To All Members of the Campus Community:

I know there are a lot of questions about our approach to promoting health and safety in our community. We held a Campus COVID-19 Briefing this morning to share information and address concerns before our semester begins next week.

A video of the briefing is now available on my website, and it includes time stamps linking to the topics and questions we addressed.

Joining Provost Susan M. Collins and me were:

• Vice President for Student Life Martino Harmon
• Chief Health Officer Preeti Malani, a physician and member of our Campus Health Response Committee
• Associate Vice President for Human Resources Rich Holcomb
• Rob Ernst, a physician who chairs our Campus Health Response Committee, associate vice president of Student Life for health and wellness and ​executive director of the University Health Service
• Emily Martin, associate professor of epidemiology in our School of Public Health and member of our Campus Health Response Committee

We covered issues ranging from the importance of vaccination to the development of updated campus response metrics and mitigation strategies, safety in our classrooms, breakthrough cases, and compliance with university policies. We’ll post answers to many questions that we did not have time to answer as soon as we can, and we continuously update the Campus Maize and Blueprint FAQ page.

We will schedule Campus COVID-19 Briefings when needed, and I’ll continue to provide updates to help keep everyone informed, address concerns and respond to feedback and questions from our community. You also may read the University Record for the latest stories and the Campus Maize and Blueprint site for updates. Stay safe and be healthy.

Sincerely,

Mark S. Schlissel, M.D., Ph.D.
President