Tag: COVID-19

Clemson University, in partnership with the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), conducted more than 2,300 COVID-19 tests between July 20-22 and July 27-28 on employees expected to report to work on main campus prior to August 1.

So far, Clemson has received the results of 1,952 of those tests, with 41 people testing positive.  Results for the remaining individuals who were tested will be shared when they are available.

As Clemson continues to prepare for the Fall semester, the University previously announced anyone who works for, lives at or is enrolled in a Clemson University program or facility must secure a negative COVID-19 test result prior to returning to campus or other University location for the Fall semester.

Those who test positive should follow the instructions included on the University’s COVID-19 page. The University continues to finalize technological, medical and financial processes for students, faculty and staff returning to Clemson facilities across the state after August 1. Those details, including free testing locations and transmission of records from tests administered outside of South Carolina, will be announced when they are available.

Clemson will release future test results in a timely fashion after the conclusion of subsequent test periods.

TEST RESULTS
Testing dates: July 20-22; July 27-28
Tests results received through July 30: 1,952
Negative Results: 1,911
Positive Results: 41

Dear Clemson Family:

From the earliest days following the emergence of COVID-19 as a global health threat, Clemson’s focus has been on continuing to fulfill our vital land-grant mission to our students and home state. We remain deeply committed to providing in-person instruction and the type of on-campus environment that make Clemson the special place we all love.

We strive every day to create an environment where world-class teaching and research opportunities combine with a rich on-campus experience to provide a uniquely valuable Clemson experience designed to set our students on a path toward a life of significance.

That responsibility also includes safeguarding the health of our students, faculty, staff and communities. Toward that end, we have taken decisive action at a number of key points in the pandemic to maintain the quality of the educational experience we provide, while also protecting the health and safety of Clemson Family members.

We have made great progress toward that goal and I am enormously proud of the work our faculty and staff have done. Let me be clear: We remain committed to a return to in-person instruction and activities in the fall.

Unfortunately, the progression of COVID-19, particularly in South Carolina and the Upstate region, continues to create a great deal of uncertainty around bringing students back to our campuses and beginning in-person instruction in August.

As a result, today I am announcing Clemson University will begin the fall semester online and will delay in-person instruction until Sept. 21. The semester will begin as scheduled on Aug. 19 with online instruction. No other changes to the academic calendar will be made at this time.

Move-in for students living on campus is now scheduled to begin Sept. 13 and all current restrictions on campus gatherings and events will remain in place until further notice.

I know this is disappointing news for many of our students, especially our first-year students who are looking forward to beginning their on-campus Clemson experience. However, we feel this modified approach is in the best interest of the Clemson Family at this time.

After extensive analysis by our internal and external public health experts and lengthy discussions among the leadership team, we simply don’t see the situation improving enough over the next few weeks to safely bring students and employees back to our locations in large numbers in August as originally planned.

We believe that by delaying the resumption of on-campus activities for another four weeks, and by strictly following the recommended health precautions, the disease will be reduced to a point where we can safely return to something approximating a normal learning environment. We also will use the time to execute a previously announced plan to test all our students in order to provide a better means to predict infection rates in our community.

As has been the case from the start of the pandemic, our decision-making will continue to be guided by our public health experts, and by the data and science. We know that strict adherence to preventative measures such as wearing face coverings, maintaining physical distancing and frequent hand-washing play a vital role in slowing the spread of COVID-19.

I would encourage everyone – but especially our students living in and around Clemson: Wear a mask and keep your distance from others whenever possible. Remember, we’re “All In” this together and only by being united as Tigers can we slow the spread of COVID-19 in our area.

We realize this decision will lead to questions from many of our students, parents and employees. We are already hard at work preparing communications to various stakeholders and will endeavor to provide as many answers as quickly as possible. Additional information can be found at our COVID-19 web site, which will be updated regularly.

Additionally, I will continue to communicate with the Clemson Family on a regular basis. Please know that our focus remains on providing an outstanding education for our students in a manner that safeguards our employees, students and communities to the greatest extent possible.

We feel this is the safest course of action for our Clemson community. And I want to reiterate that Clemson remains fully committed to providing an in-person experience for all our students this fall – especially our new students whom I know are anxious to begin creating their own Clemson memories and our students who will be graduating in December.

To our students and parents, we very much appreciate your flexibility and patience as we navigate these uncharted waters. To our amazing faculty and staff, my sincere thanks for the outstanding planning and work you continue to do every day on behalf of Clemson.

Go Tigers!

Jim Clements
President

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Dear colleagues:

We are now approximately a month away from the planned start of the fall semester, and Clemson continues to prepare for opening with students on campus, blended learning modalities and many layers of public health risk mitigations.

At the same time, we remain acutely aware of the continued progression of COVID-19 in South Carolina and the Upstate. We want to assure you that our final decisions about fall opening will be tied both to the infection rates of the disease and our ability to mitigate and contain its spread. As we have said from the start, the safety of our University community is paramount.

As the scheduled start of the fall semester nears, we also intend to step up our communication with employees. In addition to these updates, which will continue, please stay tuned for an announcement soon on upcoming town hall meetings to which all Clemson staff and faculty will be invited to participate virtually.

We have been steadily integrating improved evidence-based knowledge into our plans to mitigate public health risks.  In previous communications we have provided updates on these, particularly testing strategies, social distancing and face coverings.

