The New School will no longer require individuals who are vaccinated and boosted for COVID-19 to participate in regular testing and will expand visitor access to campus effective Monday, according to an email to the community this yesterday.
Five weeks into the spring semester, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Renée T. White and Executive Vice President for Business and Operations Tokumbo Shobowale announced these changes in response to low positivity rates and a university-wide vaccination rate of 99%. The New School COVID-19 Data Dashboard reports a campus positivity rate of 0.5% between Feb. 14 and 20.
Community members who are fully vaccinated and boosted will only be required to test if they are exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19. Those who are vaccinated but are not eligible for a booster will continue to be required to test every 14 days, and unvaccinated individuals must continue to test every four days.
Visitors will be allowed back on campus with proof of vaccination and a booster, but they must check in daily at the Welcome Center Visitor’s Desk to receive a guest pass. Residential students may have any New School student as a guest in the dormitories, but guests who are not affiliated with the university are still prohibited from entering residence halls.
University-related domestic and international travel will be permitted. Students and faculty will no longer need to be pre-approved by the administration to travel unless they are headed to an area labeled as high-risk, or Level Four, by the CDC. Upon return, New School affiliates must take a PCR test when they arrive and three to five days after.
The university’s indoor mask mandate is still in full effect in all indoor campus spaces except for designated eating areas.
The university will be updating mask requirements in rehearsal and performance spaces for the College of Performing Arts. New York State’s indoor mask mandate expired on Feb. 10, but the decision to require indoor masking continues to be at the discretion of cities, counties and individual businesses.
Further information on re-entry testing from spring break will be released in early March.