I hope you are enjoying the summer and that you and your families are doing well amid the ongoing health emergency. We are looking forward to the start of the fall semester and have been working hard to make the reopening and move-in process a success despite considerable challenges.

I am writing to share important information about the return to campus and how we will help create as safe an environment as possible. An important part of our strategy is ensuring that people are healthy when they come to school, and modifying our facilities and procedures to mitigate risk. We had hoped to communicate on these matters sooner, but the situation continues to evolve and we are waiting on further guidance from New York state that has not yet been released.

For those of you who will be on campus this fall, it is critical that we work together to ensure the health and safety of our community. We must each do our part to protect ourselves and each other. Many students have shared a preference for as normal a campus experience as possible: whether we can deliver that experience will depend upon your cooperation. Every member of the community will enter into the Ram Pledge, a compact that formalizes our shared commitment to health and safety.

Testing
As we have conveyed in prior communications, all students, faculty, and staff who plan to return to campus for any reason or any length of time will be required to be tested for COVID-19 within the 7-day period before coming to campus or entering any Fordham property.

There are two ways to satisfy this requirement:

1. You are encouraged to get tested at home, at a site of your choosing (find a nearby testing site) within 7 days prior to coming to campus. You must submit proof of testing and clearance, i.e., a negative test result. Please go to the health portal at my.fordham.edu to submit test results. If you choose not to submit your documentation online, you will be required to provide hard-copy documentation upon arrival. If you test positive, you will not be allowed to enter the campus or any Fordham building until you are no longer symptomatic and you have been cleared to return by a physician.

OR

2. You can be tested through the University on campus at Lincoln Center and Rose Hill. You are allowed to come to campus for the limited purpose of getting tested and then cannot return to campus until you have received results. Please note that although the University has arranged for testing through a private provider and should be able to get results more quickly than public testing sites, there may be delays in obtaining results. For this reason, we recommend getting tested early in the 7-day period. The University is developing a sign-up system for scheduling testing appointments. We will let you know when it is available.

Quarantine Requirements
In the spring, New York was the epicenter of COVID-19 activity, but the state’s strict lockdown and the community’s compliance has drastically reduced the infection rate in our state and city. New York is reopening gradually and cautiously to prevent a resurgence and has instituted a quarantine requirement for individuals entering from states with significant community spread of the virus. As of this writing, all individuals entering New York from restricted states and other countries are required to self-quarantine for 14 days. This mandatory quarantine applies to everyone, including those who have tested negative for COVID-19. For more information on New York state’s quarantine requirement, please read the state’s FAQ.

Given the testing requirements noted above, all students coming from restricted states and other countries should plan adequate time both to quarantine and to get tested. Students coming from these states and other countries will need to quarantine for 14 days in locations not on the list of restricted states. After the quarantine period is completed, students will, as described above, need to get tested, either off-site or at Fordham within the 7-day period before coming to the campus or any Fordham property. As noted above, please allow time to receive your test results.

There are three possible ways to satisfy this quarantine requirement, one of which is contingent upon further guidance from New York state on accommodation requirements:

The first option is to make alternative off-site plans for quarantining. We will be providing a list of hotels in the area for your planning and scheduling purposes. This listing will come in a separate communication from the Office of Residential Life on your respective campus. You may also use other hotels, including those outside of the metropolitan area that are in any state that is not on the list of restricted states. If you choose this option, you will be required to provide hard-copy documentation upon arrival (i.e., hotel receipts, air travel receipts, etc.).  More information on submission of this documentation will be provided in upcoming communications.

The second option is to remain home and begin your classes online, until your state is removed from the restricted-state list. We understand that this may be a disappointing option for many to consider. Please be assured that we will be flexible in working with you on your plans to join Fordham’s on-campus community at whatever time in the semester this becomes a comfortable and viable option for you and your family. While we cannot guarantee a particular building or room assignment for those who choose this option, or choose to take a leave from campus housing for the fall, we will guarantee you on-campus housing, whenever you choose to return.