Much progress also has been made on quarantine strategies, student housing (move-in dates and densities) and contact tracing.  Automated workflows that lead to rapid responses when an infection is discovered are being constructed.  We plan to make the workflows easy for all employees to find and use.  For example, when someone tests positive for COVID, messages will be automatically sent to instructors or supervisors, appropriate cleaning and quarantine protocols will be implemented, and any other necessary downstream tasks or notification will be initiated.

Some new developments include a recent purchase of face shields to be used by instructors during lecture or lab courses (protocols on their use will be coming out shortly), and a new tool for supervisors to track return to campus dates for those employees who need to be on campus for some or all of their work hours.

Many of you have questions about academic decisions and plans for fall.  Below is an abbreviated project management table that provides information on some of the most important items, including an Instructional Playbook for blended learning that will include some of the items below as appendices.

In each of the processes above, staff, faculty, administrators, and sometimes undergraduate and graduate students are engaged in the planning.  While preparations for returning to campus during the COVID-19 pandemic have been very challenging and time-consuming, we remain strongly committed to the safety of students and employees, building a better campus climate and helping our students and employees deal with many new obstacles and challenges related to COVID-19, international affairs, inclusivity, and the economy.

Sincerely,

Bob Jones
Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost

Tony Wagner
Executive Vice President for Finance and Operations

Sue Whorton
President, Staff Senate

John Whitcomb
President, Faculty Senate

Dear colleagues:

As we approach what hopefully will be a relaxing holiday weekend for everyone, we wanted to provide an update on our ongoing effort to return to in-person instruction and operations starting in the fall.

First, we acknowledge that our announcements in last week’s message – especially those related to the baseline testing requirement for employees and students – raised a number of good questions.

Many of the questions have focused on the University’s capacity to conduct pre-arrival testing for the virus at a large scale, and how the test results will be used to inform our future decisions around mitigation and containment strategies such as cleaning, isolation capacity and practice, surveillance testing throughout the semester and more.

We are aware of the guidance this week from the CDC on testing at universities, which does not overtly endorse, nor recommend against, 100 percent testing of students and employees just before arriving back to our locations.  To be sure, testing – whether it is a sample or complete assessment of the total population – by no means guarantees we will be free of COVID-19 when the fall semester begins.

Our in-depth exploration of this issue with external health experts has convinced us, however, that 100 percent baseline testing will both reduce the number of COVID-19 positive individuals arriving on campus and provide valuable data about the prevalence of the disease in our community. This first increases our ability to start the semester successfully while the latter helps in our ongoing mitigation and containment efforts.

With regard to testing capacity and availability, we are evaluating proposals from a number of third-party vendors this week and next, and are confident we will be able to secure the  scale of testing we need.  In terms of downstream tasks after someone tests positive, several kinds of detailed workflows, managed electronically with automatic notifications, are in development now. We are on target for completion with test runs conducted well before fall semester starts. We recognize there are many other questions related to testing, and will continue to provide answers as we have them.

The complex and ever-changing nature of this pandemic also has affected some of our earlier decisions related our return process, specifically as it relates to the previously announced “phased” approach. It had been our hope that the data related to COVID-19 cases in our state and region would allow us to make straightforward “go – no go” decisions to bring our employees back to their workplaces in phased intervals.

That has not turned out to be the case, which is why we are moving away from formal phases in favor of a more holistic approach designed to safely get us to the same goal: A successful return to mostly normal operations in the fall.

What hasn’t changed are our guiding principles for a successful return, especially our steadfast commitment to the health and safety of employees.

We will continue to be conservative in bringing employees back over the summer, especially those who have health risks and those who have proven they can effectively work remotely. We will provide ample notice when asking individuals to return.

Those who do return this summer, or who are already at one of our locations, will be expected to follow the rules for face coverings announced last week, testing and clearance, and are encouraged to practice physical distancing and other precautions in alignment with public health guidance.

For those whose roles require them to be on campus or at one of our locations in the fall, we remain committed to creating a safe workplace, as our recent decisions around face coverings, alterations to classrooms and testing support.

Finally, a few words on our shared responsibility to each other as we navigate these uncharted waters. There is no magic elixir to stop the spread of COVID-19. Until a vaccine has been created and made widely available we can expect to deal with this issue, and we all need to work together to slow the spread of the virus.

We do, however, have several tools at hand to slow the spread and protect ourselves – and those around us.

Wear a face covering. Keep a safe distance from one another when possible. Wash your hands often. Wipe down frequently used surfaces. Don’t come to work with symptoms of an illness. Get tested if you are ill, and if positive promptly notify the Sullivan Health Center and your close contacts.

We all have a stake in our successful return in the fall. As President Clements said in his message last week, we need to be “United as Tigers” in our actions to support a safe return.

We have no doubt that each of you will model the type of behavior and care we would expect from members of the Clemson Family. Our continued gratitude and admiration go out to all our employees who are doing great work in service of our students.

Best wishes for a happy Independence Day holiday – and stay tuned for more communication in the near future.

Sincerely,

Bob Jones
Provost

Tony Wagner
Executive Vice President – Finance and Operations

John Whitcomb
Faculty Senate President

Sue Whorton
Staff Senate President