COVID-19 Updates
October 18, 2021
Good afternoon,
As of today, all campus COVID-19 cases are recovered; no new cases emerged from pool testing last week. For the next two weeks, we will continue routine testing for all vaccinated and unvaccinated students. If this trend continues wherein positive cases are nearly all being identified through symptomatic testing, we will consider switching to routine testing occurring only for unvaccinated students and for athletic purposes for the remainder of the semester.
The NY Hero Act had extended the classification of COVID-19 as an infectious airborne illness through Oct. 31. If New York State extends employer obligations again, our current policies regarding indoor masking will continue beyond Oct. 31. We’ll keep the community updated.
The Colleges continue to host a variety of flu clinics for the HWS community. The previous two clinics vaccinated nearly 300 individuals. There are three upcoming opportunities to participate in a flu clinic on campus:
- Tuesday October 19, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm, Vandervort Room for all faculty, students and staff
- Friday October 22, 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm, Bartlett Theatre for all faculty, students and staff
- Tuesday, October 26, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm, Bartlett Theatre, for faculty and staff
The Colleges are working with the student governments to move forward a Community and Housing Task Force to identify streamlined and revitalized housing options and room selection procedures that will maximize community development on campus. Residential Education Faculty Fellows Craig Talmage and Elana Stennett, Director of Opportunity Programs Renee Grant, Associate Director of Intercultural and LGBTQ+ Centers E Tejada, Greek Life student representative Matt Friedkin, housing committee student representatives Quin Kinney and Patrick Walker, and two appointed students from the student governments will join the Student Engagement team on this task force. We look forward to reporting out to campus on the Task Force’s work.
Our campus community continues to celebrate many accomplishments. Ten students in the Art and Architecture Department visited New York City and connected with alums in fine art, gallery management, gallery curation, art sales, architectural design and entrepreneurship, an experience funded by Jonas Wood ’99, whose work has been featured in exhibitions at galleries and museums worldwide. Hobart College welcomed new inductees to the Druid Society, the highest honor society for Hobart students. This year’s inductees include: Dimosthenis Chrysochoou ’22, Stewart (Stewy) Falso ’22, Andrew Guedea ’22, Sarim Karim ’22, Moritz Marchart ’22, Nassir Whitley ’22 and Charles Widing ’22.
In faculty news, Stripped, written by Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric Maggie Werner, published by Penn State University Press, has been named to Book Authority’s list of 20 best new rhetoric books for 2021. Werner will read an excerpt from her book on Thursday, Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m. in Bartlett Theatre. Last week, Associate Professor of Political Science Stacey Philbrick Yadav was an invited speaker at the annual Pearson Global Forum at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. She spoke as part of a program on Yemen, along with a representative of the UN Human Rights Committee and the Yemen coordinator for Human Rights Watch, following Tawakkol Karman, the 2011 Nobel Peace laureate. Professor Nick Ruth currently has a show of his prints, “New and Improved” at Mirabo Press in Buffalo, and we encourage you to check it out if you are in the area. Much of this work was made possible through his Class of ’64 Endowed Professorship.
As we continue through the second half of the semester, please continue to be in touch via e-mail at CampusLife2@hws.edu or reach out to either of us directly should you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Sarah Kirk
Provost and Dean of Faculty
B. B. Barile
Vice President for Campus Life and Dean of Students