THE UNIVERSITY HOUSING AND DINING QUARTERLY STAFF NEWSLETTER | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 | VOLUME 28 | NUMBER 1
FROM THE SENIOR DIRECTOR Welcome to 2021! I can’t tell you how happy I am that 2020 is in the rear-view mirror. On January 20, we held a virtual Town Hall meeting to discuss topics of importance to all of you. This Town Meeting was recorded and you can find a copy of the meeting at housing.uiowa.edu/townhall_jan2021. At the meeting we discussed the following: Our successes despite COVID-19 – over the past nine months we have battled to minimize the impact of COVID-19 on our campus and with our staff and students. We celebrated minimal transmission of COVID-19 from students to staff and staff to students; the low percentage of staff who contracted COVID-19; surviving the early fall infection surge; protected students and staff through purchases of hand sanitizer, touchless faucets, Plexiglas, and antivirals; provided quarantine/isolation housing; provided hundreds of thousands of meals with a format we had never used before; and supported our students through innovation, care, and generous contract release policies. That’s a lot of success, but I know it wasn’t easy. Thanks to all the staff for their dedication in making our students’ experience a good one during a bad time. Our financial position – I shared that we had reduced income due to fewer residents in the residence halls and dining and a reduction in the number of retail operations this past fall. We also had reduced expenses with less student labor, open full time positions, reduced utilities, and furloughs. The good news is that we were able to generate a small net income during the first six months. We wouldn’t have been able to do that without everyone’s contribution through the furlough program. The money saved through furloughs is the difference between net income and net loss during the first six months of the fiscal year. We will see if we can continue to reduce expenses in the spring semester without furloughs. Vaccine possibilities – we asked the university if they would be willing to make the COVID vaccine available to front line staff in the department. They are willing to make it available to them, after health care workers and K-12 educators. While there is no timeline for the vaccine, custodial, maintenance, and dining staff – students and full time employees – should have the opportunity to receive the vaccine at some point in the spring semester. Rates for next year – we will be presenting our housing and dining rates for next year to the Board of Regents, State of Iowa in February. At the time of this writing, we do not have rates set and we look to balance the need to add to our depleted reserves and the desire to keep rates low for our students who live and eat with us. The Board of Regents will meet virtually on February 24. We also discussed additional CARES Act money provided to the university in the second federal stimulus package. No decisions have been made at this time, but we are hopeful that any funding will allow us to ensure we can meet our annual bond payment this year and continue to upgrade our residential and dining facilities. There were a number of questions asked and answered during the town meeting, which will be included in future Friday communications to departmental employees. Again, I look forward to a great 2021 and working toward a post-COVID university. Take care and stay healthy! Until next time… Von