Information for faculty

This page covers the following topics:

Current COVID-19 health requirements
If you test positive for COVID-19
Classes and instruction
Guidance on instruction and classroom management
Returning from travel
COVID and paid leave options
Benefits and retirement
Medical treatment at UCLA
Well-being resources
COVID dashboards

COVID health checklist: What do I need to do?

For all current COVID-19–related heatlh requirements and recommendations — including information on vaccines and boosters, isolation and quarantine, and entry to campus events — please see:

COVID protocols at a glance

Not required: Daily symptom monitoring, indoor masking and weekly surveillance testing are no longer required, although masking indoors remains strongly recommended.

If you test positive for COVID

If you test positive through UCLA campus testing, you’ll be contacted by campus health officials with instructions. Your close contacts — those who have been within 6 feet of you in an indoor setting for a total of 15 minutes over a 24-hour period — will be notified by contact tracers, who will instruct them on further steps.

If you test positive outside of UCLA or take an at-home test that comes back positive, you should upload the results of your test (whether PCR or rapid antigen) to the UCLA COVID-19 Action Center and contact the UCLA COVID Call Center below. Likewise, if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and have been in contact with an infected person, call the call center.

For faculty and staff
UCLA COVID Call Center
310-825-6771
covidcallcenter@mednet.ucla.edu

Campus health officials will then advise you and any close contacts on how to proceed, per UCLA’s isolation and quarantine protocols or LACDPH’s isolation and quarantine instructions.

Classes and instruction

Nearly all courses are being taught in person, and there are no caps on the number of students allowed in a classroom beyond normal room capacities.

Pivoting to hybrid or remote instruction

Significant changes in the public health landscape could require UCLA to make changes to instruction — including adjusting classroom density or enrollment limits or shifting to hybrid or completely remote instruction. Our COVID-19 Pivot Plan (PDF) describes the criteria that will inform possible changes in our operations.

Guidance on instruction and classroom management

While in-person learning is the norm, instructors should strive to create course structures that are flexible enough to accommodate students’ COVID-19–related absences, including assessments that can easily be completed by students who missed class and which can be transferred to a remote environment if remote instruction becomes necessary.

Accommodating students who can’t attend class

While in-person learning is the norm, instructors should aim to create course structures that are flexible enough to accommodate student absences due to COVID-19. You will not be expected to teach in two different modalities, but we encourage you to adopt some strategies that have already been successfully used by instructors and appreciated by students.

Recording and livestreaming lectures
Whenever possible, make asynchronous video or audio recordings of course lectures available to students (see: Recording an empty Zoom meeting). You may also decide to livestream lectures by Zoom (making sure to turn on real-time automatic captioning). Check to see what audio-video recording capabilities your classroom has, or reach out to the UCLA Center for Advancement of Teaching for information on alternative options.

Grading and attendance
In light of COVID, instructors should reconsider grading schemes based on attendance or in-class participation. Alternative, asynchronous activities may offer more effective — and less logistically challenging — ways to engage students. At a minimum, instructors will need to offer students who miss class due to illness ways to make up participation and attendance points.

It is recommended that instructors design class assessments that can easily be completed by students who were absent and that can be transferred to a remote environment if remote instruction becomes necessary.

Resources on how to use technology effectively for teaching, learning and assessment:

If you are ill or test positive for COVID

It is likely that during the course of the term, some instructors will develop symptoms or test positive for COVID-19 and will be required to isolate or quarantine, per UCLA guidelines — or they may be required to travel for work or another reason.

In these cases, you may teach up to two classes in a row remotely without prior authorization. Any shift to remote instruction that extends beyond two classes and lasts up to two weeks requires the approval of the department chair and/or dean; a change lasting longer than two weeks requires final approval from UCLA COVID-19 Response and Recovery Task Force’s Education Working Group.

Rather than shifting briefly to remote instruction, you may want to ask a fellow faculty member, co-instructor or teaching assistant to lead one or more or your classes if you will be unavailable.

Accessibility for students with disabilities

UCLA is committed to ensuring that students with disabilities have an equal opportunity to participate in the rich academic experience UCLA offers. The UCLA Center for Accessible Education will work closely with these students and their instructors to determine appropriate accommodations and develop a plan tailored to the needs of students in each their courses.

The UCLA Office of Information Technology’s Disabilities and Computing Program also helps to ensure that faculty and students are aware of accessible best practices and that academic content is available and understandable to all.

Dealing with violations of campus COVID protocols

There may be times when a student, after being reminded, continues to ignore campus health and safety protocols. Instructors are encouraged to report repeat violations to the Office of Student Conduct at dean@saonet.ucla.edu or 310-825-3871. In addition, reports of violations may be made anonymously through UCLA’s whistleblower hotline at 800-403-4744. Reports of violations will generally be processed within one business day, and a determination will be made whether the violation was willful or not.

Students with willful violations, repeated violations or violations believed to have resulted in COVID-19 infections will face disciplinary measures up to and including exclusion from campus.

In general, instructors should do what they can to de-escalate situations of noncompliance, but it may be necessary to ask a noncompliant student to leave the classroom. If a student refuses to leave, instructors can consider ending the class or shifting to remote instruction for the day, although they are reminded to consider whether the risk posed by a noncompliant student justifies the learning disruption. All such instances should be reported, as above, to the Office of Student Conduct.

