Buildings Access and Activation

In order to control campus access within a de-densified environment and maintain the health and safety of our community, Northwestern has put in place various campus management strategies for the academic year.

Northwestern will use a tiered approach to building access in the winter quarter depending on the community’s need to access each space. The community should be ready to show their symptomtracker badge and use their Wildcard for building access if needed whenever they are on campus this winter. Building monitors will actively monitor high-use campus spaces and conduct random health compliance checks to ensure the safety of our community. Other less frequently used spaces on campus will require Wildcard access.

Building Access Tiers Overview

In order to provide a safe and de-densified environment for our campus community, Northwestern will have different tiers of building access across campus. Each building will fit into one of these tiers depending on the anticipated services and usage needs.

Northwestern has outlined the access levels for each community group by building access tiers to allow undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty and staff to have slightly different default access levels for some buildings.

Building Access Tiers	Undergraduate Students		Graduate Students		Faculty/Staff
Building Access Tiers	Published Building Hours	After-Hours Access	Published Building Hours	After-Hours Access	Published Building Hours	After-Hours Access
Buildings unlocked and/or have broad community privileges Buildings that have instruction, recreation, campus student study spaces, major student service buildings, and/or are public facing. Building hours will be established for each building and space.	Green dot⬤	Yellow dot⬤	Green dot⬤	Yellow dot⬤	Green dot⬤	Yellow dot⬤
Buildings with limited community privileges Buildings that will require Wildcard swipes to access with select community privileges	Red dot⬤	Red dot⬤	Yellow dot⬤	Red dot⬤	Yellow dot⬤	Red dot⬤
Buildings that will remain locked Buildings that will remain locked unless individual access is given. Access will continue to be managed locally.	Red dot⬤	Red dot⬤	Red dot⬤	Red dot⬤	Red dot⬤	Red dot⬤

Legend:
Green dot⬤ Building unlocked during published building hours Yellow dot
⬤ Building access limited to swipe card access during building hours; assessed on a building-by-building basis
Red dot⬤ Building access restricted. Individual building access will continue to be managed locally

Note that any preexisting individual access or extended hours granted to faculty, staff, and students for a specific building has not changed and will continue for the academic year. Any individual that needs extended hours to individual buildings should follow the existing school/unit access request process. These schools/units will submit individual access requests to Facilities following the existing building access process.

Individual Building Hours and Access

Community access and hours will vary by building. Please review this table for specific hours and access level for each building on campus for Winter term. Buildings will also have signage linking to this information by the front entrances.

Note that any preexisting individual access or extended hours granted to faculty, staff, and students for a specific building has not changed. Building hours and access levels indicate only default access provided.

Building Monitor Checks

In order to ensure the health and safety of our community in shared spaces, Northwestern will be conducting randomized health and safety checks in commonly occupied spaces across campus during school hours. Northwestern community members must report daily symptoms using the symptomtracker app and should be ready to show your badge if asked to do so by a building monitor in any building on campus this quarter. These random checks, along with a rigorous testing compliance process, are important steps to fostering a healthy campus environment.

Building Reactivation

In late March 2020, Facilities Operations reduced the operation of certain building systems and services to save energy, reduce costs and focus limited essential staff resources to the most effective locations.

Most buildings have been reactivated based on Fall 2020 Return to Campus plans. Learn more about building systems that will need to be returned to operating conditions.

BUILDING Activation Status and Schedule