Uncategorized – Page 4 – Professional Staff Organization

Video now available for the 2021 PSO Spring Celebration with President Cauce

Video now available for the 2021 PSO Spring Celebration

with UW President Ana Mari Cauce

in Partnership with the Whole U

https://youtu.be/2dCpLvWjVGI

UW will require academic personnel, staff to be vaccinated against COVID

This message is being sent to faculty and other academic personnel, staff, trainees, and student employees across the 乱伦社区.

Dear Colleagues,

With more than half of Washington residents age 16 and over now fully vaccinated, we continue to see declines in COVID-19 cases and anticipate the planned . Thank you to everyone who has already gotten vaccinated to protect yourself and to protect the members of our community who aren鈥檛 able 鈥� or aren鈥檛 yet able 鈥� to be vaccinated.

To protect the health of our community, the 乱伦社区 will require faculty and other academic personnel, staff, student employees, and trainees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by autumn quarter in order to work on our campuses or within our facilities. This is consistent with and follows the release of new from the Washington Department of Labor and Industries. Similar to the student requirement, employees will be allowed to seek exemptions for medical, religious or philosophical reasons.

This decision follows the recommendation of the University Advisory Committee on Communicable Diseases and comes after consultation with faculty and staff leadership, as well as the state. Work is underway on how this requirement will be implemented, and more details will be shared in early summer on how you can confirm that you have been vaccinated or apply for an exemption. Guidance this summer will include more detail on how this requirement will interact with the existing UW Medicine employee vaccine survey, as well its application to faculty affiliates or staff who do not come to UW campuses or facilities and those employees who work out of state.

The Department of Labor and Industries has issued regarding vaccine verification and health and safety requirements for fully vaccinated and unvaccinated employees. We expect that additional regulatory guidance will be released as we approach the state鈥檚 planned lifting of most health restrictions on June 30. We are in the process of reviewing the new requirements, such as around masking and distancing, and anticipate updating University requirements after that date. Until then, existing and requirements remain in effect.

The FDA-authorized vaccines 鈥� which are based on technology that鈥檚 been under development for more than two decades 鈥� are safe and effective. Widespread vaccination is our ticket to a return to in-person learning and working as we create the 鈥渘ew normal鈥� for our University, and we encourage you to as soon as you鈥檙e able.

Sincerely,

Ana Mari Cauce
President
Professor of Psychology

Mark A. Richards
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Professor of Earth and Space Sciences

UWHR updates COVID-19 related policies and online resources

UWHR continues to work with senior leadership on guidance and resources to support you and your organizations in welcoming staff working remotely back to campus this September and we anticipate guidance and resources being available in May. The Back-to-the-Workplace Task Force web page is kept current with planning efforts.

On the UWHR website, you can now find a new hiring resource

Learn what to include in a conditional offer of employment and understand timing of the final stages of the hiring process.

COVID-19 related policy updates and extensions

: Find frequent questions and answers related to the COVID-19 vaccine release time policy.

: The waiver of physical review requirements for employees operating remotely remains in place until either May 31, 2021, the termination of the national emergency, or when normal University operations resume under the phased reopening proclamation, whichever comes first.

: Governor Inslee鈥檚 Proclamation 20-46 was updated April 8, 2021 to allow employers to request medical verification when a high-risk employee (as defined by the ) requests an accommodation, beginning April 23, 2021. Additionally, no changes may be made to an existing accommodation without providing an employee 14 days鈥� advance written notice itemizing changes.

Waiver of the remains required: Temporary hourly staff employees working in critical positions essential to maintain safe hospital and institutional operations during the COVID-19 state of emergency period remain exempt from the UW鈥檚 950-hour limit and the state鈥檚 1,050-hour maximum until June 30, 2021.

Campus departments: Contact your HR consultant to request approval for a temporary hourly employee to exceed 1,050 hours. The department must explain how the temporary hourly employee meets the criteria of working in a critical position essential to maintain safe institutional operations during the COVID-19 state of emergency.
Medical centers positions are considered essential to maintaining safe hospital operations and do not follow an approval process.

It is unlikely that this exemption will remain in place past June 30, 2021. Employees who have exceeded the 1050-hour limit as of June 30, 2021 will be unable to work additional hours in a temporary hourly capacity after that date.

Other Working during COVID-19 website changes

The following webpages that were specific to the early phases of the pandemic and are no longer necessary have been sunset from the Working during COVID-19 website.

Managing student hourly employment
Managing temporary hourly employment
Recruitment and hiring during COVID-19
Spring quarter 2020 academic student employee appointments
Time off extensions

Please your employment representative if you have hiring-related questions or your HR consultant if you have questions related to policy.

PSO Spring Celebration 2021

Join the PSO Board to celebrate and connect as a community!

Hear from UW President Ana Mari Cauce, meet the newly elected PSO Board members, and celebrate our year together. Look for more information coming soon.

When: May 26, 3-4pm
Where: Zoom

The Washington State Legislature has Adjourned

The Washington State Legislature adjourned on Sunday, April 25th and the 2021 Regular Legislative Session is now over. The Office of State Relations has posted a blog entry reviewing the Session.

