Dear Scripps Students, Faculty, and Staff,
I hope this message finds you and your loved ones well and looking forward to a relaxing and safe Thanksgiving holiday. Throughout this semester our attention at the College has been focused on charting a safe, healthy return to the campus we love.
Our work over the last several months has resulted in Scripps being well prepared to welcome students, faculty, and staff back to campus next semester. Scripps College is ready for students to return to campus by January 25 when the spring semester commences, and we hope that state and county guidelines will allow institutions of higher education in Los Angeles County to resume on-campus instruction and residential programming by that date.
A comprehensive plan is being implemented to prevent, diagnose, and control the number of COVID-19 cases on campus. Highlights include:
- Adoption of a COVID-19 testing process that will allow the College to test students, faculty, and staff who choose to return to campus twice a week and receive same-day results;
- Implementation of a medical management smartphone application for the Scripps community that will assist with contact tracing, provide interactive health screening and checklists, and facilitate access to medical staff;
- Reservation of ample quarantine and isolation space to accommodate residential students who receive positive test results or have had contact with someone who is diagnosed with COVID-19;
- Contracts with medical partners to help us promote community health;
- Modification of classroom, dining, residential, and office spaces, including advanced filtration to reduce allergens, bacteria, and virus spread and touchless technology and plexiglass barriers, to preserve social distancing and facilitate anti-viral practices.
We recently received updates from our medical advisors and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Both shared sobering statistics about the state of the virus throughout the nation and the recent epidemiological models that indicate that positivity rates, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths will continue to increase over the next couple of months both here in LA County and nationally. If these projections prove to be accurate, plans for our students’ return to campus are likely to be delayed. Therefore, we are exploring alternative return dates later in the semester to preserve our ability to allow students back on campus for a majority of the semester, if possible.
Our decisions will continue to be guided primarily by our care and concern for our students, faculty, and staff, and our determination to protect the health and safety of our campus and surrounding communities. Our eagerness to resume on-campus residential and academic life must be balanced against the public health risks the pandemic continues to pose for so many vulnerable individuals in the Los Angeles region as we uphold our social and civic responsibility.
I want to thank all of the staff and members of the Scripps community who have been working so diligently these past few months to prepare us for the spring semester. We will update you in mid-December, at which point we hope to have more information about next semester.
Sincerely,
Lara Tiedens
President