Longer-Term Prevention and Preparation for Chairs and Academic Unit Heads

Preventive Faculty Email and Digital Media Usage 

Communicate to your faculty their obligations regarding public record requests and IT discovery processes. 

UVA Information Security strongly recommends that employees use UVA email accounts for any work-related emails. UVA ITS strongly advises not to redirect or auto-forward email sent to your UVA-provided email address(es) to personal, non-UVA email service(s). If you wish to use a personal email account for your University work activities or redirect a University account to a personal email account, you must agree to the Email Forwarding Guidance and Conditions. 

 Tell faculty: 

• When you publish something likely to be controversial, consider making a Google Alert for your name. 
• Consider proactively block outlets that actively monitor professors' social media feeds. 
• State clearly on your social media profiles that views expressed there are your own, not those of your employer, in accordance with the University policy on Faculty Political Activity and AAUP recommendations.

The AAUP asserts that:

“professors should also have the freedom to address the larger community without regard to any matter of social, political economic, or other interest without institutional discipline or restraint, save in response to fundamental violations of professional ethics or statements that suggest disciplinary in competence."

“When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.”