Recap: Planning + Process: ISSUE 22

Welcome

Welcome to issue 22 of Recap, MICA’s regular communication channel.

Recap’s mission has been—and will continue to be—to help build shared understanding among the MICA community as the College navigated the complexities of the COVID-19 and reopening. As we begin to move beyond the pandemic, the ongoing need for an official College communications channel has not diminished—and Recap will carry on to fulfill this need. Here, we will continue to build shared understanding as One Team MICA.

We encourage you to use the Comment on This Topic button at the end of each story, and be sure to use the suggestion section at the end of each Recap not only to suggest ideas for future issues, but also topics for future One MICA Town Halls as well as feedback for previous ones.

And as always, some information may not apply to all programs and constituents, such as Open Studies. For specific information, please use the departmental directory at the end of this issue.

Recap was created as a community resource during Fall 2020 to share information around MICA’s progression and thought process around pandemic navigation, return to campus, and beyond—to improve transparency and to provide a channel for individual community member input.

It is in this same spirit that issue 22 of Recap looks ahead to Summer and Fall 2022, and what campus operations may look like.

A New Normal

With high vaccine efficacy protecting against severe infection and outcomes, as seen most recently with Omicron, the College’s consulting epidemiologists continue to relate that pandemic navigation across the country and the world is beginning to pivot toward COVID-19 becoming endemic—where the virus circulates throughout the global population similar to other viruses, like the seasonal flu.

Additionally, with mask mandates being lifted at the local, state, national, and global level, the off-campus activities of community members will continue to expand, and MICA’s ability to control potential exposure of the community becomes less achievable and less useful as COVID-19 potentially moves to becoming endemic.

MICA’s epidemiologists also continue to advise that all institutions should maintain the flexibility to ramp up/down restrictions and public health protocols if necessary. This guidance and MICA’s continued prioritization of the student experience form the key principles that inform our decisions. They are:

The MICA community carries high levels of protection due to almost everyone in it having been vaccinated and boosted.

Vaccine efficacy continues to be high in the face of existing and new variants. Vaccines are highly protective against severe infection and outcomes.

New COVID-19 treatment medications are available and are rapidly increasing in their accessibility.

The continued loosening of global, national, state, and local health restrictions makes preventing any and all exposure to our campus less sustainable.

While future waves are to be expected and monitoring variants remains essential, our ability to navigate those waves through protocol adjustments will only strengthen as the science continues to evolve and treatment options become more diverse and available.

Our Path Forward

With this foundation, the upcoming summer and fall offer a potential path forward toward entering MICA’s modified Operational Mode 5.

Here’s a breakdown of key items of consideration as we look toward modified Operational Mode 5:

Capacity restrictions on dining may be removed, allowing for a full return to dining hall capacity and the ability to eat anywhere on campus.

Like nearly every other institution in our country, as well as Baltimore City and surrounding counties, MICA may move to being a mask optional campus. We expect many of our community will continue to mask and are fully encouraged and respected in doing so. One-way masking remains a powerful source of protection.

Visitors may once again be allowed on campus without the need for prior approval, increasing visibility to exhibitions and easing the ability to have guest critics and other important collaborators on site.

Restrictions on the size of events, and the approval processes for certain types of events, may be lifted.

The College will need to maintain the ability to reinstate, temporarily, public health restrictions if there are COVID-19 waves in the future. This will require science-driven decision-making and effective communication.

Under any scenario, the College will maintain its vaccination policy, as the science is clear that vaccinations remain a powerful tool in limiting the severity of illness and negative outcomes.

Moving toward modified Operational Mode 5 is the next step for our community and will possibly begin as soon as this summer. We know that no one model will suit the needs and preferences of every individual, and understand that some of our community may require specific considerations, like immunocompromised individuals. This will continue to be a factor in the College’s planning and decision making as we move into the summer and fall. Ultimately, as a community we will need to envision what our path forward looks like, as we eventually emerge from the model of one operational mode versus another and move into a more permanent way of existing with COVID-19.

Feedback from the community remains an essential tool in the College’s decision-making process. Please submit your thoughts, questions, and concerns using the "Comment on This Topic" button below.

After completing our return-to-work campus-wide testing at the start of the Spring 2022 semester—which resulted in more than 3,200 test results, recorded from either our on-campus testing program or external testing sites, and a cumulative total of 124 positive results—MICA has returned to solely on-campus symptomatic testing for students and on-campus asymptomatic testing for small group of unvaccinated community members.

