This KY college will require students to be vaccinated to attend in the fall.
Students attending Berea College in person next fall will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before they return, administrators announced Thursday.
The private, Madison County college developed the vaccine policy after surveying students and employees, the college said in a release. Certain exemptions will be made for approved medical and religious reasons “but the expectation is that Berea’s campus and classrooms will overwhelmingly be populated by vaccinated individuals, greatly reducing the risk of infection for all,” the release stated.
Berea — which was the first college in Kentucky to close its campus in 2020 over concerns about the spread of the coronavirus — is likely the first in the state to announce a vaccine requirement. As of Thursday afternoon, the Chronicle of Higher Education’s running list of schools requiring vaccines in the fall tallied 181 campuses, not including Berea.
According to the college’s COVID-19 dashboard, only seven students have had to be isolated at the college since the beginning of the year.
“Throughout this current academic year, we sought to protect the health of our campus community,” said Berea College President Lyle Roelofs in a statement. “We implemented a successful combination of physical distancing, masking, restricting travel away from campus along with other new policies that resulted in a minimal number of positive COVID-19 cases. For the upcoming academic year, Berea will continue to protect the health of the College community through COVID-19 vaccinations.”
Students who don’t want to be vaccinated for reasons outside of already approved exemptions will be allowed to select from a limited number of online classes, the college said. Unvaccinated students will not be able to participate in the school’s labor program.
First-year students choosing not to get the vaccine will be offered a deferment, while returning students without the vaccine can extend a leave of absence if they don’t want to take online classes.
Across the Bluegrass, many schools are currently encouraging the COVID-19 vaccine but not necessarily requiring it.
Citing strong voluntary vaccination numbers of students and employees, the University of Kentucky is currently not planning on requiring the vaccine in the fall, UK spokesperson Jay Blanton said.
“We will, of course, continue to monitor this issue and confer with our health and science experts, always placing a priority on the health and safety of our community,” Blanton said.
According to Blanton, nearly 93 percent of UK healthcare workers, 80 percent of faculty, 70 percent of staff and over 60 percent of students are either fully vaccinated or are in the process.
“We are encouraging, educating and recommending the COVID-19 vaccine... but not requiring,” said a statement from David McFaddin, the president of Eastern Kentucky University — Berea’s Madison County neighbors.
Like UK, Transylvania University in Lexington is also not planning on requiring the vaccine because of already strong on-campus vaccination rates, said Megan Moloney, the vice president of marketing and communications.
“However, under our Healthy at Transy COVID action plan, we continue to monitor public health guidance, data and feedback from the campus community and will continue to evaluate options for the upcoming academic year,” Moloney said.
According to a recent voluntary survey — which 82 percent of Transy students responded to — 75 percent of responding students said they’d already received their first shot and 40 percent were fully vaccinated by April 16.
The university announced Friday that it was partnering with Lexington-based Wild Health to offer an on-campus vaccine clinic on Monday for those students who haven’t yet been able to schedule an appointment. The clinic will be at the William T. Young Campus Center from noon to 5 p.m. and is open to Transy students, families, employees and the local community. Those interested can sign up for an appointment at https://kyvax.wildhealth.com.
This story was originally published April 30, 2021 at 7:49 AM.