As higher ed leaders look to the fall, eager to revert to a sense of “normal” for students, faculty and staff alike, many are facing a new question: With COVID-19 vaccines now largely available, should they require their campus communities to get vaccinated?
In late March, university officials reported “a noticeable uptick” in COVID-19 cases on campus, which they said was consistent with the uptick in the surrounding county. University of Michigan students accounted for 15% of all county cases as of March 30.
“It’s a very different situation and we think the numbers will continue to improve,” Fitzgerald says. “Just a few weeks ago … Michigan was leading the nation with new infections. [But] we are seeing great response to the vaccine clinics that were available on and off campus. We believe that later this summer we will see that a significant number of members of our community will be vaccinated.”
As a result, university officials decided to mandate that all students living on campus in fall 2021 would need to be vaccinated before moving into the dorms. But others — including faculty and staff and nonresidential students — are still being encouraged to get the vaccine.
“It wasn’t that we decided they don’t need to be vaccinated,” Fitzgerald says. “It was that we took a narrower view on who we were going to require to be vaccinated. … There’s a school of thought that encouragement is as effective or even more effective than mandating.”
University of Michigan leaders are leaning heavily on their school of public health and university healthcare system — including vaccine clinics — to help educate the campus community on why they should get the vaccine, but Fitzgerald says that in “a big, decentralized community” many decisions are left up to individual schools, colleges and units on campus.
