Dear Faculty and Staff Members,
I am writing today to provide you with updates on-campus testing and vaccination expectations for our faculty and staff.
As communicated May 7 by President Crawford, colleges across the country are making important decisions about vaccination requirements for members of their campus communities. Puget Sound has announced that it will expand student immunization requirements to include COVID-19 effective with the beginning of the fall 2021 semester. In addition, we have been strongly encouraging all faculty and staff members to get vaccinated and are monitoring evolving federal and state guidelines for employer regulations regarding the vaccination of employees.
Vaccination is the most effective means to manage individual and campus community COVID-19 risks. A widely vaccinated community also will enable Puget Sound to most effectively function and deliver on our mission and help us determine the most appropriate campus testing protocol.
In support of the above goals, we are seeking to determine how many faculty and staff are fully vaccinated. That information is vital for managing summer and falls COVID-19 risks and operations, including mask-wearing, social distancing, and testing. For the safety of the campus, all faculty and staff are presumed to be unvaccinated unless they provide proof of vaccination as described below, and thus are subject to all campus testing expectations and other operational requirements to minimize the risk of COVID-19 exposure on campus. Faculty and staff who demonstrate that they are fully vaccinated will no longer be required to participate in the university’s regular asymptomatic testing (including summer weekly testing and fall testing). They will be required to test only if symptomatic or if they have close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. “Fully vaccinated” means you have received all shots associated with a particular approved vaccination and two weeks have passed.
We ask that you voluntarily upload your vaccination card once you are fully vaccinated in order to help the university accurately identify our current faculty/staff vaccination rate and manage our campus testing program. Human Resources/Benefits will oversee the collection of vaccination documents and will maintain all COVID-19 vaccination records, providing necessary information to CHWS for its effective management of the campus testing program. As with all medical information, the documentation will be kept confidential.
To upload a photo of your card, first, make sure you are logged into your Puget Sound Google account and then complete the secure Human Resources HIPAA-compliant electronic form by clicking here: COVID Vaccination Response. Call the TS Service Desk (8585) if you have questions about electronic submission or require assistance. You also may contact Kenni Simons or Shassie Borunda at benefits@pugetsound.edu for assistance in submitting a picture or copy of your vaccination card.
You are not required to provide this documentation to the university, but if you do not, you must continue testing according to criteria in place during summer and fall and CHWS will continue to oversee the ongoing testing for all faculty and staff who have not provided vaccination documentation. To opt-out of regular testing this summer and fall, you must provide proof of vaccination as described above. When your information is successfully submitted, CHWS will remove your name from the campus testing program and you can immediately discontinue asymptomatic testing. You will need to continue to complete the daily health screening.
Please submit documentation as soon as possible if you are fully vaccinated. If you are not vaccinated for COVID-19, we encourage you to do so if you are able to and voluntarily submit documentation as soon as feasible. Vaccination sites can be found at https://vaccinelocator.doh.wa.gov/ or https://www.tpchd.org/healthy-people/diseases/covid-19/covid-19-vaccine-information.
If you are unable to be vaccinated for COVID-19 and need any work-related accommodations, please contact Kenni Simons, Total Rewards Manager, or Shassie Borunda, Benefits Specialist at benefits@pugetsound.edu to discuss that process.
Thank you for supporting a healthy campus community. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions.
Cindy Matern
Cindy Matern P’09, P’11
Associate Vice President for Human Resources/Career & Employment Services.