Spring 2022 Opening Plan
Updated January 7, 2022
To the Members of the University Community:
I hope you are enjoying a wonderful winter break with your family and friends, full of rest and relaxation. While you are missed on campus, your break is well-deserved.
As we look forward to welcoming you back to campus in a few weeks, given the recent surge of COVID-19 infections, we are making some important modifications to our community health policies as we prepare for the start of the semester.
I strongly encourage you to read and familiarize yourself with the documents on our COVID-19 website regarding our Spring 2022 opening plan. These include information about vaccination and booster requirements, entry testing, our mask policy, quarantine, and isolation protocols, and more.
It is your responsibility to read this information to stay informed and remain in compliance.
The University has every intention of moving forward with a full on-ground campus experience this spring. We will utilize all of the tools available to protect our community. It will take our collective efforts to keep everyone safe as we navigate through this phase of the pandemic.
As we look forward to the Spring 2022 semester, it is important to reflect on all that we have been through as a community. When we first began dealing with COVID-19 there was much we did not know. Since that time, there have been great advances in medicine and technology that continue to inform the strategies to keep our community safe. We are fortunate to now have vaccinations that reduce the likelihood of infections, the severity of the virus, and hospitalizations and deaths.
COVID-19 will likely be with us for the foreseeable future, and we must continue to move forward as a community without letting the virus alter the mission of a Western New England University education, which is defined by close relationships and personal attention inside and outside of the classroom. We must commit to the importance of staying together as a community, and the only way to be successful will be to follow our COVID-19 guidelines.
We will work together to be agile in our evaluation of our policies and adjust them when necessary to serve the best interest of our community. The new variant will change our emphasis from the number of positive cases on campus to mitigating severe cases and hospitalizations. Moving forward, with the help of our expert faculty and staff advisors, we are prepared to make the decisions necessary to keep our community safe by monitoring all new information that comes to us daily.
We know that an increase in our campus COVID infection rate will likely bring disruptions to our daily life. We encourage everyone to engage with their faculty, Human Resources staff, or their immediate supervisor when issues arise that require flexibility and support. We are in this together.
We have been leaders in keeping students safe over the past two years and will continue to do so moving forward as Golden Bears. Thank you in advance for your support.
With gratitude,
Robert E. Johnson, Ph.D
President