Dear Alfred University alumni, parents, and friends,
FYI - this email was sent to students, faculty, and staff earlier today:
Effective today, we are instituting additional safety measures to protect students, staff, and faculty at Alfred University. These measures are a result of a recent increase in COVID-19 cases that have been identified through surveillance testing and symptomatic students presenting at the Wellness Center. The additional measures include:
- Curtailing all extracurricular activities and athletics, including practices, strength and conditioning, in-person team meetings, and so on;
- Instituting a curfew on campus effective at 10:00 p.m. each night where students need to be in their residence hall and will not be able to leave until 7:00 a.m. the following morning;
- Increased enforcement relating to mask use, social distancing, and group gatherings; and
- Further restricting in-person dining capacity at all campus food providers with an encouragement of relying on “grab and go” options instead.
These measures will remain in place at least until Monday, October 19 and may be extended if we experience an increase in the rate of positive cases before then.
Students who choose not to comply with the safeguards or follow the health and safety guidelines outlined in Protect the Lux will meet with the office of the Dean of Student Wellbeing for a violation of the student conduct process. As a reminder, sanctions for mask non-compliance include warnings, probation, and suspension. Sanctions for non-compliance with other safeguards, such as breaking curfew, hosting or participating in group gatherings larger than 10 people, traveling off campus for non-essential reasons, and failure to appear for testing when assigned include probation, suspension and expulsion. We expect that our Dean of Student Wellbeing will be issuing some initial probations or suspensions over the coming days.
We are also recommending that staff and faculty restrict their travel to only the most essential trips. As in the past, any essential travel undertaken to states listed on the travel advisory list at the time of the trip will require the travelers to quarantine for two weeks in New York before returning to campus.
We are increasing our weekly surveillance testing volume in an effort to identify infected students before they have the opportunity to transmit the virus more broadly. The volume of those tested will remain at the increased level for the rest of the semester.
As of today, there are 11 students in isolation who have tested positive for COVID-19, and 101 students in quarantine traced to those positive tests. The current trend is unfortunate and unsustainable based on the amount of isolation and quarantine space available to us on and off campus. We do not want to go the route of schools such as Elmira College, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Oneonta, Gettysburg College, Temple University, and SUNY Oswego which have already pivoted back online for at least two weeks or the entire remainder of the semester; Syracuse University is poised to join this group next week at the rate their positive cases are currently trending.
We are counting on each of you to serve as positive role models for our students and to report any students or fellow employees you see who fail to comply with all COVID-19 related rules and guidelines.
The safety of all those on the Alfred University campus and in the surrounding community is our highest priority. Ensuring that safety will provide the greatest opportunity to complete the semester in person as opposed to online. Thanks in advance for your ongoing help and resilience.
