Anne Ehrlich, Vice President for College Life and Dean of Students, and Jen Lucas, Executive Director of Human Resources, update the campus community about COVID-19 testing and COVID-19 policies.
Dear Members of the Gettysburg College Community,
We write to you today to provide an update on the College’s first week of COVID-19 surveillance testing. As a reminder, the College required vaccinations for all students unless they had a medical or religious exemption approved by the institution, and it has highly encouraged vaccinations for all employees. More community members continue to be vaccinated each day. We anticipate a total campus community vaccination rate of 93% for this academic year. As we communicated previously, the vaccination rate in Adams County remains low and transmission in our county is high. We strongly encourage you to wear masks when in town.
COVID-19 testing began this week for community members. Since the arrival of students, we have had 1 positive student result and 3 positive employee results.
Understanding the broader COVID-19 landscape, and the continued presence of the virus within our daily lives, these results signal a reason for optimism as we begin our academic year together. However, at this time, knowing we are still early in the semester, and as we continue to monitor concerning levels of transmission on other college campuses, our current COVID-19 policies for indoor masking will remain in effect. As shared previously, we will evaluate our temporary indoor masking policy weekly. We will provide an update next week based on campus positivity rates and other indicators as the term’s activities begin.
Given the limited number of students and employees participating in testing, and in order to maintain privacy—as previously announced—the College will no longer maintain a public dashboard or distribute a weekly status update to the community as it did during the 2020-21 academic year. With that said, the College will immediately notify the entire community if any trends begin to emerge or a change in status warrants a shift in institutional approach.
Thank you to everyone for your cooperation as we begin this new academic year. Let’s continue to do all we can to keep our cases down and our support of one another strong.
If you have any questions, please visit the College website or contact covidupdates@gettysburg.edu.
Sincerely,
Anne Ehrlich
Vice President for College Life and Dean of Students
Jen Lucas
Executive Director of Human Resources