Campus Policy Update and Reminders

Friday, March 13, 2020

Dear students, faculty, and staff,

As you know, Mount Holyoke College has recently made significant adjustments to our curriculum and campus operations. 

This note will be very brief so you can focus your attention on the updates below. The goal of these additional measures is to mitigate community spread of COVID-19. Given the seriousness of the circumstances, the College asks that everyone comply. 

Campus Policy Update and Reminders

  1. The College will issue student account credits of prorated room and board to students who are not able to remain on campus for the remainder of the semester due to COVID-19 restrictions. 
  2. As stated previously, all Mount Holyoke College events from March 14 until May 5 are cancelled. This includes events such as BOOM/Community Day and athletics practices and competitions.
    1. Non-College events hosted at the Willits-Hallowell Conference Center are not included in this restriction and will be subject to separate review.
    2. Effective tomorrow, meetings on campus with an expected attendance of 25 or more people should be conducted remotely.
  3. Until further notice, only current students, staff, and faculty with Mount Holyoke IDs are permitted entrance to buildings on campus. This includes the Community Center (Blanchard and the Dining Commons), the MHC Art Museum, the Williston Library and Kendall Sports & Dance Complex.
  4. Beginning Saturday, March 14, the Dining Commons is limited to faculty, staff and students. Preparing and serving food will follow best practices for preventing contagion. 
  5. We remind you that no College-sponsored international or domestic travel is allowed, regardless of the destination. We recommend that you not undertake non-essential personal travel of any kind, international or domestic, and, if you do, you are required to register all travel. This mandatory registration allows us to create a record of where members of our community have been.
  6. Human Resources sent out an email today, March 13, with important information for all employees. The information is published in full on my.mtholyoke.edu. We remind everyone to read that information.   

This remains a very fluid situation and we will continue to keep you updated with information and guidance as quickly as we can. As always, we encourage you to check the College’s Opening the Gates website and, if you have questions that are not answered there, email covid19info@mtholyoke.edu. 

The situation has grown even more serious over the past two days. Each one of us has a responsibility to ourselves and also to the community as a whole. Thank you for your understanding, your cooperation and the outstanding commitment to a shared goal we have seen over the past several days — this is an amazing community.

Sincerely,

Mount Holyoke College COVID-19 Senior Policy Group

Shannon Gurek, Vice President for Finance and Administration
Marcella Runell Hall, Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students
Kassandra Jolley, Vice President of Advancement and Acting Vice President of Communications
Robin Randall, Vice President of Enrollment
Jon Western, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty