TSU Faculty & Staff

As conditions have changed over the last several days, we want to provide additional information concerning this upcoming week. On Monday and Tuesday, March 16 & 17, we will operate the campus utilizing essential personnel, as determined by your supervisor. The university will not be closed, as we need to keep critical offices, departments and services operational. This includes our custodial, facilities and maintenance operations, as well as functions that serve students, employees and the public. We are asking all employees to reach out to your supervisor or unit head this evening to determine if you should report to work. As we come back from Spring Break, during the week of March 23-27, we will continue campus operations with staffing that is appropriate for our needs, again as determined by supervisors and unit heads.

As states of emergency have been declared locally, statewide, and nationally, it's important that we follow all instructions associated with these declarations, as well as guidelines from the Center for Disease Control (CDC). We have links to the CDC and our local health agency on the TSU coronavirus webpage.

Faculty:

If you haven't already prepared to transition your class instruction to the Blackboard platform, you should plan to participate in the Blackboard webinars that are scheduled for multiple times on Monday and Tuesday (see attached schedule).

Online instruction on Monday, March 23.  It is our expectation that you will be interactive and engaging and that courses will continue as scheduled, with your lectures being given live during class time via Blackboard Collaborate.

Please ensure that you:

  • Have access to a laptop/desktop at home; if not, please check one out from Mr. Gould
  • Have access to files needed for your course(s)
  • Are using Office 365 and OneDrive to ensure continued access to files 
  • Know how to access to all Office 365 tools such as Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, SharePoint, etc via http://Office365.airllevant.com 
  • Home access to wifi/internet
  • New password to ensure it will not expire within the next month
  • Know how to use Blackboard Collaborate and Discussion Board features 
  • Know how to access tools you require such as Blackboard, MyTSU, etc.
  • Access to a BlueJeans account to host virtual meetings

Staff:

If you haven't already prepared to transition your daily work to work at home. You need many of the same tools as faculty, except you won't need to teach online.  If you have time to attend training or have Blackboard experience, please be available to assist your faculty.

Please ensure that you:

  • Have access to a laptop/desktop at home; if not, please check one out from Mr. Gould
  • Have access to files needed for your daily work
  • Are using Office 365 and OneDrive to ensure continued access to files 
  • Know how to access to all Office 365 tools such as Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, SharePoint, etc via http://Office365.airllevant.com 
  • Home access to wifi/internet
  • New password to ensure it will not expire within the next month
  • Know how to access tools you require such as Blackboard, MyTSU, etc.
  • Access to a BlueJeans account to host virtual meetings

COPHS Sharepoint:

We have created a COPHS Sharepoint to serve as the College intranet that includes important resources such as:

  • Emergency Contacts
  • Links to Frequently Used Tools such as Blackboard, Banner, BlueJeans, etc.
  • Instructional documents and links for Blackboard, Voicemail Forwarding and Access, etc.

Any additional documents we deem necessary and/or important will be added.

You may access the Sharepoint site via: COPHS Dean's Office Sharepoint
Use your computer login credentials for access.

 

Additionally, here are several links to Blackboard resources - including YouTube videos and toolkits:

Blackboard Basics

How and where do I access Blackboard at TSU?

http://youtu.be/EN5JRoL1CTg

 

Association of College & University Educators (ACUE)

Online Teaching Toolkit

http://acue.org/online-teaching-toolkit/

 

Comprehensive list of institutional Online Resources across the U.S. (Daniel Stanford, DePaul University)

Remote Teaching Resources for Business Continuity

 

Blackboard YouTube Channel for Instructors

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLontYaReEU1tzu1T5gfiX-JQA5nBc3isN

 

We will be sending resources to our students to help them transition and be successful in what will be, for many of them, their first experience with online learning. We are also creating an email account (corona@airllevant.com) that students, faculty and staff can use to ask questions related to TSU and the coronavirus/COVID-19.

 

Spring Break Travel

Very important: If, during Spring Break, you are traveling to a country identified by the CDC with a Level 3 Travel Health Notice (currently Italy, China, South Korea, Iran and Venezuela), depending on your travel history, you will be asked to stay home and self-quarantine for a period of 14 days from the time you left an area with widespread or ongoing community spread. To help the university best assess potential exposure and risks to our campus community, we are asking any student, faculty or staff member who is traveling internationally during Spring Break to let us know in advance by filling out this form.

If you feel that you have potentially been exposed to the coronavirus, or if you are experiencing symptoms, please contact your physician immediately, or contact TSU Health Services at 713.313.7173. There is a list of actions to take if you do exhibit symptoms of COVID-19.

We appreciate your understanding and flexibility during these ever-changing times. Our goal is to operate the university in a safe and efficient manner, as well as keep the safety and well-being of our students, faculty and staff as the top priority.