Daily Digest, NPForward and positive case reporting: Communication protocols for fall 2020

The Office of Communication & Marketing, with support from the President’s Cabinet, will continue producing Daily Digest e-newsletters this fall, to provide consistent, timely updates to students and employees while also helping to reduce the overall volume of emails sent.

The Daily Digest will remain a central element of the College’s process for reporting new positive cases of COVID-19 to community members. Each issue of the Digest will include a “Coronavirus Update” announcing new, confirmed positive cases among students or employees, if any. Positive cases will only be reported for students and employees who have been on campus during the previous 14 days.

A new COVID-19 dashboard has been developed to provide real-time updates on positive cases that could pose a risk to the on-campus community. The dashboard includes a tally of “active cases,” defined as confirmed positive COVID-19 tests among individuals who have been on campus and may have exposed others.

This dashboard does not include tallies of positive cases among students taking online courses from home, or employees who are telecommuting and not coming to campus, as any such cases should not pose an on-campus health risk.

The College will also use the new text notification system, NPForward, to help keep our community informed regarding fall 2020 reopening plans, COVID-19 and related issues.

Those who prefer not to receive NPForward text notifications, or who would like to add additional mobile numbers to receive these notifications, can manage their preferences in my.newpaltz.edu by clicking the “NPAlert & NPForward link” under “Resources.”

NPAlert, the College’s emergency text alert service, will not be affected by the introduction of this new system. NPAlert will continue to be used exclusively to deliver timely, emergency announcements to our entire campus community. Students and employees may not opt out of receiving these notifications.