The University of Pittsburgh is reinventing our operations to keep the Pitt community as safe and healthy as possible while maintaining our focus on building a better future for humankind. All of our planning is built within the Resilience Framework, which allows us to monitor the pandemic conditions globally, locally and on our campus, and establishes rules to guide our behavior.
To do that, we’ve established three operational postures that drive our decision making and activity levels. We’re also creating rules and recommendations that will apply across our campuses and serve as the foundation for each office and department to prepare detailed plans addressing their unique needs.
Operational Postures
Pitt’s operational postures define what is allowable across our people, places and programs. While all of our operational postures will meet the minimum requirements provided by the counties and state, we will customize our operational posture based on factors unique to the University, including cases on campus, adherence to health and safety guidelines and availability of personal protective equipment and isolation beds.
Guarded Risk Posture: Fewer restrictions are in place, while many mitigation measures remain. The activities taking place will account for chronic risk of operating during a pandemic, while continuing to prioritize health and safety.
Elevated Risk Posture: Under this posture, life on campus prioritizes activities that have high value but lower risk.
High Risk Posture: The University is open, but activity is heavily restricted to help stop the spread of the virus.
A change in operational posture would be communicated by an all-campus email with a reminder of what that change entails.