COVID-19 Policy Changes

Dear students, staff and faculty:

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the campus community has followed evolving protocols to maintain a safe learning environment. Over the past few weeks, we welcomed 2,400 students back to campus. As expected, some students tested positive for COVID on arrival. We had intended to relax masking on September 16 on the presumption that we would start to see the number of COVID cases going down. Instead we had 18 student cases last week and 45 student cases so far this week. (Employee cases remain very low.) While the number of cases is falling in Massachusetts, the increase in cases at Smith is consistent with increases across other local campuses. As noted in the September 13 letter from President McCartney and Executive Vice President David DeSwert, Smith is extending its indoor mask mandate in classrooms and at events of 30 or more people until further notice.

In addition, and effective immediately, students will be required to do the following:

• Wear masks in on-campus residential houses (unless they are in their rooms with their roommates only, or while eating or conducting personal hygiene).
• Take two PCR tests per week at the testing site in the Campus Center 103/104, starting this week. Tests should be taken two to three days apart. Please make an appointment for your PCR test.

We strongly encourage all members of our community to practice extra caution in the coming weeks to reduce the risk of catching or transmitting COVID. Employees are reminded that testing is available to them. The testing site will be open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. until further notice. Members of the community are welcome to wear masks in all settings on campus.

If you are experiencing COVID symptoms, get tested as soon as possible. Please visit Smith’s COVID-19 Information page for further information.

We hope that these measures will be temporary and will send another update soon. In the meantime, you may email questions to covid19info@smith.edu.

Thank you for your cooperation,
COVID-19 Incident Response Team (CIRT)