Welcome

Welcome to the Division of Academic Affairs at the Metropolitan State College of Denver, the college of choice for over 60,000 alumni and 22,000 current students!

The Division of Academic Affairs is charged with helping to create and support a relevant and engaging learning / teaching environment for Metro State students and faculty. One of our many goals is to facilitate access and ensure success for our students through a student-centered curriculum and a highly-qualified faculty who are as committed to teaching as they are to scholarship and professional endeavors. Metro State's faculty combine the best of several worlds in the curriculum: academic rigor, service learning, and community partnership.

Regarding H1N1

Dear Colleagues,

I write to provide you with information about how Metro hopes to minimize the impact of the H1N1 flu this academic year. The new challenges presented by the declared pandemic H1N1 influenza virus may require some changes in (1) how you deal with student absenteeism (due to illness) and (2) how you prepare to have your class move forward in your absence should you, or a dependent family member, become ill. At this time, we do not know the magnitude of the challenges that we may face, but updates will be forthcoming as the flu season progresses and the College coordinates its efforts with state health offices. Currently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that infection rates may double from normal years (approximating 40 percent). This is a unique situation, not similar to the accommodation of individual students with disabilities. First, it is not clear that H1N1 influenza qualifies as a disability. However, even if it does, the urgent public health priority to avoid practices that would foster the spread of the virus may necessitate attendance practices that would not otherwise be appropriate. Second, the possibility that a significant part of the population may be affected is also a unique circumstance that calls for practices that would not otherwise be considered.

Hopefully you have seen some of the communications coming out from the campus regarding strategies for dealing with the flu and other emergencies this year. For example, the Health Center at Auraria web page – http://www.mscd.edu/healthcenter/health_alerts/index.shtml – has information about the flu as well as a section (scroll down the page) regarding “WHAT Considerations Should Faculty Anticipate?” In addition, on September 21, 2009, the Communications Office sent out a special issue of @Metro with information at http://www.mscd.edu/~collcom/artman/publish/flu_twv7092109.shtml.

It is important that you have plans in place to facilitate learning should you or your students fall ill and that you communicate this information to your students in writing so they will be aware of those plans. To help you with those plans, the Center for Faculty Development Director, Mark Potter, has collaborated with Ben Zastrocky, Director of Education Technology Center, and Jeff Lewis, Director of On-Line Learning. You can find a number of helpful suggestions about how to continue the teaching and learning process despite illness. You can find these at http://www.mscd.edu/cfd/emergencyprep.shtml.
In addition, I urge you to consider the following:

Use course attendance policies that allow for the possibility of unusually high rates of student absenteeism. In the case where more than half or your class is out ill, be prepared to provide an alternative way of obtaining the course content. It is up to you how you choose to do this. Again, consultation with the resources noted in the paragraph above should help you. Please note: Ideally, we will not experience an inordinate number of incompletes. The flu lasts 3-10 days, so neither students nor faculty should end up missing a huge amount of time due to a single illness. Of course, if someone must care for multiple dependents getting sick, that situation could change.
Insert a disclaimer in your syllabi that allows for changes mid-semester in deadlines and policies if circumstances warrant.
Facilitate distribution of student directory information (email addresses, cell phone numbers) to enable students to share class notes and daily information with ill students.
Employ appropriate ways for ill students to submit work and keep up with lecture material, handouts, and other activities. NOTE: Students should notify you and all of their instructors if they are staying home due to influenza like illness; however, they do not need to bring Doctor’s notes or other forms of verification that they were sick because everyone is being asked to stay home if they are experiencing flu-like symptoms.
Contrary to what most of you have probably done in the past, please do not come to class if you are ill. Create a plan for the semester of how your absence could be covered and discuss or share that plan with your department chair; this plan may include the use of colleagues, affiliate faculty, or alternative teaching methods and class activities.
In order to mitigate the spread of disease this year it is extremely important that faculty discuss the universal recommendation that those who are symptomatic and/or apparently ill should not attend class or other communal activities at which they could expose others.
If a faculty member reasonably suspects that an individual student is ill and should go home, it is appropriate to remind the class that people who feel ill should go home until their flu symptoms (particularly a fever), have been absent for 24 hours and that students should notify their instructors by e-mail if they will be absent.

Reasonable suspicion could be based on statements made by the student, or upon the faculty member’s observation of visible signs such as excessive coughing or obvious changes in physical characteristics that appear consistent with physical illness.

It is important that faculty speak to the affected student to confirm if the statements made by the student or the observable signs possibly represent the flu, not an on-going chronic condition that is non-communicable and mimics symptoms similar to a viral illness (i.e., excessive coughing). If the student states that s/he has such a chronic non-communicable condition, the faculty member could recommend a consultation with the Health Center at Auraria or personal physician to determine whether the condition makes the student more susceptible to influenza and if so, what strategies would best protect the student from contagion. The faculty member should express willingness to facilitate the strategies recommended by the physician. In the case of students with certified disabilities, faculty should consult with the Access Center who would evaluate any documentation presented by the student.

The goal of this type of dialogue is consistent with the CDC recommendation that those that are symptomatic remove themselves from group interactions in an attempt to limit the spread of this year's H1N1 flu.

Any campus-wide communications related to a potential pandemic will use multiple channels and will go to all personnel and students. Communications methods will include the following plans already in place for emergency notifications:

MetroConnect e-mail
Feeds on Facebook or Twitter
Local news stations announcements for campus closure
Broadcast voicemail in the event that communication was emergent to those on campus
Emergency notification via the campus system for cell phone contact.

If faculty have a need to discuss specific cases with the Health Center at Auraria, they can contact Director Steve Monaco at 303-884-3200 or Assistant Director Martha Eaton at 303-944-8693.

Wishing you a healthy semester and year,

Vicki Golich, Ph.D.
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs