Dear CIRES Colleagues,
In light of three things—the novel coronavirus circulating in our community, the Governor’s declaration of emergency, and direction from University of Colorado Boulder Chancellor Philip DiStefano—I encourage all CIRES employees working on campus and at the David Skaggs Research Center who can perform their work from home to begin doing so as soon as possible, and by March 16 at the latest. Please work with your supervisor to determine if you can conduct any or all of your work from home.
Healthy employees who can NOT conduct their work from home should report to work as usual, whether on CU Boulder campus, the DSRC,or other location. Currently, neither campus is closed.
My decision to ask those of you who can to work from home is in accordance with the Chancellor’s direction and intended to increase social distancing, which can mitigate the spread of the virus. It will also better protect employees whose work cannot be conducted remotely.
These are challenging times, and most importantly, please do what you can to keep yourself and your family healthy. Support your friends and colleagues and your broader communities. Do your work as well as you can. And if you are sick with any symptoms, use sick leave and remain at home.
My administrative staff and I will be following up with some groups in greater detail in the next day or two. For example, we will need help defining people and critical functions that must continue in person on both campuses (CU Boulder and NOAA) to prevent irreparable damage to research projects or other university systems. Please do not reply to this email with that information: We will be following up with Fellows, CIRES leads at NOAA, CIRES Centers, and other groups imminently. For those of you currently on travel or with upcoming travel, the CIRES Travel Team will reach out to you directly soon.
CIRES does not require telework agreements for this circumstance. Rather, work with your supervisor to ensure the requirements of your position are fulfilled.
More information and resources are provided below, and please note that we are rapidly trying to spin up systems that will allow you to ask more CIRES-specific questions.
- CU Boulder coronavirus information: https://www.colorado.edu/coronavirus
- This website includes a way to submit questions
- It also includes information for teaching faculty (see Classes & Academics)
- Other remote work resources from CU Boulder: https://oit.colorado.edu/support/working-remotely
- We hope to have some CIRES-specific FAQs posted on InsideCIRES before Monday. In the meanwhile, we ask for your patience. You may email CIRES IT help (ciresithelp@colorado.edu) and other administrative teams if necessary, but if your question can wait, please wait to ask it.
- Campus support resources for people experiencing personal impacts of the public health situation
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) website, for national updates
- World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) website, for the global situation
I will let you know immediately when our situation changes. Thank you for your patience during a difficult time.
Sincerely,
Waleed Abdalati
CIRES Director