The third option is not yet available, as we wait on further guidance from New York state on accommodation requirements. However, if you are a student entering from a restricted state or another country and are planning to live in University housing, you may be able to quarantine in Fordham housing with assigned roommates and your room or suite will be considered a living unit under these circumstances. We understand that this option is not ideal, and is not available at this time, as it is contingent upon further guidance from New York state. Pending that decision, we must follow the instructions we have received from the New York State Department of Health, which does not allow on-campus quarantine in a way that we can accommodate at this time. We therefore encourage you to make contingency plans with one of the two options noted above that you are most comfortable with. If we receive further guidance from New York state and this situation changes, we will advise you accordingly.

A Safe Return to Campus
The health and safety of Fordham’s students, faculty, and staff remain the highest priority in our reopening plans. We have developed a series of health protocols to mitigate risk and promote the safety of the learning environment. These protocols include the following:

• Hazard elimination, which is aimed at eliminating risk via the universal testing requirements noted above; robust screening; and contact tracing to ensure that people carrying the virus and their close contacts do not come to campus. As part of this process, you will be required to participate in a daily VitalCheck screening. Please look for an email in the coming week to enroll in the screening.
• Personnel substitution, which focuses on limiting the number of students, faculty, and staff on the campus and in the classrooms, and accommodating vulnerable populations.
• Engineering controls, such as improvements to HVAC systems and air circulation, to mitigate risk.
• Administrative controls, which help protect our community with behavioral changes that promote social distancing and reshape the way we work and study.
• Personal protective equipment, such as face coverings, which will be provided to students as a critical component of risk mitigation. Everyone will be required to wear a face covering at all times in all common, public areas, except in areas designated for eating.

For more information about the steps the University is taking to promote health and safety, please see Fordham Forward.

The Ram Pledge
Making the Fordham campus safe is a shared commitment, and so we are requiring every member of our community to take the Ram Pledge, which demonstrates that we are all working together to protect one another from COVID-19.

As a member of the Fordham community:

• I will wear a face covering at all times on the Fordham campus, both indoors and outdoors, and when taking part in University activities off-campus (students can take face coverings off in their individual residence hall rooms);
• I will wash my hands frequently and thoroughly (for 20 seconds, minimum), especially after contact with surfaces and items in public areas, after eating, coughing, sneezing, or wiping one’s nose;
• I will self-monitor for COVID-19 symptoms and complete daily VitalCheck screenings;
• I will follow the directions of University officials regarding testing, screening, and quarantine (if necessary), and cooperate with the University’s contact tracing efforts, if called upon to do so;
• I will act in the spirit of people for others, knowing that I am helping to protect the campus community from illness.

All students who will come onto the campus must sign the Ram Pledge prior to coming to campus. Failure to adhere to it will be considered a violation of the code of student conduct. More information on how to sign this pledge will be included in upcoming communications. In addition, all students will be required to complete an online COVID training program before returning to campus (that information will be available soon). Please look for this in an upcoming communication.

We know you have many questions, and we will do our very best to answer them. Thank you for your patience and your commitment to keeping our community safe. I look forward to staying in contact as we approach the fall semester.

Jeffrey L. Gray
Senior Vice President for Student Affairs

Key Takeaways

• New York City is now in Phase IV of New York state’s four-part reopening plan. Schools are allowed to reopen with appropriate health and safety measures.
• As of Monday, July 20, the rate of new infections in New York is below 1 percent.
• Every member of the campus community will be required to follow the health and safety guidelines laid out below, and to sign the Ram Pledge at the bottom of this email.
• Every student will be able to choose whether they learn fully online, in person, or a hybrid combination of the two (a form will be available on July 27, or shortly thereafter).
• Faculty will likewise be asked to choose the most appropriate and effective mode of instruction for their courses.
• Administrators and staff who can work remotely shall continue to do so, at least until the spring semester.
• In-person classes will commence on Wednesday, August 26, 2020.
• The University will break at Thanksgiving, and students will not return to campus physically until the spring semester begins.

Dear Members of the Fordham Community,

This is the first of a number of messages you will receive today and throughout the rest of this week regarding Fordham Forward, our plan for reopening. Faculty, students and parents, and staff, will all receive detailed information relative to their roles at the University—that information will also live on the reopening pages of the website for easy reference.

