who have to support the online efforts, who are taking a little longer to transition to that. Keep Working website.
posted by pixiecrinkle at 7:10 AM on March 14, 2020
posted by pixiecrinkle at 7:10 AM on March 14, 2020
The University of Minnesota is doing the same disappointing thing as others. From the top, they are encouraging working remotely, but still requiring supervisor approval and petty tyrants will keep some on campus. Our research department had already gone to "strongly encourage you to work from home and all supervisors are going to get on board with this."
posted by advicepig at 7:57 AM on March 14, 2020
posted by advicepig at 7:57 AM on March 14, 2020
Michigan State University:
MSU intends to be flexible and accommodating during this situation as we maintain university operations and specifically continue to support students completing their academic coursework. We urge all MSU units to take every measure possible to encourage any employee who is able to work from home to do so. Units should consider what functions are essential and who is needed to complete these functions in person and what specific work can be conducted remotely.posted by a person of few words at 9:27 AM on March 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
To accommodate our employees, Michigan State University has curated a list of valuable tools and resources for remote work. These tools are available for any MSU employee at any time. Please refer to the Equipment, Access, Phone, Collaboration Tools, and Connect Remotely pages for more information.
MIT
MIT is asking anyone who can work from home to arrange with their supervisors to do so. I'm not sure how that's shaking out in each department/school but I'm guessing there are some supervisors who are insisting staff come in. I'm at an affiliate and they're very firm in wanting everyone who can work from home do so, and are asking people who have duties that may require them to be onsite once or twice to come in as rarely as possible.
posted by Babytown Frolics at 9:56 AM on March 14, 2020
MIT is asking anyone who can work from home to arrange with their supervisors to do so. I'm not sure how that's shaking out in each department/school but I'm guessing there are some supervisors who are insisting staff come in. I'm at an affiliate and they're very firm in wanting everyone who can work from home do so, and are asking people who have duties that may require them to be onsite once or twice to come in as rarely as possible.
posted by Babytown Frolics at 9:56 AM on March 14, 2020
The UMass system, at least my part of it, appears to be asking folks to work from home whenever possible. In fact I have just gotten an email indicating that research teams will be required to apply for permission to go back to campus. Some things will have to keep going- we have things that would actually be dangerous to the community if everyone just walked away. However, it seems like our administration is pushing remote work pretty hard.
posted by Adridne at 10:46 AM on March 14, 2020
posted by Adridne at 10:46 AM on March 14, 2020
All universities and colleges in Ireland have sent everyone home. We have volatile gasses on site so lab managers are still there but they wear hazmat suits anyway. So is security and so is IT to support the above. It's probably 30 people out of 600?
posted by DarlingBri at 10:49 AM on March 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by DarlingBri at 10:49 AM on March 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences is (a) piloting remote work this coming week and (b) requiring most research labs to go remote for the next 6-8 weeks.
They're calling it a pilot, but on the department level, the assumption is that the 6-8 weeks estimate is going to turn out to be what happens. It's being treated quite seriously: labs are allowed to designate a handful of people to come in occasionally to deal with things like mouse studies and other long-term biological experiments, checking on things like freezers and storage dewars, and so on, but that's it. Only things where safety is an issue or where significant portions of a lab's work could be lost qualify - no "well, our experiments are essential, so the lab should keep coming in." Given this sort of unprecedented move, people who work in straightforward office situations are definitely also being told to work from home.
posted by ASF Tod und Schwerkraft at 10:52 AM on March 14, 2020
They're calling it a pilot, but on the department level, the assumption is that the 6-8 weeks estimate is going to turn out to be what happens. It's being treated quite seriously: labs are allowed to designate a handful of people to come in occasionally to deal with things like mouse studies and other long-term biological experiments, checking on things like freezers and storage dewars, and so on, but that's it. Only things where safety is an issue or where significant portions of a lab's work could be lost qualify - no "well, our experiments are essential, so the lab should keep coming in." Given this sort of unprecedented move, people who work in straightforward office situations are definitely also being told to work from home.
posted by ASF Tod und Schwerkraft at 10:52 AM on March 14, 2020
UC Davis: so far haven't even mandated online-only classes this quarter yet (as far as the rumor mill goes, right now they are leaving it up to each individual professor), but "It is very likely that we will need to have online capacity in place for Spring Quarter classes." I checked one professor's blog and she says that online only is now going on for spring, but so far there's no official confirmation of it elsewhere.
