Week 15 Update, Vice President for Student Life

Happy Monday, Students!

Welcome to week 15 and the last formal week of classes prior to reading days and finals. We made it! I encourage you to double down on self-care as you roll into the last few weeks before the break so that you can finish up strong.

With the advent of yet another COVID-19 variant, we are not quite out of the woods in regards to this pandemic. Over the break, do your part by continuing to practice strict public health mitigation of the virus by wearing masks in public places, social distancing, practicing good hand hygiene, and limiting crowd interaction whenever possible. Additionally, if you haven’t done so already, get your booster shot.

And please: monitor your LC email account periodically during the winter break. We plan to send you updates and instructions about re-entry to campus several weeks prior to the beginning of the semester. This may include an expectation for all students to sign up for COVID-19 testing the first week of classes, to ensure that our community is safe and that anyone who may have become infected due to travelling is identified.

When you return in January, we will be closely monitoring the overall infection rates for the campus and putting in place any additional restrictions or health mitigation efforts as needed. REMEMBER: please monitor your LC email for updates and instructions about re-entry! You don’t want to be held up from attending classes and starting off your semester on good footing.

Here is the latest regarding positive COVID cases:

• COVID-19 cases: We only needed to conduct a very small amount of tests this past week. Of the 27 community members tested so far in December there have been 0 positive on-campus and 5 positive off-campus cases. This includes undergrad, graduate and law, students, staff, faculty and outside vendors, and equates to a positivity rate of 0%.

As always, I encourage you to continue monitoring for any COVID-like symptoms and keep practicing good health mitigation efforts—only 10 more days before the winter break!

All the best,

Robin H. Holmes-Sullivan
Vice President and Dean of Students