Here are the principles that have guided our planning, and will continue to shape our actions as we navigate the fall semester:

• The health and safety of the community are paramount. Our actions should not put ourselves or anyone in the community at undue risk during the pandemic.
• Teaching and learning are at the heart of our mission. Within the Flexible Hybrid model adopted for 2020-2021, the faculty are responsible, as they always have been, for deciding in each of their courses how to create a rich and effective learning environment within the context of their discipline and the learning goals of their course.
• Fordham offers a distinctive, transformative Jesuit education for all of its students. We must not compromise the personalized and relational aspects of the student experience; the connections that students seek with their instructors and one another; and the powerful sense of community that is derived from residential education, albeit with the modifications necessary for public health.

I would like to offer you a broad overview of the actions Fordham is taking to ensure our students receive the best educational experience possible without exposing them or other members of the University community to undue risk.

We are de-densifying the campus: A portion of the faculty and students will teach and learn remotely, and all employees who can work effectively from home will continue to do so. There will be fewer students in residence halls and in common spaces. All dining venues have been modified to ensure safety and proper social distancing, including many physical changes, as well as furniture adjustments. The University will provide tented areas at each venue to expand on outdoor dining options. All dining formats and platforms have been adjusted to accommodate service requirements and safety, as required by New York state guidelines. Student visitation passes for the fall semester for all non-Fordham individuals will be suspended; intra-residence hall visitation will be limited and capped.

The University has instituted mandatory universal testing and daily screening for all faculty, students and staff.

• Testing: As a result of an arrangement we have entered into with the Broad Institute (a collaboration between Harvard and MIT), we will provide on-campus testing for students and employees with results within 24 hours, or as quickly as possible thereafter.
• Prearrival: we encourage all students to get tested at home no more than 7 days before final arrival at campus. Those who test positive at home will be asked to delay move- in/access to campus until they are no longer symptomatic and are cleared to return by their personal physicians. All students coming to campus will be required to provide proof of testing and clearance (i.e. a negative test result within the last 7 days).
• Arrival: all students and employees who will be on campus will be required to get tested prior to arrival or when they arrive, and again at an interval to be determined after they have been on campus.
• Ongoing: we will also conduct monthly surveillance and diagnostic testing of the student and employee populations.

More communication and details will follow on the testing requirements and expectations.

Daily Monitoring: we will all be required to participate in daily surveillance monitoring through a screening program called VitalCheck (which is very easy to navigate). All individuals who will be on campus will be provided with instructions in the coming days, outlining how to register and participate.

Please note that all members of the University community will need to undergo VitalCheck screening each day to gain access to campus. (All will be asked to show their daily passes at the entrance to the campus.) Residential students who leave the campus will need to have clearance from VitalCheck to gain reentry to campus, and possibly more frequently when on campus.

Isolation, Quarantine and Contact Tracing:

• Students who test positive and who can go home will be expected to do so; those who cannot go home, for whatever reason, will be isolated on campus.
• We have set aside isolation spaces on each campus, for resident students who test positive and cannot return home, for whatever reason; we will supplement these spaces as needed with off-campus accommodations.
• We have made provisions to provide ongoing support services, medical oversight through health services and food delivery to isolated students.
• Students from distant markets (including international students) and hot spot markets identified by New York state, including other potential exposure cases, will be asked to quarantine in their rooms when necessary and possible. We will use off-campus sites for quarantine purposes, if needed.
• We will engage in contact tracing to track down anyone who might have been exposed to an infected individual for long enough to have put them at risk of infection.

We are making the physical environment as safe as possible: Bathrooms and showers will be cleaned and sanitized twice a day, all public areas will be cleaned and sanitized at least daily, and high touch areas will be cleaned frequently. Heating systems will be adjusted to higher settings during winter, HEPA room filtration units will be installed in classrooms, and windows will be left open wherever possible. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems will be operated 24 hours a day with maximal fresh air intake. The University will designate entrance- and exit-only doors for each building to lessen crowding and congestion at those key locations; reduce capacity in elevators; designate directional stairwells; and reduce individual Ram Vans’ capacity (with additional runs as necessary).

The academic experience will be different for everyone: Even those students taking in-person classes may not necessarily attend each session in person: classroom capacity will be smaller, and students in many classes will have to attend some sessions virtually. The three modality options are fully online, hybrid with asynchronous online and synchronous in-person components, and fully in-person (as may be appropriate for science labs, performance-based courses, or other courses that may call for in-person instruction). Chairs and program directors will work with deans to determine which courses should be prioritized for in-person teaching in order to best serve our students, and Academic Records will post the modality of all courses so that students can consider changing their registration to better align with their own plans and preferences.

