{"id":2044,"date":"2021-08-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/blogtest\/august-9-2021-update-regarding-masks-on-campus\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T15:11:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:11:05","slug":"august-9-2021-update-regarding-masks-on-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/august-9-2021-update-regarding-masks-on-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"AUGUST 9, 2021: Update regarding masks on campus"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

To our University Community:<\/span><\/p>\n

In less than two weeks, students will be returning to begin our Fall semester.\u00a0 We look forward to welcoming our Blue Raider family back to campus, and providing everyone with a traditional on-campus experience.\u00a0 However, it is important to remind everyone that in order to assure the safety of our community, preventative health practices must be observed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past few weeks, there has been a noticeable increase in the numbers of individuals testing positive with COVD-19; more specifically the Delta variant.\u00a0\u00a0 In response, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has issued new guidance to help slow the spread of the virus.\u00a0 In keeping with these recommendations, effective Wednesday, August 11, we will again require all members of our campus community to wear masks at all times inside university facilities. Exclusions to this include private offices, dorm rooms and individual study rooms.<\/span><\/p>\n

While recognizing that vaccination is a personal choice, it has been proven that this is the most effective way to combat this virus. We continue to strongly encourage everyone to be vaccinated and will continue to provide vaccinations through our student health Services. Masking and vaccination will help us keep the traditional class schedule currently in place for this fall.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is not how we had intended to begin the year and it is my hope that this requirement will be short-lived.\u00a0 We will continue to monitor the situation on our campus and make decisions as appropriate.\u00a0 Currently, required masking is the only modification to our plan to return to campus.\u00a0 Any future decisions, however, will be influenced by how well our community and campus respond to this latest outbreak.<\/span><\/p>\n

Stay safe.
Sidney A. McPhee
<\/span>Sidney.McPhee@mtsu.edu<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To our University Community: In less than two weeks, students will be returning to begin our Fall semester.\u00a0 We look forward to welcoming our Blue Raider family back to campus, and providing everyone with a traditional on-campus experience.\u00a0 However, it is important to remind everyone that in order to assure the safety of our community, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":472,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3128,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044\/revisions\/3128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}