BE THE MATCH PANEL: advocacy organization managing the world鈥檚 largest marrow registry.聽

The Whole U invites you, your family, and friends to join for an evening panel with Be The Match 鈥� an education, research and advocacy organization managing the world鈥檚 largest marrow registry.

This registry is essential to connecting people living with life-threatening blood diseases and cancers, to life-saving donors鈥攍ike YOU!聽A cure to cancer exists, but matches are needed on the registry from all of us. Growing and diversifying the registry is essential to saving lives, and The 乱伦社区 is committed to diversifying the donor list so that all people have an equal opportunity to find a cure.

This event is on Monday, April 26 at 5:00 p.m. Don鈥檛 miss this Zoom.

April 15th: UW Accreditation Staff Forum

Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU), the accrediting body for the UW, will conduct the university’s evaluation on April 14-16, 2021. This occurs every seven years and will assess the UW鈥檚 initiatives and efforts related to student success, institutional effectiveness and mission, as well as governance, resources and capacity. As part of that process, the NWCCU will hold an open forum for staff on Thursday April 15th from 9-9:50 a.m.

. Zoom links and passcodes will be sent to registrants the morning of the forum and posted on the provost鈥檚 website.

More information on this process and to access links to the student and faculty forums can be found on UW News.

LinkedIn Learning for higher education staff!

FREE Professional Development for UW Staff – LinkedIn Learning brought to you by the Student Technology Fee.

The LinkedIn Learning team has developed a webinar specifically for higher education staff at 9:00am on April 14th:

LinkedIn Learning 聽is an on-demand video learning platform for enhancing professional, personal, and academic skills.

Learn more about LinkedIn Learning and log in with your UW credentials at

Hope to see you all at the webinar!

Apply now to join the 2021 – 2023 PSO Board Member Cohort

Seeking Professional staff from the Medical, Research, Administration and Academic sectors of the University system

Why Join the PSO Board?

Learn more about UW and the professional staff role, share ideas, resources and connections, and make impactful contacts all across campus!聽

Support and advocate for professional staff by working with UW leadership at the President鈥檚 office, Human Resources, WholeU, faculty committees, and the membership.

Develop leadership skills by chairing a committee, organizing outreach, and supporting our various events with a supportive group of colleagues.

Make an impact on the more than 10,000 professional staff! Board members work together to advocate for and enrich our roles at the UW.

Meet and network with other professional staff from across the Seattle, Bothell, and Tacoma campuses, Harborview Medical Center, and UW Medical Center聽聽

Commitment: Elected board members, on average, spend a few hours per week on board activities (monthly meetings, committee meetings, faculty councils. See Job description for more details)

We are now accepting applications for 2021-2023 board members.聽 The application deadline is:聽 April 30, 2021.

Term starts July 1st, 2021

Statement of solidarity with AAPI community

The Professional Staff Organization condemns the abhorrent violence against Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community members. The horrific shootings in Atlanta, Georgia, on Tuesday March 16, that claimed the lives of eight people, six of whom were of Asian descent and seven of whom were women, exemplify the intersectional oppression that so many minoritized people face: racism, misogyny, classism and beyond. We recognize that these murders punctuate the context of a sickening increase in anti-Asian violence, harassment and bigotry around the country as well as , as President Cauce and others have noted. Over the past year, Asian diasporic people have been targets of nearly 4,000 reported hate incidents in the United States, and in King County these reports have risen from 39 in 2019 to 59 in 2020. Even before the pandemic started, Asian Americans were the third most targeted race/ethnicity group, following Black Americans and Jewish Americans. Such violence is a particularly despicable aspect of the deep, tangled roots of bigotry and xenophobia in our society. The myth that the AAPI community has not been impacted by white supremacy and systemic racism dismisses and ignores people鈥檚 experiences and stories and has sometimes left AAPI community members out of the anti-racism conversation.

The PSO stands in solidarity with the communities under attack right now, and holds space for the grief in this moment. We are with you. We see you.聽

We encourage all those who can to take action. This may include the following (thank you to and for posting these ideas):

Learn the names and stories of those we lost. Six names have been released so far. Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33; Paul Andre Michels, 54; Xiaojie Tan, 49; Daoyou Feng, 44; Julie Park, 70’s; Hyun-jeong Park Grant, 50’s.
Check in with family and friends in the AAPI community, listen to their stories, for as long they want to talk about it.
Contact your representatives and advocate for policies that thwart hate crimes and violence, and that support progress toward institutional anti-racism and justice for all.
If you see racism, say something. Strong allyship behavior needs to be modeled over and over again.
Donate to. Historically, less than 1% of philanthropic resources go to AAPI communities.
Donate to, the National Asian Pacific American Women鈥檚 Forum, specifically their Atlanta chapter.
who are helping to direct resources to victims’ families and organizers on the ground.

Other resources:聽

Reporting anti-Asian hate activity, provided by the Seattle Chapter Japanese Americans Citizens League (JACL)
President Cauce鈥檚 statement against anti-Asian violence
Bias Reporting Tool
(Seattle campus)
(Seattle campus)
(UW Bothell)
(UW Tacoma)
(UW employees)