I want to underscore that all of our plans are provisional. We have no control over the spread of the virus outside of Fordham’s campuses, and less control than we would like on campus. Our plans will always be contingent upon the advice of public health experts and the governor’s executive orders. We will do everything within our power to deliver a safe, pedagogically rich in-person experience, but we will continue to develop contingency plans for going fully online before Thanksgiving, if necessary.

I know this is a lot of information, and more detail on all of these areas will be forthcoming from various offices across the University later today and throughout the week, and continuing as long as necessary into the school year. As I said, all of this information will be available on the web, and will be updated frequently to address changing conditions at Fordham and in New York. As we have learned since March, change will be the one constant in our lives for the foreseeable future.

That said, I am genuinely proud to serve all of you. Your adaptability and ingenuity over the past several months have been impressive and inspiring. You have shown terrific resilience and compassion, and more than a little of the quality some call Fordham grit. Though it will require some hard work and much patience, I am confident we will get through this period together.

You are all in my thoughts and prayers today, and every day.

Sincerely,

Joseph M. McShane, S.J.

The Ram Pledge

As a member of the Fordham community, I take the following actions on and off campus to help safeguard the students, faculty, and staff at the University:

• I will wear a mask/face covering at all times when in public places on the Fordham campus, both indoors and outdoors, and when taking part in University activities off campus;
• I will wash my hands frequently and thoroughly (for 20 seconds, minimum), especially after contact with surfaces and items in public areas, after eating, coughing, sneezing, or wiping one’s nose;
• I will self-monitor for COVID-19 symptoms, and complete daily VitalCheck screenings;
• I will follow the directions of University officials regarding testing, screening, and quarantine (if necessary), and cooperate with the University’s contact tracing efforts, if called upon to do so;
• I will act in the spirit of people for others, knowing that I am helping to protect the campus community from illness.

When I wrote to you a few weeks ago about the formation of a task force to develop a plan for the Fall reopening of the University, I promised that I would share that plan (which is required by New York State) with you as soon as it was finished. Before getting into the details, protocols, procedures, measures and recommendations contained in the plan, however, I would like to share a few reflections with you on the way our colleagues on the task force and its thirteen subcommittees did their work.

The members of the steering committee and subcommittees did not do their work in isolation. They consulted widely, pored over thousands of pages of statements and recommendations prepared, proposed and issued by various federal, state and local health agencies and tracked down as many epidemiological studies as they could. (They paid special attention to the requirements laid down by New York State for the reopening of higher educational institutions.) Their research convinced them that the University would have to develop a sophisticated, multifaceted plan to deal with COVID-19 and to mitigate the risks associated with reopening in the Fall.

The members of the steering committee and subcommittees also listened. They listened to members of the faculty, members of the staff, our students and the parents of our present and prospective students. As they listened, they learned that the University community values and takes pride in the distinctive and recognizably Jesuit educational experience that Fordham has always offered its students. That is to say, they value an environment marked by that mixture of care and challenge that nurtures intellectual curiosity and human growth. They miss the rich interaction of the classroom. They miss the opportunity to teach and learn from one another. And they yearn to return to the community of scholars and learners that has formed them — faculty, students, staff and administrators alike.

They also learned that there is real concern among many members of the University community about returning to campus (and to on-ground learning and instruction) while the virus is still active. As a result, the members of the task force came to believe that we would have to take a measured, phased approach to reopening and create a plan that would be robust enough to inspire confidence that we can, indeed, mitigate the risks associated with reopening.

As you read the brief outline of the plan they developed attached to this letter, I think that you will find that they achieved the goal that they set for themselves: creating a balanced, wise, and compassionate plan that was in compliance with State guidelines and directives and that sought to respond to both the dreams and concerns that were shared with them in the course of their work. I think that you will also see that it is a practical plan that is richly detailed, phased, multilayered and that both draws on the expertise of the members of the University community, and that appropriately distributes responsibility for its execution to the members of the community.

Having said that, I would not be honest if I did not admit that the coming months are going to be challenging. We will still be living with a fair degree of disruption to our usual routines and a fair degree of mystery. But, I believe that we can and will more than “get through” if we draw on what we have all learned in the course of the past few months about the effectiveness of vigilance and a shared sense of responsibility in containing the virus, and on the strength of the Fordham culture, a culture that has always been marked by a similar sense of shared responsibility.

