Masking Now Optional Indoors & Outside

March 11, 2022

Dear Andrews community,

Exactly two years ago today we shared a letter with our campus describing the growing and direct impact of the new global COVID-19 pandemic on our Andrews University campus and local community.

Among other things, that March 11, 2020, letter announced the University’s decision to move to remote learning—a shift echoed at that time by our sister universities as well as throughout most of higher education as we all responded to the significant local, national and global risks of COVID-19 for our university communities.

Today’s letter announces another significant step in Andrews University’s journey through the global COVID-19 pandemic.

This decision, which announces a key change to our COVID-19 indoor and outdoor masking expectations for our University’s main campus, is effective immediately. It’s a decision that has been driven specifically by the recent significant and sustained reduction of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations in our local southwest Michigan community, a shift that has also been accompanied by a dramatic and sustained decrease in infection rates on our own campus.

With those positive changes in indicators within our community and on our own campus, as of today, March 11, masking is now optional (both inside and outside) on our main Berrien Springs campus.

Some ongoing COVID-19 safety protocols and measures will remain important and will continue to be encouraged. Those include the importance of COVID-19 vaccinations and booster shots for those who choose to receive them and the personal choice by some to continue to wear masks on campus as a measure of additional protection. Also, please note that if a faculty, staff member or student feels uncomfortable or unsafe when interacting with students and others in a classroom or another confined space on campus (or for an extended trip in a University vehicle off campus), then those individuals do have the right to ask that a mask be worn by others in those spaces, but those individuals may not mandate mask usage.

In addition, those who participate in University-sponsored international travel, including study tours through the upcoming summer semester, will need to be fully vaccinated—one or two doses, depending on the COVID-19 vaccine—to take part in those activities (a booster COVID-19 vaccination will not be required to take part). You can review those current University travel guidelines here.

As we reflect on these past two remarkable and challenging years, we wanted to let you know that we are both grateful for the ongoing shared commitment, sacrifice and care you have all offered to one another and for our entire Andrews community throughout this journey.

While this global COVID-19 pandemic represents a journey that will likely continue to impact our individual lives, our communities and our world in some ways, we are grateful for what today’s decision represents as a specific step forward.

Most of all, we are thankful for what this change represents as we together eagerly anticipate, hope and pray about what our lives and our communities will be like as we seek to some day move more fully beyond the impact and realities of this global COVID-19 pandemic.

May God indeed bless our road together as we move forward toward those goals.

Sincerely,

Andrea Luxton
President

Christon Arthur
Provost