Overview of recent communications

April 1, 2020

Tori Tragis

— by Nickole Conley, executive officer

The chancellor’s office and your vice chancellors have received several questions around information that has been distributed over the last several days. We appreciate all of the questions, as it helps us distribute appropriate guidance and provide clarification to all campus community members.

With campus now being closed to the public and those considered essential employees, please keep the following in consideration for the coming weeks. If you missed any stand-alone communications, the links are listed below.

Important communications links:

UA implementation of new state health mandates

Chancellor White – Shelter in-place

President Memo to Chancellors and President Staff

Chancellor White – Health Mandate 11

Doug Schrage - UAF pandemic IMT

Steve Patin - UA COVID:19 leave policies update 

COVID:19 Communications 

Campus Mail Center (CMC): Constitution Hall and the CMC mail counter will be open from 7:30am to 3:30pm for access to campus P.O. boxes and departmental mail pick. Mail should be picked up by essential employees only.

Campus shower facilities: All campus shower facilities are closed to staff, faculty and students. As a safety precaution and to comply with the State of Alaska Health Mandates 11 & 12 requiring “Shelter in-place,” all shower facilities will be closed until campus reopens to all employees.

Essential employee approvals: UAS developed a tool to be used across the University for different purposes, from documenting on-campus work to tracking leave status. This tool, called the UA Employee Tracker Tool has been adopted for UA wide use to document and auto generate on-campus work exemption letters.


  • Supervisors - For all your employees that are required to work on campus under one of the exemptions, please fill out the UA Employee Tracker Tool as soon as possible. The tracking tool only needs to be completed for those essential employees who are exempted from the mandates for the following:





    • Working on campus - The employee is physically present on campus for their work.

    • Reduced time on campus - The employee is required to come to campus for some of their hours, but is working a reduced schedule and/or a portion of their hours remotely.




23/7 Rasmuson Computer Lab: Please continue to practice social distancing and occupancy of no more than 10 individuals in the 23/7 computer lab space. This is important for UAF to be able to comply with the Governor’s Health Mandates 11 and 12.

Mobile Hotspot and Chrome Books: Anyone in need of a chrome book can place a request through OIT. The number of chrome books are limited and will be distributed on a first come, first serve bases. Mobile hotspot connections are also available. Please contact OIT for additional information on either of these items. 

UAF has been engaging with the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital (FMH) on ways that we can help the community during this COVID:19 pandemic. Chancellor White has asked Gwen Holdmann to serve as the UAF liaison with FMH for research efforts in this area. If you are already working with FMH or would like to offer technical assistance, please contact Gwen Holdmann at gholdmann@alaska.edu . 

As we support our campus community and the broader Fairbanks area, some of your UAF leadership team are serving on different coordinate groups to streamline community efforts and keep our agencies aware of what each are doing. The Chancellor is on the Fairbanks North Star Borough Multi Agency Coordination group (MAC) that meets weekly, and I serve as his representative to the Unified Command Group that meets twice a week. Both of these groups coordinate and discuss what agencies such as the university, military installations, FMH and the borough are doing to combat COVID:19 and how we can support the community.

Thank you and be well.