Gradual reopening includes select facilities

After being closed since March due to the COVID-19 outbreak, some University of Wisconsin–Madison facilities are reopening on a limited basis, with new safety requirements such as masking and physical distancing.

The plans are part of a gradual reopening process for select facilities, coordinated by campus leaders and public health experts. All UW employees should wait for instructions from their dean, director or department chair before reporting back to campus.

Allen Centennial Garden is now open 12.5 hours each week. Interested visitors to the 2.5-acre garden may visit allencentennialgarden.wisc.edu to learn more about public hours, safety requirements and how to reserve time in the garden.

Memorial Library is also open in a limited capacity, weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon, to UW–Madison faculty, staff and graduate students. The library has limited the number of patrons to 50 per day, by appointment only. The library is offering self-service catalog access, limited self-service scanning and materials check out. Memorial Library also continues to offer pick-up by appointment services weekdays, 1-5 p.m.. Laptops may also be checked out at Memorial weekdays, 1-5 p.m., no appointment necessary. UW–Madison plans to open additional libraries on a limited basis later this month. Visit library.wisc.edu for updates.

The Chazen Museum of Art will reopen to the public on July 14 for limited hours Tuesday-Friday. Only the first and second floors of the Chazen building will be open to visitors at this time. Beginning on Friday, July 10, interested visitors will be able to reserve a time to visit the museum through the Chazen website.

Per campus guidelines, all visitors, students and employees at all campus locations must wear masks or face coverings and practice physical distancing of 6 feet. This includes wearing masks outdoors in the Allen Centennial Garden.

Campus childcare facilities are also now open. Eagle’s Wing, UW Child Development Lab, and Waisman Early Childhood Program reopened last week, with additional safety procedures. Little Chicks Learning Academy remained open during the campus closure to provide assistance to health care workers.

The reopening of these units is part of a plan known as Smart Restart, aimed at fully reopening campus for a hybrid of face-to-face and remote instruction beginning on Sept. 2.

As the slow reopening of UW–Madison continues, other public-serving areas and select research labs will be contacted to submit resumption plans for review and approval. Watch for additional announcements in the coming weeks.

Near complete reopening of the campus is planned to occur in mid-August and includes additional departments and units. Guidance for those areas is still under development. At that time most departments and programs will resume, but with modified staffing levels to facilitate physical distancing and limit density.