Presidential Updates

Clif’s Notes for April 13, 2021

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Last Thursday and Friday we partnered with city and state officials to host a mega mass vaccination event on campus.

I participated in a press conference with Gov. Mike Parson and Sen. Roy Blunt on Thursday morning promoting the event. We also promoted it through social media and our other communication channels in the days leading up to the event.

I am proud to report that our efforts were successful: 6,131 people were vaccinated at the mass vaccination event. This is in addition to the 7,500 plus COVID-19 vaccinations we have administered so far this year at Magers Health and Wellness Center.

Changes in community

City Council has established the next phase in the City of Springfield’s Road to Recovery plan. This plan eliminates occupancy limits for most activities and events if the following criteria are met:

  • Under 40 new COVID-19 cases per day.
  • Under 50 COVID-19 patients hospitalized.
  • 25% of residents age 16 and over vaccinated.

You can find more information on the Road to Recovery plan and our community’s progress on the Springfield-Greene County Health Department’s COVID-19 Dashboard.

The Springfield community is averaging far less than 40 new COVID-19 cases per day and 50 COVID-19 patients hospitalized. However, our community’s vaccination rate remains under the 25 percent threshold.

Please join me in encouraging people to get vaccinated. Vaccination will allow us to move into the next phase of the city’s recovery plan.

Vaccination is also critical to protect the health and safety of our campus community as we approach the end of the semester, commencement ceremonies and other events.

Thanks for all you do for Missouri State!

 

Clif’s Notes for April 6, 2021

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Our faculty and staff have demonstrated extraordinary commitment over the past 13 months. The pandemic presented obstacles we had not encountered before. We broke down barriers and worked together to keep the university moving forward.

Some of us worked from campus the whole time. Others of us worked from home until last summer and then returned to campus. Still others have continued to work from home.

Regardless of your work situation, I applaud all of your efforts. Together we worked to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 while continuing to support our students and campus community.

Thank you for your diligence and hard work.

Fall will look more “normal”

The coronavirus situation is rapidly improving. As vaccination numbers continue to increase, COVID-19 case numbers are steadily declining on campus, in the Springfield community and throughout the state.

Schedule your vaccine appointment

Because of this improvement, students and others will be back on campus in the fall. While I anticipate our online enrollment will remain robust, campus activities in and out of classrooms will largely return to the way they were before the pandemic.

Students are our top priority.  As they return to campus, it is critical that staff also come back to campus.

Explaining the guiding principles

To guide us through decisions about who must work from campus, who may work some days from home if their supervisor approves, and when exceptions are appropriate, the university’s leadership team has established Guiding Principles for Return to Campus in Fall 2021. I encourage you to take a moment to review these principles.

At their core, the principles lay out five basic points:

  • Offices should be open for standard hours (typically 8 a.m.-5 p.m.).
  • Supervisors should work from campus.
  • Non-exempt employees should work from campus with regular work hours to ensure compliance with wage and hour laws.
  • Staff whose job duties include face-to-face interaction with students, regular participation in in-person meetings or interactions on campus or in the community, or office reception should work from campus.
  • Few staff members should be permitted to work remotely on a full-time basis.

In application, these principles require that the vast majority of university staff who worked from home during the pandemic must return to campus full-time.

Supervisors will have discretion to approve limited exceptions to these rules, and I will review return-to-campus plans created by cost center heads to ensure university-wide compliance.

Remote work arrangements

As was the case before the pandemic, supervisors will continue to have discretion to authorize remote work arrangements under section 4.11 of the employee handbook within the constraints of the guiding principles.

This policy will be updated later this year during our annual update of the employee handbook to be consistent with the guiding principles. Details about when a formal remote work arrangement is appropriate are set out in the guiding principles.

The university will continue to take a decentralized approach to formal remote work arrangements. This means some offices will allow remote work while others will not, and some employees will work remotely while others with similar job duties will not.

