A Message about Travel and the Thanksgiving Holiday
A COVID-19 Update
To the Bard College Community,Nearing the halfway point of the semester, we’re gratified to see our campus community healthy and productive, thanks largely to our operating protocols and the community’s consistent adherence to them. Looking forward to the rest of the semester, this is a good time to renew our commitment to safety and reiterate and reinforce some of the most important elements of our protocols.
Restricting travel is a core element of the College’s COVID safety protocols. Cases are again on the rise in many parts of New York State and across the country and, as you know, the College prohibits non-emergency travel for students outside of our local area (Dutchess, Ulster, Greene, and Columbia counties), and prohibits all work travel and non-emergency travel for our employees. Traveling to visit friends, shop, or even visit family on a non-emergency basis is considered higher risk behavior, as are visits to campus by friends and family. Among the most common vectors for the spread of COVID-19 are pre- and non-symptomatic individuals. Unnecessary travel and contact with people outside of the Bard community constitute an ongoing threat to campus safety. Any student who needs to undertake emergency travel should be in touch with the Dean of Students office to work out a travel plan.
As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, the issue of travel becomes more pressing. We expect that many students, faculty, and staff will want to travel over the holiday. For those choosing to travel at this time, Bard’s prohibition on non-emergency travel will be modified. Students who travel over Thanksgiving break will not be able to return to campus for the remainder of the semester. This includes regional and local travel to gatherings with family or friends. If you normally live on campus and spend the night elsewhere and with others - even locally - for the holiday, you must not return to campus after Thanksgiving. There will be no penalty, academically or otherwise, for students who choose to travel and complete the semester remotely. Employees who travel over Thanksgiving break must abide by the travel policy and restrictions set forth on the Human Resources website and in accordance with New York State, paying particular attention to the NYS list of restricted travel states. In addition, a separate document will be sent to employees with guidelines about hosting holiday gatherings locally.
Students who would prefer to remain on campus are welcome to do so. We will do our best to make the holiday festive and enjoyable. After Thanksgiving break, Kline Dining Commons will remain open, student services offices will be open for student support, and classes will continue on their regular schedule until the end of the semester on December 18th. The majority of classes will continue remotely after the Thanksgiving holiday, and paths to remote instruction will be available for all students who leave at Thanksgiving break and need to complete the semester remotely. The Dean’s office is asking faculty to provide details about their post-Thanksgiving teaching plans to their respective students. The Dean of Students office will also be reaching out to students about their end-of-semester plans and to assist those who need to stay on campus through next semester.
In the coming weeks we will be providing information about protocols for returning to campus for Citizen Science in January, and the spring 2021 semester of in-person teaching.
Mask wearing and physical distancing remain at the core of all COVID safety protocols. For them to work as intended they have to be applied at all appropriate times and in all locations. You must wear a mask at all times indoors and outdoors, on-campus and off; the only exceptions are outlined in the Face Mask Policy email we sent on August 28 and which you can view on the Bard COVID page. You must observe physical distancing even when wearing a mask. These two protocols work together to minimize the spread of COVID and offer the most consistent and reliable protection against infection and spread.
As a reminder, Bard maintains a campus data dashboard showing testing and health metrics for the Annandale campus. Our dashboard site has links to the Dutchess County dashboard as well as the New York State Department of Health dashboard, where our mandatory daily report to the state is available 24/7.
Sincerely,
Bard College COVID-19 Response Team
[email protected]
Coleen Alexander Murphy, Vice President for Administration
Kimberly Alexander, Director, Human Resources
Jonathan Becker, Executive Vice President and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Barbara Jean Briskey, Director, Health Services
Erin Cannan, Vice President Student Affairs/Dean for Civic Engagement
Deirdre d'Albertis, Dean of the College
Malia Du Mont, Chief of Staff, President's Office/Vice President for Strategy and Policy
Brooke Jude, Associate Professor of Biology
John Gomez, Director, Safety and Security
Emily McLaughlin, Associate Dean of the College
Jennifer Murray, Dean of International Studies
Bethany Nohlgren, Dean of Students
Kahan Sablo, Dean for Inclusive Excellence
David Shein, Associate VP for Academic Affairs/Dean of Studies
Éric Trudel, Chair, Faculty Senate
For more information, call 845-758-6822, or e-mail [email protected].