If faculty members or TAs demonstrate repeated noncompliance with health and safety protocols, a complaint can be made to the instructor’s department chair, divisional dean, academic personnel officer or the dean of students.

For full details of UCLA’s protocol on compliance and violations, see Compliance With Safety Measures (PDF).

Returning from travel

UCLA is following the travel advisory issued by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on returning from domestic and international travel.

Major points of that guidance are listed below. For full details, please visit the CDC’s travel page.

Returning from travel within the U.S.

If your travel involved situations with a greater risk of exposure to COVID-19, such as being in crowded places while not wearing a well-fitting mask, it is recommended that you:

Take a COVID-19 test, either through a lab or at home, upon your return
Self-monitor for COVID-19 symptoms

If you test positive or develop symptoms, follow isolation and quarantine protocols.

For more information, see the CDC’s domestic travel page.

Returning from international travel

U.S. citizens are not required to show proof of vaccination or a negative test to reenter the United States from abroad; non–U.S. citizens, however, must show proof of having received a primary vaccination series, with limited exceptions.

It is recommended that all travelers, regardless of their vaccination status:

Take a COVID-19 test within three to five days after their return to the U.S.
Self-monitor for COVID-19 symptoms

If you test positive or develop symptoms, follow isolation and quarantine protocols.

For more information, see the CDC’s international travel page.

COVID, paid leave options and vacation days

Paid leave and COVID

In addition to making use of regular accrued leave and other paid leave, faculty now have the option of taking emergency paid sick leave.

University of California employees— including exclusively represented employees — who are unable to work as a result of COVID-19 can use emergency paid sick leave between Feb. 19, 2022, and Dec. 31, 2022. Full-time employees may take up to 80 hours of emergency leave, and part-time employees may take up to the two-week equivalent, while receiving their regular rate of pay. An employee may request EPSL by speaking to their supervisor or by submitting a completed emergency leave request form (PDF) to their supervisor.

If an employee took any leave between Jan. 1, 2022, and Feb. 18, 2022, for one or more of the emergency leave–qualifying reasons but was not paid as described above, the employee may submit a retroactive request to use emergency leave.

Employees are encouraged to contact their local human resources representative at UCLA for more information about paid leave related to COVID-19.

Accrued vacation days and COVID

Because of increased workloads and COVID-19–related restrictions, many policy-covered faculty members have been unable to take time off and have accrued the maximum allowable vacation leave.

UC approved a second extension of the temporary exception to PPSM-2.210 (Absence from Work), which allowed policy-covered staff employees additional time to take vacation leave in order to bring their vacation accrual balances below the maximum. The exception deadline was extended to June 30, 2022. During the exception period, employees whose balances exceeded the maximum continued to accrue vacation leave. Since July 1, 2022, employees who were over the maximum vacation leave accrual limit have stopped accruing additional hours.

For more on UC policies in response to COVID-19, visit UC’s coronavirus updates for employees page. You can also contact Campus Human Resources or your departmental HR representative for details.

UCLA Health and medical school

Faculty at UCLA Health and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA — working both on campus and remotely — should refer to the following resources for details on work, research, leave and other topics:

For questions related to work, benefits and other resources, UCLA Health employees should visit UCLA Health’s human resources page.

Benefits and retirement

The University of California provides updates for UC faculty members on how their health, welfare and retirement benefits plans may be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. For more information, contact your UCLA human resources representative.

Medical treatment at UCLA Health facilities

In-person visits: UCLA hospitals in Westwood and Santa Monica and clinics throughout Southern California are open, including imaging and interventional centers. Precautions against COVID-19 are in place at all locations. Employees who are UCLA Health patients should contact their doctor directly or call 800-825-2631 to schedule an appointment.

Video visits: For ease and convenience, patients can schedule video visits with their doctor. For information on video visits, patients can call their doctor’s office or 800-825-2631. Click here to learn more about video visits.

Prescriptions and medication: All UCLA retail pharmacies are currently operating and can be reached at 310-206-3784.

For more information on appointments and other health-related topics, visit UCLA Health’s website.

UCLA Health visitor guidelines: Hospitals and clinics require that visitors wear a face mask at all times and strongly recommend that all visitors are vaccinated and have received a booster, if eligible. Visitors coming to hospitals or clinics for multiple consecutive days may be required to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test. Learn more here.

Well-being and counseling

Employees are encouraged to contact UCLA’s Staff and Faculty Counseling Center, which offers online advice and telehealth sessions for UCLA staff and their families and significant others. The center can be reached at 310-794-0245.

Further resources are available on this site’s Emotional, Social and Physical Well-Being page.

UCLA Health and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA have established a COVID-19 Wellness and Mental Health Workgroup to provide emotional support for UCLA Health staff and faculty working on the front lines of the pandemic.

COVID dashboards

Vaccination rates and confirmed COVID cases dashboard
UCLA provides regular updates on the number of students, faculty and staff — both on and off campus — who have been confirmed by medical professionals to have COVID-19. Consistent with the protocols for infectious disease response, anyone identified within our campus community as being at risk of COVID-19 as a result of exposure to an infected person will be notified if they need to quarantine and be tested.

COVID-19 case notification (PDF)
In accordance with California’s Assembly Bill 2693 (previously AB 685), UCLA’s case dashboard keeps those on campus informed when they have potentially been exposed to an individual believed to be infectious with COVID-19 in a UCLA building or workplace. For details, see UCLA’s Standard Operating Procedure for Responding to COVID-19 Cases.