Update: Welcome Back, Wellness Kits & Health Reminders
Full email text from 8/27/20 below
Dear Members of the CMU Community:
With new student orientations concluding, and classes set to start on Monday, we share in your excitement and anticipation for the start of the fall semester. Throughout the summer and into our fall planning, CMU’s leadership team has been focused on protecting community health and wellness. While certain aspects of life on campus may be different, our mission remains the same — to deliver CMU’s transformative education and to pursue groundbreaking research.
Upon your return to campus, we encourage you to focus on four things you can do to help mitigate the spread of COVID on campus:
- Take 2-3 minutes first thing every morning to complete your self-assessment before beginning your day. You can learn how easy it is by watching this video.
- Practice physical distancing. Maintain at least 6 feet (2 meters) between you and others at all times.
- Wear a facial covering. (Don’t have one yet? Read on to find out how to obtain one once you arrive on campus!)
As we embark on this unique journey, we want to equip students with necessary tools to help build shared resilience. CMU is distributing 10,000 wellness kits, one to each student living on or off campus in Pittsburgh. These free wellness kits contain two branded cloth facial coverings with use and care instructions, a bottle of hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes, a digital thermometer and a card summarizing A Tartan’s Responsibility. We invite students to view this video to learn more about how to obtain your wellness kit to help protect yourself and your fellow Tartans.
Finally, I hope all of you had the chance to review last week’s email from President Farnam Jahanian, Provost Jim Garrett and Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Gina Casalegno. It contained detailed information about A Tartan’s Responsibility, modified arrival quarantine periods, testing, contact tracing and isolation and quarantine plans. If you haven’t had a chance to review it yet, I encourage you to do so.
For students and families, faculty, staff and researchers, our COVID-19 website continues to provide the latest information, resources, policies and best practices to support you and our collective community efforts to return to a vigilant and vibrant campus this fall.
We are eager to begin this new academic year and are looking forward to officially welcoming you back to the CMU community wherever you may be. Our future success is dependent on responsible behavior from all of us. Thank you in advance for your continued collaboration in achieving a successful fall semester. Together we will emerge from this pandemic stronger, resilient and Tartan proud.
Sincerely,
Daryl Weinert
Chief of Staff and Vice President for Strategic Initiatives
COVID Coordinator