Let me now share with you the following important information about the phases through which we will pass in the coming months:

• Summer Session is proceeding as scheduled, but the delivery of instruction is entirely online.
• Study abroad has been suspended for the Fall 2020 semester.
• Since New York City has entered Phase Two of the State’s Plan for Reopening, effective immediately:
  • With the State’s permission, all construction projects on our campuses, including the work of re-engineering and/retrofitting the campuses, can proceed as planned.
  • With the State’s permission, all research laboratories may begin reopening in a phased manner, with the understanding that all the necessary safety precautions outlined in New York Forward are observed by both the faculty researchers and their students.
  • All administrative offices may reopen, but only with up to fifty percent of their staffs on-ground. Managers will share their plans with the members of their staffs prior to reopening.
  • Faculty members who wish to retrieve materials from their offices are free to do so. To ensure, however, that we don’t violate the State’s mandates with regard to social distancing and campus density, I would ask those faculty members who wish to do so to contact Public Safety to reserve a time for their visits.
  • Before any employees return to campus, they must register with VitalCheck, Fordham’s telehealth screening program, and be cleared.
• Effective 20 July, when we anticipate that New York City will enter Phase Four of Reopening, all offices will be allowed to reopen, but not with full staffs on-ground.

The Fall Semester will begin on time, and on-ground instruction will begin as scheduled on 26 August.

As has been the case every time that I have written to you since the pandemic began, let me end this letter with my deep and heartfelt thanks to every member of the Fordham Community for the patience, resilience, creativity and deep devotion to both the mission of the University and the loving service to our students that stands at the center of that mission that you have shown since our lives and our work were disrupted in mid-March.

Please be assured of my prayers for you, your families and all whom you hold dear.

Sincerely,

Joseph M. McShane, S.J.

Fordham Forward: The Plan for Reopening the University

Below, you will find a brief outline of the contents of the report prepared by the Fordham Forward Task Force with links that will take you directly to those sections of the plan that deal with the topics in the outline.

You may access the State’s guidelines for reopening higher educational institutions via this link.

A. Protecting the Health and Well-Being of the Members of the Community

This section contains information about daily screening, testing, contact tracing, and provisions for isolation and quarantining.

B. Creating and Maintaining A Safe Campus Environment

This section contains information regarding cleaning and sanitation, as well as the use of personal protective equipment.

C. Lessening Campus Density

This section contains information regarding Fordham’s effort to de-densify all aspects of campus life.

Please note: We will limit visitors to “invited guests” only, who are expected to abide by all building/campus protocols (including screening) and require University ID’s to enter on-campus buildings.

D. Additional Considerations and Plans for De-densifying the campus:

In order to lessen campus density, we will also seek to reduce the number of staff members on campus at any given time. To achieve this, managers will be asked to look into the creation of additional shifts and/or rotations for the members of their staffs. In addition, they will be asked to determine which jobs under their supervision can only be done on the ground.

• Those tasks that can effectively be done remotely should continue to be done remotely.
• Those tasks that can only be fully and effectively done on campus will require in-person activity. (Staff may be rotated or be spread out over shifts.)
• Those members of the University community in a high-risk category or who have other personal circumstances are asked to contact the Office of Human Resources Management about accommodations by following the instructions on this page.

E. The Delivery of Instruction:

The University will be using a flexible hybrid model of instruction that will contain a mix of synchronous and asynchronous elements that will enable classes to be taught either fully or partially online, thus allowing us to pivot to full online learning if circumstances make that necessary.

F. Areas of Special Concern:

The State’s directives for the reopening of higher education make it clear that all colleges and universities are to follow the industry-specific recommendations and directions for those parts of the University enterprise that are not covered in the higher education directives. Among those elements/operations would be dining venues (in our case, our cafeterias, and other food venues), gyms (in our case, all of our athletic and fitness facilities), retail stores (in our case, our bookstores) and post office (in our case, the mailroom). Fordham Forward contains both extensive and detailed plans for all of those enterprises and venues, which you will be able to find in the full document.

Travel: The University is continuing the suspension of university-sponsored international and domestic travel until further notice. The United States Department of State and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are continuing to advise avoiding all nonessential international travel due to widespread ongoing transmission.