This page contains a selection of questions and answers that NMU has received from faculty and staff. Visit NMU's Safe on Campus website for more information on NMU's Safe on Campus plans.

Updated 1/17/2022

Employees and workforce

  • As of January 10, 2022, Northern is requiring all students, faculty and staff to wear either an N95, KN95 or KN94 mask type inside all NMU facilities until further notice. For more information about face masks, including how to wear and care for one, visit the CDC website.

  • ALL individuals – vaccinated and not vaccinated – must wear masks when indoors at ALL Northern facilities. Northern will require a mask to be worn by all individuals – vaccinated and not vaccinated – whenever inside a Northern facility. This includes ALL areas of ALL university facilities – classrooms, labs, hallways, lounges, dining locations, etc. The only exceptions are private living spaces (residence hall rooms and apartments), private offices, when an individual is the lone person in a university vehicle, and when an individual is actively eating in an NMU eatery.  The mask requirement includes visitors on campus and groups renting NMU facilities.

  • Additionally, Northern will continue to ask all within the on-campus community, vaccinated or not, to monitor for COVID-19 symptoms on a daily basis. However, the University will no longer require documentation of daily monitoring, as we have been in some areas.
     
  • Current campus-wide pandemic protocols can be found on the Safe On Campus website.

If you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, do not attend class, work, or campus and community activities. Please communicate with your instructors and/or work supervisors via email or phone to say you are not feeling well and will be absent. Stay home, avoid contact with others as much as possible, and contact your healthcare provider or the NMU Health Center for next steps, including COVID-19 testing. Instructors are not required to provide remote class sessions for absent students, but rather will work individually with students to provide options for making up missed class time and assignments. Students who have other issues due to being absent from class or work because of COVID-19 symptoms or infection, should consult with the Dean of Students Office.

Regular and temporary faculty and staff should fill out the Positive Result/Potential Exposure Notification Form if you have been contacted and told to self-quarantine by a healthcare provider or a health department as a result of a potential exposure.

Fill out the Positive Result/Potential Exposure Notification Form. Once the form is submitted, do not go work on campus until your primary healthcare provider indicates that you can go to work (submitting documentation to Human Resources may be required before you can return to work).

Benefits

If you are sick you should remain at home and get well, and using your sick leave enables you to be paid while you are unable to work. The University provides employees sick leave for the very purpose to use when you are sick.

If you are in need of leave time, please contact Kimberly Hongisto at khongist@nmu.edu or via phone (906) 227-2470.

Northern has a medical accommodations process for employees with medical conditions that affect their working situation. If you have a medical condition, work with Human Resources to complete the medical accommodation process.  Contact Renee Sheen, Associate Director of Human Resources, at 227-2331 or Rhea Dever, AVP of Human Resources, at 227-2333. Human Resources will work with the employee and will provide guidance to the supervisor.

NMU Health Center is conducting blood-antibody testing for staff, faculty, and their immediate family members who carry NMU health insurance fully covered. Testing for non-NMU insurance holders remains prohibitively expensive due to the tests being processed at an outside lab. Contact the Health Center at 227-2355 or x2355 to schedule a 15-minute lab appointment if you wish to participate.

Yes. This type of appointment with your in-network doctor is known as telehealth medical services. Telehealth includes the most common behavioral health therapy services as well as the most common medical services. Services are subject to a $10 co-pay.

Travel Matters

Northern has lifted the documentation of vaccination requirement for university-sponsored travel. However, we join the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in supporting its strong recommendation that all who travel be vaccinated. In addition, NMU requires all unvaccinated employees traveling as official NMU representatives be masked when interacting with people while indoors for university purposes (i.e. at college fairs, recruiting, meeting with students/parents, etc.) regardless of that state’s masking rules.