With that, MICA has also updated how it reports this information on our website.

Previously, the College reported the number of cases each week, the total number of cases since we began tracking in August 2021, and a positivity rate that was calculated by using the number of cases each week and the approximate number of people on campus.

As there were some concerns regarding this methodology, and as we have returned solely to testing symptomatic students and unvaccinated community members, MICA will no longer be calculating a positivity rate, but rather just reporting the number of cases each week in an attempt to provide a clearer picture of COVID on campus.

To implement this change, there was a brief time period where cases were not updated online due to modifications of the website’s format. During that time period, there were a total of six cases added—one in the week from February 7-11, five in the week from February 14-18, and zero on the week ending in February 21-25.

Cases are once again being updated weekly on Friday afternoons.

To date, there have been 179 reported cases of campus community members. For the most part, MICA’s metrics have continued to decline throughout the spring. But as mentioned above, the College will continue to see ebbs and flows in case counts as MICA community members begin to return to more activities in a city, state, and world where pandemic restrictions such as masking and physical distancing have been lifted.

For additional context about the change in dashboard metric reporting on MICA’s site, please refer to comments from Alexa Kim, vice president of operations and technology, during the February One MICA Town Hall, which begin at around 42 minutes.

As announced in the March 22 One MICA Town Hall, People, Belonging, & Culture is in the process of re-evaluating MICA’s performance review system and has provided a simplified, interim process for this year.

Read the full memo sent by People, Belonging, & Culture, but here’s what you need to know:

If you have already filled out the performance evaluation that came through Workday, that is completely fine, and you do not need to do anything else.

If you have not yet filled out the evaluation in Workday, you can instead opt to fill out a simplified evaluation form, (PDF) that should take no more than two hours to complete.

If you prefer to wait for the formal program next year, you do not have to complete a self evaluation this year.

See the abbreviated performance evaluation form here.

Here are some key deadlines to know in moving forward in this process if you choose to complete a performance evaluation this year:
April 15, 2022
Step 1: Employee completes Sections 1-3
April 29, 2022
Step 2: Supervisor reviews the employee’s sections and completes Sections 4-5
May 6, 2022
Step 3: Supervisor and employee meet for annual review discussion
May 11, 2022
Step 4: Employee can provide feedback if needed and should complete Section 6
May 13, 2022
Step 5: Supervisor and employee complete Section 6
May 20, 2022
Step 6: Employee uploads completed and signed form to Workday

Due to the pandemic, MICA has extended staff employees’ vacation days beyond the College’s normal expiration deadlines. And while MICA must ultimately resume its standard vacation rollover practice, we recognize that many staff members have accrued a large surplus of vacation time over the course of the pandemic. The College is providing options that will allow our staff community to not lose their accrued time, while still getting back to the standard vacation rollover deadline.

A full memo from People, Belonging, & Culture outlining the specifics of each option was sent Friday morning, but here’s a quick summary of what you need to know:

Option 1: Final extension to carryover deadline
This option will carry over all unused accrued vacation earned between July, 1, 2019 through June 30, 2022, and must be be used by May 31, 2023
Planned absences must be requested and approved in Workday by July 31, 2022

Option 2: One-time payout of up to 10 days
This option will pay out up to 10 days of unused accrued vacation earned between July, 1, 2019 through June 30, 2021, and will be valued at the employee’s hourly rate on April 29, 2022
The vacation day payout will be processed by May 20, 2022

Option 3: Combination of Option 1 and Option 2
The above conditions for Option 1 and Option 2

All staff employees need to make their selection by April 29, 2022. If you do not make a selection by April, 29 2022, Option 3 will be automatically selected. Sick leave and personal days will follow the normal cut-off dates.

As a reminder, What if? is an ongoing feature of Recap intended to help create a shared understanding by posing real-world "what if" scenarios submitted by the community.

What if our team works in a shared office space—do the updated COVID masking guidelines allow us to eat in that space?

As laid out in the new guidelines released in the March 1 memo, members of the MICA community can now eat inside shared office spaces, so long as there is unanimous agreement of all of those in the office.

As mentioned previously, we’ve included the ability for you to submit comments on individual topics for each issue of Recap in order to help provide an open dialogue around complex and evolving issues.

We thank all of you who have submitted thoughtful comments from past issues. Those comments are used to inform future issues, raise awareness on topics, and ultimately help build shared understanding as One Team MICA. And while we cannot provide individual recognition for each comment, we are providing a summary snapshot of those comments to promote transparency.