Coronavirus

Coronavirus

Faculty

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Your health and safety are important to us.

Campus leadership has worked collaboratively with faculty representatives and consulted with public health officials and medical experts to develop a comprehensive set of guidelines to help protect the health and safety of our community.

If you test positive, were exposed to COVID-19 or are exhibiting symptoms:

UMKC has a notification process for employees. Start with this step:

  • Employees: Contact your supervisor.
  • After-hours: Call 816-235-COVI.

Do not visit campus or any public areas. Follow the advice of your health-care provider, cooperate with contact tracing with public health officials and continue to practice good health hygiene. 

If you test positive, stay home. Within four hours of your learning of your positive test, you need to start the process for notifying UMKC so we can notify campus of a positive case and begin necessary sanitization.

Teaching and Research

  • The key element for classroom instruction is flexibility. Be sure to be ready to teach courses in in-person, online and hybrid formats whenever possible.
  • The vital opportunity for students to engage with faculty outside of regularly scheduled instructional hours, either virtually or in person by mutual agreement, must be maintained.
  • Instructors are also strongly encouraged to assign seating in face-to-face classes to facilitate contact tracing should a student or faculty member become ill.
  • Reasonable accommodations will be granted in accordance with Collected Rules and Regulations Section 600.080, Policy Related to Employees with Disabilities, and may include alternative work schedule or location, extension of telework or enhanced safety measures.
  • The overriding guiding principle for research activity is to protect the emotional as well as physical health and safety of our workforce, clinical patients and human research subjects.
  • We will continue to limit the number of researchers permitted to work in rooms and buildings. In some cases, we will limit the duration of time that researchers can work in the same room, even with physical distancing.
  • Learn more about research adaptations in Return to Research Operations 2020 [pdf].
  • UM System Human Resources has a list of policies and guidance about Working Through COVID-19.  

Classroom and Office Regulations, Recommendations and Etiquette

Faculty FAQ

You may have many questions that are not addressed in the current set of FAQs. Please send your questions to telltheprovost@umkc.edu, and we will obtain answers and add them to this list as appropriate. 

Yes, free driveup, rapid testing is available on campus by appointment at go.umkc.edu/covidtesting. 

 

All university-related non-essential international and domestic travel is suspended until further notice. This includes travel connected to university activities or programs for all faculty, staff and students, whether that travel is funded by the university, an external grant, or any other sources. Requests to engage in essential travel must be approved by deans, vice chancellors or vice provosts and may require quarantine and/or negative COVID test results prior to returning to campus.

If a student contacts you with concerns about attending classes and requests accommodations, please direct them to Student Disability Services (816-235-5612) and then work closely with that office and with our Instructional Design and Technology team to provide the accommodations needed.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) states that all public spaces must be accessible to all users. This includes digital spaces. As an online instructor, you must make every effort to ensure your course materials can be used by all students, including those who might have disabilities. Here is a resource guide from UM System.