Wellness incentive tied to vaccination for 2022

As I mentioned in last week’s Clif’s Notes, I encourage all members of the campus community to get a COVID-19 vaccine. I have also long advocated for everyone on campus to receive an annual flu vaccination.

As an incentive to get these vaccines, we plan to connect this year’s wellness incentive to vaccination.

  • Employees who complete their COVID-19 vaccination will qualify for a $20 per month discount on their 2022 health insurance premiums.
  • Employees who complete their flu vaccination will qualify for an additional $10 per month discount on their 2022 health insurance premiums.

Details about the 2022 wellness incentive plan can be found online.

Plan to attend Virtual Town Hall Friday

We have scheduled another Virtual Town Hall meeting for 3 p.m. April 9. At this meeting I will:

You will have an opportunity to provide feedback and ask questions. I hope you will plan to attend.

Additional information can be found online.

Thanks for all you do for Missouri State!

 

Clif’s Notes for March 30, 2021

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On Monday, Missouri moved to Phase 2 in the COVID-19 vaccination priority. That means all of our faculty and staff at Missouri State are now eligible to be vaccinated.

Meanwhile, the state’s access to COVID-19 vaccination has improved drastically, and we expect it to continue to improve in the coming weeks and months.

Magers Health and Wellness Center has appointments available this week for vaccination.

Schedule an appointment on MyHealth Portal

Magers is currently administering the Pfizer vaccine. We anticipate switching to the single dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine in the coming weeks to facilitate vaccination of students. If you prefer to receive the Pfizer vaccine, it is important that you immediately schedule your vaccination at Magers.

Students become eligible April 9

Next Friday, the state will move to the final phase in the COVID-19 vaccination priority. This means everyone — including all of our students — will be eligible to receive the vaccine.

I encourage all of our campus community — faculty, staff, students and others — to get vaccinated. Vaccination protects you and your loved ones from the virus. It also prevents you from having to quarantine when exposed to someone with the virus so long as you do not develop symptoms.

Widespread vaccination will also be a critical factor in determining what activities we can have on campus, whether masking will be required after this semester ends, and what other health and safety protocols will remain in place.

April 8-9 mass vaccination event on campus

To ensure that our campus and the wider Springfield community has robust access to COVID-19 vaccine, we are currently working with state and local leaders to host a mega mass vaccination event in Hammons Student Center on April 8 and 9.

I encourage all of our faculty and staff to get vaccinated at Magers or elsewhere before this event. However, if you have not yet been vaccinated, information about signing up for this event will be available later this week.

Thanks for all you do for Missouri State!

Clif’s Notes for March 9, 2021

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Making vaccine available to eligible members of our campus community continues to be a top priority.

We received a supply of vaccine this week to administer through Magers Health and Wellness Center. Appointments are available through Magers for those meeting the current eligibility requirements.

Additionally, Magers occasionally has “extra” vaccine available due to appointment cancellations or receiving additional doses beyond what we anticipated. If you are interested in being notified when extra vaccine is available and as additional groupings become eligible, please complete the online vaccination interest form.

More eligible for vaccine soon

COVID-19 cases on campus, in our community, and throughout the state have declined significantly. For over a week, the state of Missouri has recorded fewer than 500 new COVID-19 cases per day. We have had less than 10 new coronavirus cases reported on campus for each of the past four weeks.

Availability of vaccine continues to improve. On March 15, Missouri will move to Vaccine Priority Phase 1b Tier 3. This will allow K-12 educators, childcare workers and several other groups of people to become eligible for vaccination.

Meanwhile, the national supply of vaccine continues to increase with the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine receiving FDA approval. More than 90 million doses of vaccines have been administered in the United States, and the pace of vaccination is increasing.

Virtual Town Hall

As we plan for the future, I am cautious but optimistic. Barring an unforeseen setback, we will be in a much different (and better) environment when the fall 2021 semester begins.

