Students,
We are so excited to have you back on campus. I hope you are settling into your classes and activities and enjoying the chance to connect with each other in person. I want to share a couple of reminders about our existing health and safety protocols, particularly as they intersect with our community values.
Extending Compassion
As of August 26, 94% of Rhodes students and 91% of faculty and staff are vaccinated. Our vaccination rates are high, which will offer our community a great deal of protection as this variant spreads––including protection for those who are medically vulnerable and could not be vaccinated. While we know that we will still have positive cases, vaccination ensures that most will be mild or asymptomatic and less likely to interrupt your academic work and life greatly, even if you need to isolate.
While we expect those numbers to go up a bit more ahead of the September 30 vaccination deadline, I want you to keep in mind that the small number of people who are not yet vaccinated received exemptions for legitimate medical or religious reasons or had special circumstances that have delayed them. As a campus community that is committed to maintaining a sense of belonging, I want to remind you that we should not make assumptions about those who did not receive the vaccine.
We should respect each other's commitment to wellbeing and the privacy of our peers related to their vaccination status. We should not ever engage in peer pressure or bully individuals to disclose their vaccination status. In the event that you discover someone is unvaccinated, I would expect that you are treating them with compassion and support, in the same way which you would treat any member of this community. I trust that you will all be understanding of one another, knowing that we do not and should not know all the circumstances of another person’s medical decisions.
Our campus expectation of compassion has been a long-standing value at Rhodes, and we need to embrace this particular value now more than ever. I am grateful for each of you and your commitment to health and safety and each other.
Masking
I have seen some of you unmasked indoors, and wearing loose fitting masks and gaiters that do not stay up. I understand that we may not all agree about masking and that many of us would prefer not to be masked; however, in concert with vaccination, masks are our best line of defense against the spread of the delta variant.
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Have two or more layers
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Completely cover your nose and mouth
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Fit snugly against the sides of your face and don’t have gaps
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Have a nose wire to prevent air leaking out of the top of the mask
Regardless of the mask you choose, you should always wear it over both your nose and mouth. Face shields are not a substitute for masks and gaiters are not recommended unless they adhere to the suggestions above.
Failure to be appropriately masked in accordance with CDC guidelines put our in-person activities and experiences at risk.
Asymptomatic Testing
In addition to those currently enrolled in the asymptomatic testing protocol, we will be beginning our focused testing strategy of all students alphabetically by last name, starting September 7.
Please visit the asymptomatic testing schedule to find your testing week. It is important that you plan to test on your assigned week so that we can distribute our resources effectively. This will help us identify asymptomatic positive cases to slow the spread of COVID on campus amidst the highly transmissible delta variant. Failure to report to testing on your assigned week will be documented as a violation of the Lynx Promise.
Thanks to all of you for your commitment to keeping our community safe and healthy. If you have further questions, please reach out to studentlife@rhodes.edu.
Be Well
Please be sure you are attending to all of the dimensions of your wellbeing including eating well, sleeping eight hours a night, committing time and energy to both physical exercise and mental health, and finding safety and health ways to foster your social and creative wellbeing.
I am grateful for all you have done to follow our return to campus protocols, and I am delighted to have our campus community back in action.
I look forward to seeing you around campus.
-mhw
Meghan Harte Weyant, Ph.D.
Vice President for Student Life