September 22, 2021
Dear Tuskegee University Campus Community:
I want to begin by thanking each of you for doing your part to keep our campus safe as we manage through the pandemic. Your efforts, along with our new laboratory facilities and testing protocols, have gone a long way toward helping us to reduce the spread of the virus.
Part of our COVID-19 response is continually monitoring local, state, and federal developments that affect our daily safety procedures. Last week, President Biden released a new provision within the administration’s COVID-19 Action Plan that calls for employees to be vaccinated or be tested regularly as a condition of their work.
OSHA will soon issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) to implement this requirement. The executive order mandates that all employers with 100 or more employees must ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated, or employers must require any workers who remain unvaccinated to produce a negative test result on at least a weekly basis before coming to work. The ETS will have protections for employees who cannot be vaccinated due to medical or religious reasons. This requirement includes private colleges and universities, including Tuskegee University.
By Friday, October 15, all non-student Tuskegee University employees and contractors must submit proof that they have taken an FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine. If employees choose not to be vaccinated by that date, they must provide a negative PCR test result (antigen or antibody tests are not acceptable) on October 15 and every seven days after that. Proof of vaccination status and negative COVID-PCR tests must be submitted to reportcovid19@tuskegee.edu.
Employees who fail to submit their proof of vaccination or their negative PCR test by October 15 will not be allowed to come to work on Monday, October 18. You may return to work upon receipt of the Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine or completion of the first dose of the Pfizer or Moderna two-shot vaccine.
Employees who do not provide proof of vaccination or fail to submit weekly PCR test results will NOT be permitted to enter campus until confirmation of vaccination status is received or a negative PCR test result is submitted each week. Failure to comply with this mandate will result in a verbal warning, loss of pay, and an unexcused absence from work. After three unexcused absences, the employee will be considered to have resigned from their position.
The university will provide a separate process for employees with religious objections and/or who have medical histories that prohibit them from receiving a COVID-19 vaccination.
Please act now to comply with this new requirement. Do not wait until the last moment to schedule your appointment to get vaccinated. For those of you who choose to remain unvaccinated, develop an action plan now for your weekly testing and submit your test results on time. Thank you so much for adhering to this new requirement.
Charlotte P. Morris, Ph.D.
President
