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1-19-22: Campus Community Message

graphic for a COVID-19 Community Message at The College of Wooster

Dear Students, Families and Colleagues,

Welcome back to the spring semester!  We are so glad to have students back on campus again.  I’m writing with a brief public health update.

We begin the spring semester as the Omicron variant is spreading rapidly around the world, but cases and hospitalizations are beginning to decline in some regions, including northeast Ohio.  Here on campus, we have put additional protections in place to preserve our ability to support a full student experience, safely.  These include starting the semester with one week of remote classes, requiring COVID boosters for students, and providing, and requiring, N95, KN95 or KF94 masks in shared settings.

We have also required students to test before coming to campus, and tested all students again with rapid antigen tests on arrival.  Like many of our peer institutions, we are seeing about 2% positivity on arrival with the antigen tests (31 positives out of about 1550 tests. Based on the national data, we had planned for the likelihood of this number of positives.

We are looking forward to beginning in-person classes on Monday, January 24th.  As a reminder, you can always find updated guides to our operations and public health status here.  Here are a few key points.

  • Students are required to wear high-quality, medical grade masks in shared spaces for at least the first three weeks of the term.  Please wear the N95, KN95 or KF94 masks provided to you, and not cloth masks, which are less effective.
  • Faculty and staff will also be provided with high-quality masks for use on campus.  Please watch for an email from Angela Johnston with details on how to obtain them.
  • Students are required to have a COVID booster shot. We will have an additional booster clinic next week for students who have not yet received their booster.
  • Students who feel unwell should stay in their rooms and contact the Wellness Center for next steps.  Faculty or staff who feel unwell should stay home, and contact their medical provider for guidance.
  • Students, staff and faculty who are not fully vaccinated are required to test weekly, and we may also test additional individuals (students, staff, and faculty) as needed to monitor campus public health and inform our decision-making.
  • Through the next several weeks, we may see more students having to be out of class for various reasons including those related to COVID (such as isolation) as well as those related to other winter illnesses or injuries, family concerns, travel disruptions, etc.  The Dean for Curriculum and Academic Engagement and the staff in the Dean of Students’ office will communicate with faculty about individual student situations, and, as usual, students may be supported in a variety of ways for brief class absences that arise for any reason.

We expect that the Omicron wave will continue to be with us for a few weeks still, and ask everyone’s patience and forbearance as we work to support students, staff and faculty through this period.  We very much look forward to the warmer spring weather and to seeing case counts across the country dropping soon!  We will continue to follow the campus situation carefully and to adhere to best practices as recommended by our public health advisors.  We will keep you informed of any changes, and update our dashboard weekly for your information.

My tremendous thanks to everyone in our community who has worked so hard to launch our semester safely!  Your dedication and commitment to the work and well-being of our College and to Wooster Scots is tremendous.

Go Scots!

Sarah Bolton
President

Posted in Community Message on January 19, 2022.