All, it’s been a very busy day with lots of meetings associated with move-in and more. A few updates:
You should have received by now the news that we had to cancel Family Weekend and Homecoming; read the message. We have also postponed the Class of 2020 Commencement to our backup date next May (P’20 families got an email about it). Hope you know that these decisions were made in the interest of health and safety. I know that many families were looking forward to Family Weekend and being able to see their students. We’ll communicate information about visitation guidelines and policies as soon as they are finalized.
Very important reminder for your students: they need to complete the entire COVID Key Items Checklist; they need to do each of the tasks within and then – importantly – enter their name in the Checklist Completion Agreement and submit it. We must have that from all undergraduate students before moving in or accessing campus. Know that some of you are still awaiting test results and I hope to have an update on how to handle that situation tomorrow (we are working on it).
Related to the Key Items Checklist, want to comment on one of the components, which is the SneezSafe symptom monitoring that students must register for (now) and begin using when they get to campus. Employees already need to use SneezSafe, so every morning I get a text pinging me to complete a short few questions about any symptoms I have. I was under the weather last night, and this morning when I took my screening and shared my symptoms, instead of getting a green light that I am cleared to work, I got a red stop sign saying I was not cleared. I did not read the message clearly and missed the giant button that said “Click to Call the Nurse,” so about 20 minutes later, I got a call from a wonderful nurse who checked in on me. We talked about my issue and she made sure I did not need additional medical attention (I didn’t). But I was extremely impressed with the system and how it worked. Your Deacs will use this once they get to campus and I was happy to road test it myself and see firsthand its effectiveness.
I got some new views of how students will see familiar places with new signs encouraging safe practices (I particularly like the “Safe Six” one). Thought you might like to see these.
