UPDATE Travel and COVID-19

03/11/2020 1:00 AM

Dear faculty and staff,

As you work on transitioning your courses to online delivery, we want to make sure everyone is on the same page with how we are communicating and what we are doing in preparation for the COVID-19 epidemic. As of the time of this message, no official cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed on-campus or in Peoria. We recognize that this could change at any moment.

Bradley is not canceling any classes at this time.  We are, however, implementing continuity plans in case we have to move away from our traditional brick-and-mortar teaching to distance/online teaching.  We have suggested students take their books and any personal belongings they may need with them as they depart for spring break in case we do have to make that move.  If for some reason students can’t take items with them for the break, they will be allowed back on campus to pick up their personal belongings in the event we make the decision to move online.

Individual faculty members are not allowed to make the decision to move a class from in-person to a primarily online class. That will be determined by the Provost and President and will be communicated in advance.

You received two messages from the Office of the Provost in recent days with a resource guide and instructions to document the transition from brick-and-mortar to online delivery of classes.   On Thursday, March 12 and Friday, March 13 in Morgan Hall, Room 108, the Sakai team will host workshops on Sakai, Bongo, Panopto, Zoom, and Google Meet. You are encouraged to attend one of the dozen workshops scheduled for continuity training. Sign-up for one of the workshop times here. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to [email protected]. Continuity plans are due no later than March 18, 5:00 P.M. to the Provost.

We have a Virus Preparedness team in place.  They are meeting regularly and monitoring the situation closely.  This team is Nathan Thomas, Jobie Skaggs, Pratima Gandhi, Erin Kastberg and Renee Charles.  All university-related communications must be vetted through this team to ensure a consistent message.  It is vital we are strategic in our communications and we speak with one voice to alleviate mixed messages.

We are seeing increased activity surrounding phishing due to COVID-19 including impersonations of Bradley leadership in emails requesting the recipient to click a link to access information for the university COVID-19 planning.  All messaging regarding the university’s plan or actions regarding COVID-19 will come from one of the following emails:

• University Communications – [email protected]
• Office of the Provost – [email protected]
• Office of the President – [email protected]
• Office of the VP for Student Affairs – [email protected]

All media relations regarding Bradley’s actions will be coordinated through the Office of Public Relations, as per Bradley’s policy. If you are contacted by the media, pass along the request to the PR office by emailing or calling Renee Charles 677-3260 or Haley Krus 677-2242.

Be flexible with your attendance policies.  If you are feeling ill please contact your primary healthcare provider.

ALL university-related international travel must be reapproved by the appropriate Vice President prior to departure.  Also, any university-related travel should be registered at Bradley’s new travel registration site.  If you have already compiled travel details for your department, please share it with Nathan Thomas or Jobie Skaggs, there is no need to duplicate your efforts.  If you are not comfortable completing previously scheduled university-related travel, you can opt-out of it and there will be no repercussions from the university for canceling.  If you plan to travel internationally for personal travel, we ask you to voluntarily disclose that information via our new travel registration site. 

Direct people to our website bradley.edu/coronavirus for information regarding the virus.  At this site, you will find many resources and updates from official sources including an illness prevention sign we ask you to print and hang in your area.