We have scheduled another virtual town hall meeting for 3 p.m. April 9. At this meeting, I will update the campus community on the status of COVID-19 on campus. My update will include information about the university’s plans for the fall semester.

You will have an opportunity to provide feedback and ask questions. I hope you will plan to attend.

Additional information can be found online.

Thanks for all you do for Missouri State!

 

Clif’s Notes for Feb. 23, 2021

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The Board of Governors met last week.

The board approved a new tuition model. In-state undergraduate students currently pay tuition of $228 per credit hour for seated classes and $299 for online classes.

In 2021-22, in-state undergraduate students will pay a blended rate of $257 per credit hour for all classes. We anticipate this will result in no tuition increase for most students.

Missouri’s public universities have traditionally increased tuition each year by inflation. By approving the new tuition structure, we will break with that tradition and not increase tuition by CPI next year.

The change is revenue neutral. In 2020-21, in-state undergraduate students paid $87,630,000. Under the new model, students would have paid $87,605,000 — $25,000 less.

A large majority of students with which we interacted supported this change. It is fairer and allows students to better estimate the cost of their education. It allows the university to schedule classes, and students to decide which classes to take, without cost being a factor.

The new model also recognizes that the line between seated and online classes has blurred with many “seated” classes having a substantial online component.

CARES Act funds

The board also approved distributions of federal funds to students.

After all pending CARES Act allocations are received, the university will have $2.3 million of funds remaining from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund established by the CARES Act. Given the compliance requirements for these funds, the board determined that the best use of the Springfield campus allocation of these funds is to refund a portion of online tuition paid by qualifying students on the Springfield campus in the fall 2020 semester.

The remainder of the West Plains campus allocation will be distributed as emergency financial grants to students on the West Plains campus.

We are still calculating the exact amount of the distributions, but we anticipate the online tuition refund will be between $25 and $28 per credit hour. These refunds will be automatically applied to students’ accounts.

The board also approved the first distribution of funds from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA). The federal government has required that we distribute to students about $7.4 million of the funds we received under CRRSAA. The board approved the framework for our plan to distribute these funds as emergency financial aid grants with Pell students receiving a higher amount than other qualifying students.

We will finalize and communicate details about the CRRSAA student distributions in the coming weeks.

Refinancing approved

The board approved resolutions related to the university’s plans to refinance two sets of bonds that were originally used to finance JQH Arena, the O’Reilly Clinical Health Sciences Center, the Davis-Harrington Welcome Center, and to amend the bond issue for the purchase of Brick City Buildings 1, 3, 4 and 5. By refinancing these bonds, the university will save more than $4 million.

The board also approved an intent resolution to preserve the right to issue revenue bonds up to $25 million to finance the acquisition of the new residence hall.

Other board actions

The board approved the receipt of property (located at 326 N. Boonville) from the MSU Foundation, which will be used to house an art gallery for the Judith Enyeart Reynolds College of Arts and Letters. The board also approved the sale of property the university no longer needs located near the Bull Shoals Field Station in Taney County. The board also approved changes to the consulting contract for the Kampeter Hall project.

The board approved a new behavioral support assistant associate degree program in West Plains and an occupational therapy doctorate program in Springfield. The board also discussed the university’s new test optional scholarship package.

The board received two presentations about the university’s academic programs. In the Programs and Planning Committee, Rachel Heinz presented information about the Bear POWER program, and the board interacted with a panel of students enrolled in the program.

In the regular meeting, Dr. Nancy Gordon presented information about the university’s work in online education, and the board discussed emerging opportunities for new learning modalities. The board also interacted with a panel of four faculty members: Damon Basset, Natalie Curry, Dr. Seth Hoelscher and Dr. Margaret Weaver.

Finally, the board approved changes to its meeting schedule. These changes will allow us to have five socially distanced graduation ceremonies spread over two days in May.

Thanks for all you do for Missouri State!