The University of Oregon recorded 982 total COVID-19 cases Jan. 3-9, the highest number of infections documented in the campus community since the start of the pandemic. UO faculty and GEs have criticized the university’s response to the coronavirus spike, saying unnegotiated and unclear changes in working conditions cause difficulties for faculty, staff and students.
Following the surge of cases due to the Omicron variant, Provost Patrick Phillips announced new guidelines in a Jan. 6 email. The statement announced changes in UO’s COVID-19 policy, such as lowering of quarantine time from 10 days to five in accordance with new CDC guidelines, introducing a remote instruction option for instructors with 20% or more of their class missing due to COVID-related issues, a plan to provide a limited number of N95 masks on campus and a planned return to full in-person instruction by Feb. 7.
“We are fortunate that this surge does not constitute a public health emergency for the university, as we have had the essential mitigation tools of vaccination, testing, and masks in place since the start of the academic year,” Phillips wrote in the email. “We will continue to carefully monitor for any evidence of classroom or workplace transmission of the virus, which could necessitate a broader campus-wide response.”
The Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation filed an Unfair Labor Practice claim through the Oregon Employee Relations Board in response to these policy changes. As GEs will often be the ones tracking the 20% threshold for COVID-related absences, GTFF said in a statement, “the University is making direct changes to our working conditions without our consent through bargaining. ” GTFF wrote that this violates its union contract and entitles it to file a ULP.
“We are fighting against the administration’s policies that go against our contract and make our workplaces and communities unsafe by fueling the rapid spread of COVID-19,” GTFF’s statement said.
In a Jan. 5 open letter to UO, GTFF requested two things: that classes be moved online for two weeks or “until cases decrease to a reasonable level to allow community members to avoid exposure to COVID”and that N95 and KN95 masks be required and provided for students, staff and faculty to allow for greater protection against Omicron.
Cy Abbott, vice president for grievances for GTFF, said that tracking COVID-related absences often falls on GEs and that this system is “unenforceable, untraceable and just irresponsible.”
“They have everything at their fingertips to do this, and instead, they’re often divvying out responsibility for how to respond to this to grad students, to professors,” Abbott said. “Basically pushing it down the line in a way where really we need collective action, and we need a real response from the university.”
Abbott said the ULP filing had to do with the university’s lack of negotiation with bargaining units before changing course modalities and ultimately working conditions for GEs.
He said GTFF is grateful UO is working to provide proper PPE, but that it’s not enough to fully address the surge of COVID-19 cases.
“Our workspaces are your learning spaces. We’re in this together,” Abbott said. “What we’re trying to do is protect our students as best as we know how because that’s not only our job but often, for many GEs, our passion.”
Faculty members are trying to find appropriate responses to the provost’s new policies. Kristin Yarris, an associate professor of global studies and the former director of UO’s global health program, said the sudden announcement from administration left her and her colleagues scrambling to find individual instruction plans on short notice.
“A decision like this gets communicated, and the practical implication was last week; everyone I know, all of my colleagues were scrambling to figure it out,” Yarris said. “That’s not a good way to deliver college-level, quality instruction to our undergraduates and graduates.”
Yarris said she doesn’t agree with the expectation for instructional staff to track classroom COVID-19 cases. “I don’t think we should be doing that,” she said, without explicit university communication and training regarding HIPAA compliance and the protection of student health information.
Yarris said she feels like her hands are tied by not knowing what course of action is best.
“Decisions feel, for many of us faculty, perhaps also for students and staff, as if they are being made in the halls of power far removed from our actual experience as instructional faculty, research faculty, GEs, undergraduate students, student employees and/or staff on this campus,” Yarris said.
Despite concerns about the management of Omicron spread in the UO community, Yarris said instructing remains a reprieve for her, and her classes continue to learn a lot.
“I feel like when we show up in our posture of shared inquiry and wanting to learn, we’re embodying the spirit of higher ed and why we’re all here,” Yarris said.
