Contact Us
Return to Campus Planning July 9, 2021
- TO:
- Staff and Faculty Supervisors
- FROM:
- Seth Grossman, Vice President of People and External Relations
Beth Muha, Assistant Vice President of Human Resources - DATE:
- July 9, 2021
- SUBJECT:
- Return to Campus Planning
We are looking forward to American University’s return to a widespread physical presence as we prepared to enter the fall semester. It will be terrific to have in-person instruction and residential experiences for many of our students.
As part of the plans for the fall, American University is implementing a hybrid working environment which will combine the opportunities of remote work with the benefits of campus presence. This approach will advance our mission, serve our students, and support the attraction, retention, and job satisfaction of our staff. Beginning in mid-August, many staff members will work some days on-campus and some days from a remote location in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia region (DMV).
Departments recently completed their fall planning in which they used tools and guidance developed by Human Resources to designate a work modality for each staff position in their units based on university needs and job functions. This approach was informed by research, best practices, insights gained during spring 2021 through a staff survey, focus groups, and feedback received from staff and other key groups across campus. HR recently completed its review of the departmental plans to help ensure an equitable approach across departments. With this review complete, staff will learn of their modality through their departments by July 16th.
Staff modalities are based on job duties to ensure fairness, consistency, and access to remote work among similar positions within units. Factors including staffing levels, space, and peak work periods for individual units may result in some variation across the university.
As we prepare for this new way of working in August, we encourage you to take the following steps:
- If you were unable to attend, watch a recorded version of the Return to Campus Town Hall that was conducted on June 22, 2021, which addressed many topics related to health and safety and work modalities.
- Familiarize yourself with information on HR’s How AU Works website and understand the process and factors that departments considered about their operations as they made their modality decisions;
- Review the AU Health and Safety guidelines for fall that reflect updates to our directives for masking, physical distancing and travel;
- Review other resources regarding vaccination requirements, workplace accommodations, caregiving support, out-of-state employment and self-care; and
- Please forward questions to fallfeedback@american.edu.
We are grateful for all the input from across our community as we developed the plans for the return to campus, and to the hard work of all the units in generating the modalities for their teams. We are excited to move into a new era at AU that combines the best of in-person and remote work. We look forward to seeing you on campus in the Fall. Our best for a healthy and safe summer.