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DePauw to require vaccines for all students next fall
Anticipating a return to a fully residential campus in August, DePauw University announced this week that students require proof of COVID-19 vaccination for the fall 2021 term.
The announcement was made in an email to students and families from President Lori White and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dave Berque.
The letter highlighted the desire to expand campus activities while continuing to protect the health of students, more than two-thirds of whom have already been vaccinated.
“We join many universities around the country in requiring proof of a COVID-19 vaccination for all students planning to attend this fall,” White and Berque wrote. “We already require other vaccinations for safeguarding individual student and community health.”
As with the other vaccinations, medical and religious exemptions will be accommodated.
Associate Vice President for Campus Wellness Stevie Baker-Watson said a campus group has been monitoring guidance from the CDC and other organizations in reaching this and other decisions related to COVID-19.
“We’re constantly applying that information to our campus population and trying to determine ways in which we can layer our mitigation strategies to provide a safe environment for our employees and our students and, frankly, and environment that is more social than what we’ve typically experienced with COVID-19,” Baker-Watson said.
The more social element is what leaders hope to return to the university moving forward.
“We knew that the vaccine itself was going to be very beneficial to the individual, for instance, in terms of their own health and wellness,” Baker-Watson said. “We were beginning to see more data on how it could potentially influence groups of people and populations.”
That, coupled with the increased availability of the vaccine for young adults guided the decision.
“We were concerned in the beginning that maybe the vaccine wouldn’t be available to our students, so that would make that a harder decision,” Baker-Watson said. “Once we were able to host two vaccine clinics on campus and see the availability within our county vaccination sites, we felt like vaccines were going to be available, that the vaccine was going to give us the best chance to return to a full residential community, which is where we want to be.”
While the number of students already vaccinated indicates a generally favorable attitude toward vaccines among the population, administrators understand that for many, this is not a decision into which they wish to rush.
“I think that our students have been informed, they’ve done their research, they’ve talked to individuals in their families whom they trust in order to make this decision,” Baker-Watson said. “They have been welcoming the opportunity to be vaccinated at the first opportunity.”
And while the university is allowing for exemptions to the vaccines, the number of those who usually object to required vaccines is not usually overwhelming.
“On an annual basis, we’re collecting immunization information from all of our incoming students, and we generally only have about a handful of students who actually ask for some form of exemption,” Baker-Watson said. “So we have relative confidence that most people were going to view the vaccine favorably, but may need some more time to do some more research.”
While vaccinations will be required for students come fall, the university will not be requiring the same of employees, though it will be strongly encouraging them.