Required Employee Vaccine Status Survey

Dear staff and faculty,

To date, Smith’s Culture of Care plan has enabled us to successfully navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. We are deeply grateful for all you have done to help keep our community safe and healthy. We continue to assess the activities and protocols necessary to manage COVID-19, as we plan to resume more customary operations.

On May 4, Governor Baker’s Massachusetts Higher Education Testing Group issued a new report with recommendations. The report states that “it is imperative that higher education institutions take significant steps to ensure that as close to 100% of their campus community as possible” is vaccinated. To that end, the report urges campuses to “require confidential vaccine status disclosure” by everyone in the community as soon as possible.

Accordingly, we are requiring all Smith College employees to report their COVID-19 vaccine status by filling out a one-question survey by Monday, May 17. You will receive a separate email from the Office of Institutional Research with a link to the survey shortly. The survey will be used to evaluate the percentage of our community that is vaccinated or plans to become vaccinated. This data will be helpful in estimating the college’s caseload under different scenarios, determining the frequency of testing for employees, and estimating the number of vaccine doses we may need for future vaccine and booster clinics. It will also help the college calibrate operating modes and safety protocols.

Your response will be confidential and will never be reported in conjunction with your name. When data collection is complete, your response will be stored securely by Institutional Research with no names attached. The only information from this survey that will be associated with your individual employee record is whether or not you have responded.

The college encourages all employees to get vaccinated as soon as possible. The college has not yet decided whether to require the vaccine for employees, but is strongly considering it.

If you would like to be vaccinated but have not been able to find an appointment, you may schedule an appointment to receive your first dose of the Pfizer vaccine in Smith’s on-campus clinic on Saturday and Sunday, May 15 and 16, by clicking here. Note that with this option, you would need to schedule your second Pfizer shot to be administered elsewhere. You can use this website to locate a vaccination site. You can also schedule appointments nearby at the UMass Vaccination site or the Northampton Vaccination site.

If you have further questions about this requirement to report your vaccine status, or Smith’s plans for managing COVID-19, please send them to covid19info@smith.edu.

Sincerely,

Anne-Marie Szmyt, Associate Vice President for Human Resources

Michael Thurston, Provost and Dean of the Faculty

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