So far we do have people from other schools asking if they can very suddenly transfer here within a week since "you still have in-person classes." To which we have been, "yeah, don't count on that."
As for work from home, that also seems to be being left up to the individual departments. Some are, some aren't. The ones that are already equipped to do it most likely are doing it. Unfortunately, we are on the dull plastic blade edge of technology.
Mine is not allowing anyone to work from home (except the occasional manager with a special laptop), pretty much because we absolutely aren't equipped to work from home. I can only access email from home. I tried to log into some of our supposedly web-based systems and none of them worked, and other ones I'm told we'd have to have an office laptop and VPN for, which most of us don't qualify to have. We could get work calls forwarded to our personal phones, but not the call center line. We did get permission to borrow another office's service window with glass starting next week, but that's about it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:26 PM on March 14, 2020
So far we do have people from other schools asking if they can very suddenly transfer here within a week since "you still have in-person classes." To which we have been, "yeah, don't count on that."
As for work from home, that also seems to be being left up to the individual departments. Some are, some aren't. The ones that are already equipped to do it most likely are doing it. Unfortunately, we are on the dull plastic blade edge of technology.
Mine is not allowing anyone to work from home (except the occasional manager with a special laptop), pretty much because we absolutely aren't equipped to work from home. I can only access email from home. I tried to log into some of our supposedly web-based systems and none of them worked, and other ones I'm told we'd have to have an office laptop and VPN for, which most of us don't qualify to have. We could get work calls forwarded to our personal phones, but not the call center line. We did get permission to borrow another office's service window with glass starting next week, but that's about it.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:26 PM on March 14, 2020
And they just announced that yes, all classes will be online spring quarter, anything involving in-person activities "instructors should devise remote alternatives."
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:54 PM on March 14, 2020
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:54 PM on March 14, 2020
My medium-sized company in San Diego has everyone not directly involved in our critical drug manufacturing production to work from home until further notice. All schools are closed here.
posted by gryphonlover at 3:24 PM on March 14, 2020
posted by gryphonlover at 3:24 PM on March 14, 2020
Just an update: MIT sent the word about an hour ago that all research labs should have a plan to begin winding down research this week. There are the usual exceptions for work that needs to be tended regularly over long time frames, and notably a specific exception for biology labs/etc that might make inroads vs coronavirus. At this point everybody - staff, faculty, grad students - is being advised to work from home if possible. I will probably go in to campus one more time to fill a wheelbarrow with everything I might need to teach from home for the rest of the semester.
posted by range at 5:01 PM on March 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by range at 5:01 PM on March 14, 2020 [1 favorite]
University of Arizona from the Provost:
"It is tremendously important that each Arizona staff and faculty member assess whether they, or someone in their home, may be at risk for serious illness from COVID-19. If yes, I ask that you work closely with your supervisor or department head to quickly develop a plan to work from home in order to stay safe. "
On the department level, our department head is taking an even stricter approach and wants anyone who can work from home to do so.
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 6:19 PM on March 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
"It is tremendously important that each Arizona staff and faculty member assess whether they, or someone in their home, may be at risk for serious illness from COVID-19. If yes, I ask that you work closely with your supervisor or department head to quickly develop a plan to work from home in order to stay safe. "
On the department level, our department head is taking an even stricter approach and wants anyone who can work from home to do so.
posted by See you tomorrow, saguaro at 6:19 PM on March 15, 2020 [1 favorite]
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posted by Wobbuffet at 8:39 PM on March 13, 2020 [2 favorites]