Dear Colleagues,
In support of our fellow faculty, staff, and students of Florida Atlantic University, your faculty union demands the Administration take action in response to the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis in order to protect the health, welfare, and lives of our University students, faculty, and staff, as well as their families and larger communities, by enacting the following policies:
- Despite our governor willfully disregarding scientific evidence and not requiring vaccine mandates, the Administration must require that all students, faculty, and staff who plan to live, study, or work on campus be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before the start of the Fall semester. Proof of vaccination will be required and established in a manner similar to other University-required vaccinations. The Administration should actively and visibly pursue vaccinating all of our Owl community by setting up vaccination sites in our parking lots, on the breezeway, and in other public thoroughfares with high traffic. The Administration must send regular emails providing vaccination site locations and hours of operation, and these emails must clearly explain the importance of vaccination.
- Accompanying our first demand, all persons on campus must wear masks when indoors. This includes classes, office meetings, hallways, and sporting events. The Administration should take the lead on this issue by handing out free masks to any passerby in our parking lots, on the breezeway, and in other public thoroughfares with high traffic.
- Faculty should be able to modify their mode of instructional delivery in consultation with department chairs in response to the changing conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Such modifications may include changing in-person classes to fully-online delivery, developing a hybrid mode of delivery (some in-person meetings, some online delivery), providing simultaneous in-person and online delivery, etc.
We urgently recommend these demands be immediately adopted and implemented. They are grounded in the best available science and in the interest of public health.
We ask all interested parties to sign this petition, which we will then forward to our Administration by 8/17/2021.
We suggest faculty also email questions or concerns directly to their department chair, dean, the Provost, and the President to ensure we make the severity of our concerns abundantly clear.
In the meantime, your faculty union will continue advocating for the FAU community’s well-being to protect our Owl family as best we can. Stay tuned for a future action that will be organized by UFF-FAU to further articulate our demands with collective action.
In Solidarity,
UFF-FAU Executive Committee
