ESOP COVID-19 Testing Guidance

Testing information can be found on our School’s Return to Campus website. There, you’ll find the latest information regarding testing recommendations, testing sites, a quick testing reference guide, along with symptom screening information.

Spring Recess and Wellness Days

As a reminder, information about spring recess days, wellness days and holidays can be found on our website under the events tab, and a quick reference chart can be found here. The next University holiday will be observed Friday, April 2.

Vaccine Updates

As of March 17, people in Group 4 who have a medical condition that puts them at higher risk of serious illness and people who live in certain congregate settings are eligible for vaccination. The rest of Group 4, which includes UNC-Chapel Hill faculty and staff who are not in Groups 1, 2 or 3, will become eligible on March 31. Residents in Carolina Housing or Greek housing will also become eligible on March 31. Beginning April 7, all adults will be eligible to receive the vaccine. For further details on how this affects our campus community, visit the Carolina Together website, UNC Health, and/or NC DHHS.

Student Vaccination Clinic: Carolina undergraduate students, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows can now schedule themselves to be vaccinated conveniently on campus through a student vaccination clinic offered by Campus Health in the Carolina Union. The University is following the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services vaccine prioritization framework. As of 3/31, when the clinic appointments begin, Groups 1, 2, 3 and all of group 4 will be eligible for vaccinations. Student vaccinations appointments will be available Wednesday 3/31 and Thursday 4/1 from 9 a.m. – 7.p.m., as well as Monday 4/5 and Tuesday 4/6, from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Due to the Spring Holiday, no vaccination appointments will be offered on Friday, 4/2. Vaccination reservations are available for students and post-doctoral fellows at StudentCOVIDVax.unc.edu.

Faculty and Staff: While the University is not requiring the COVID-19 vaccine for students, faculty or staff, it is helpful to know the percentage of the community that is vaccinated. UNC Environment, Health and Safety has set up a website where employees can self-report when they are vaccinated. Although a vaccine is not mandatory, I encourage you to fill out the self-report form once you have been vaccinated so we have a bit more clarity around vaccination rates on campus. The School of Medicine is working on a similar website for students and we will share more details once available.

Wellness

The Wellness website is filled with terrific resources. On the website, you’ll find immediate resources such as our Eshelman Care Line, Campus Health contact info, the Employee Assistance helpline, along with so much more.

Other Updates

The Conflict of Interest Office has recently launched an expanded website. This new site is now the central location for finding the University policies on Conflict of Interest (COI) and Conflict of Commitment (COC). It also has links to all of the sites you may need to access in order to complete EPAP submissions, Travel requests, Paid Authorship Disclosure, Research COI Training and many other links that will support you and your research activities.

UNC Commencement: We will participate in an in-person health professions commencement at Kenan Stadium, with a supplementary virtual celebration. We will have more details on this in the coming weeks. While the Kenan commencement will have attendance restrictions in place, everyone is encouraged to attend our virtual celebration of our graduating students!

BEYOND Strategic Plan

I encourage you to get to know our new BEYOND website. The site will serve as the hub for our plan where you will be able to easily access updates on initiatives as well as monitor our progress on key metrics. Initiative leaders are currently building out their teams and working on concrete metrics for us to measure how we are achieving our goals. Please reach out to an initiative leader if you are interested in being involved! The Office of Organizational Effectiveness will oversee the monitoring of the plan with a program called CASCADE. Stay tuned for further updates!

Upcoming Events

• Virtual Yoga, every Sunday from 5-6 p.m.: Have you been wanting to de-stress, feel more relaxed and energized? Join Student Senate for a free weekly guided Zoom yoga classes every Sunday. No sign-up or prior experience required, just bring yourself and a mat! Meeting ID: 92840385017 Password: 0123456789
• Managing Bias Training: All faculty, staff and post docs should have received an email invitation to Managing Bias training, which will be available March 22 – April 16. All employees will be required to take this course, which takes approximately 20 minutes to complete.
• March 29:  Dr. Josefina Bañales will join FPG’s Carolina Consortium on Human Development to present “We Gotta Do Better”: Adolescents’ Beliefs, Feelings, and Actions Towards Racism as part of our Spring 2021 series on Culture & Developmental Science: Considering Context, Culture, and Intersectional Approaches!  Join us via zoom from 2:00 – 3:15 PM EST (https://fpgcdi.zoom.us/j/91078842280).
• March 30: Bringing a Racial Equity Focus to Health Informatic: Workshop
• April 7: PharmAlliance Graduate Student Showcase Presentations
• May 4: Deadline for Faculty to register for the Summer Writing Group 2021

For a complete list of events, please check your Monday Weekly Digest email.

Common Links for Reference

• Carolina Together 
  
• COVID-19 dashboard 
  
• Community Standards
  
• Reporting Community Standards Violations
  
• If You’re Sick
  
• UNC Health Your Shot
  
• UNC Commuter News
  
• COVID-19 Volunteer Opportunities in Chapel Hill
  
• COVID-19 Volunteer Opportunities in Buncombe County
  
• COVID-19 Volunteer Opportunities with MAHEC and UNC-A
  
• BEYOND Strategic Plan