Dear Campus Community,
We are looking forward to welcoming students on campus and virtually for the spring semester. As many of you learned during this week’s town hall events, the pandemic continues to be an evolving situation in the Greenville community. While many factors are out of our control, we are confident in our ability to offer the outstanding academic instruction, services and experiences that make for a strong Furman education, while working to keep our students, faculty and staff safe and healthy.
We are ready to take on this challenge together, and we thank each of you for your ongoing patience and flexibility.
To keep our Furman community updated on plans and resources, we will continue to email frequent updates to our students and their parents and families, faculty and staff. These weekly Furman Focused emails will also be posted to the Furman Focused website. We hope that you find these updates helpful.
Low-to-no contact next week for students
As a reminder, we will hold all classes remotely for the first four days until we assess campus infection rates.Until at least January 25, we will operate in a low-to-no-contact phase on campus. Please visit the First Week of Spring Semester FAQs and Delayed Return to Campus FAQs for additional details. Here are some things to remember:
- Interact in pods of up to four individuals. The four individuals in your pod should not change or overlap with other pods. Review these details about pods.
- Socialize with your pods in campus housing and outdoors.
- Participate in the surveillance testing, as instructed.
- Students are strongly discouraged from going off campus.
- Wear your mask, wash your hands and practice physical distancing.
- Keep an eye out for next week’s DINformation and a list of upcoming activities.
Campus Operational Phases
Over the past several months, we have learned a lot about patterns of disease-spread among students and employees. We have additional surveillance testing in place, we’ve learned how to manage quarantine, isolation and contact tracing, and our students have adopted the health and safety measures of the Paladin Promise.
This knowledge and experience has helped Furman to develop a new model for guidance, our Campus Operational Phases. This protocol is based on a variety of campus and community indicators including disease prevalence and our quarantine and isolation capacities. Furman’s campus clinicians, epidemiologists and public health and safety experts are constantly reviewing the most relevant campus and community data, and will make recommendations for any adjustment to the Campus Operational Phase at least weekly or more frequently as necessary.
The scale is color-coded and ranges from green, for normal operations, to red, or full precautions, with three different phases in between. We will begin the term in the orange phase, which represents high precautions, influenced by our high community disease rates and the stretched capacities of the local health care system.
Dashboard
Similar to last semester, we will continue to update our Dashboard with the latest campus and community data on Thursdays. The Dashboard and the Campus Operational Phases reflect the most current conditions and associated operational parameters to enhance student and employee health and safety.
All of our planning and protocols are guided by and developed in consultation with Prisma Health and Furman epidemiologists, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, and the American College Health Association.
Please get your flu shot if you have not already done so and continue to follow the Paladin Promise, complete your daily LiveSafe health survey, and check the Furman Focused website and your email for regular updates.
Be well, minimize those close contacts, and have a safe weekend.
Sincerely,
Ken Peterson, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
Connie Carson, Vice President for Student Life
Co-Chairs, Fall Planning Steering Committee