To Members of the Campus Community:

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will resume normal operations tonight at 11. Employees are expected to make every reasonable effort to report for work.

Employees who do not work must use personal time (vacation, floating holiday, accrued compensatory time) or take an excused, unpaid absence.

I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your understanding throughout this weather emergency. I understand that instructing you to stay away from work can create a hardship for some employees. Please know that we have worked hard to provide a generous benefit package of vacation, holidays, sick and personal leave time well above the Big Ten average. Vacation and floating holidays provide for situations such as the one we faced this week.

We made the decision to limit campus operations, because despite the efforts to clear the campus, the community, county and state roads of the snow, the blowing wind and frigid temperatures made it unsafe to maintain normal operations.

Today, the Facilities and Services team continues working to clear streets, parking lots and sidewalks across campus. They expect to have that work substantially completed by the start of the work day tomorrow (Tuesday, Jan. 7). For information on parking options while lots are being cleared, go to: http://www.fs.illinois.edu/services/maintenance/snow-removal

To all of the employees who have been working to clear the snow and keep vital services in operation during the emergency, I offer my deepest thanks.

Sincerely,

Phyllis M. Wise

Chancellor