Statements from President Crow

President Michael M. Crow Message to ASU Faculty and Staff

March 18, 2020

I specifically want to get an audio and video message her to faculty and staff. I have gotten some feedback that folks have felt a little bit uncertain about the messaging since so much of our messaging has been directed at students and student health and student safety and keeping everything running. And so, let me say some things.

First, thank you to all of you for really “mounting up” I mean this has been a fantastic, fantastic thing to see where everybody has just jumped in and just put everything they could into being open.

So, we’re open. We’re open in digital format. We’ve got tens of thousands of learners. We’ve got 70,000 students that were on-campus that are now digitally with us. We’ve got tens of thousands of online learners. We run a charter school system with thousands of K-12 students who are now in school. We run a digital high school with 20,000-plus learners, all moving forward. It’s just fantastic.

Research labs are moving forward. Everything is moving forward. I just want to say thank you.

But having said that, we did clarify where we are relative to being at work. Being at work now is a decision, being here physically with us, we think we can work pretty effectively digitally, but it’s really a decision of your supervisor at the vicepresidential level.

We’re operating well in the mode that we’re in. I don’t know what percentage of staff are on campus today or yesterday, but it’s not that many. So we’re social distancing and doing everything that is being required of us, and we’re ready, if we need to be ready, to go to yet another level of social distancing, which is just a core set of essential personnel who need to be on campus and everybody else will be at home.

Now we’re not there yet. We may get there on short notice. That may happen. But the most important thing that we’re doing is that we’re listening very carefully to the health department. For the state, we’re talking to the Mayo Clinic. We’re talking to others and to physicians and we’re adjusting as more becomes known about what is going on here in Arizona and how that’s related to what’s going on elsewhere.

Most importantly, please understand that your safety is definitely on my mind. We want the team to be completely intact when we come through this, but we also want to be able to operate through all of this.

And so, we’re not going to do that if a bunch of us get sick. And so, we’re working hard to keep that to a minimum of risk as possible. As it looks like things are changing, we’ll make other adjustments and we’ll communicate immediately. I think the most important thing I’d like all of you to do is to think through how you can be of service.

Whether you’re at home or whether you’re online or you’re coming into the office every once in a while, or on to campus every once in a while. Stay safe. Stay focused. Let’s keep this place working.

None of us knows how long this is going to last. None of us now how long or what the exact nature of it is going to be, but I do want us to continue doing what we do and making things happen.

So, if you have issues or concerns, talk to your vice-presidential group. If all else fails and you can’t get what you need, write to me at michael.crow@asu.edu.

We’ll do our best to get back to you.

Let’s just stay safe out there. Take care of your families. Take care of yourself. And let’s keep this place working in its digital form.

Thanks.