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CSU Chancellor Joseph Castro announced Thursday afternoon that all students, faculty and staff will be required to get a COVID-19 vaccination for Fall 2021.
The blanket policy, which will go into effect once COVID-19 vaccines receive final FDA approval, will apply to all 33 CSU and UC campuses, according the CSU’s press release. The requirement is also contingent on the U.S. continuing to have sufficient supply of the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Consistent with previous CSU announcements related to the university’s response to the pandemic, we are sharing this information now to give students, their families and our employees ample time to make plans to be vaccinated prior to the start of the fall term,” Castro said.
Colleges and Universities Plan for Normal-ish Campus Life in the Fall
Dr. Sarah Van Orman treads carefully around the word “normal” when she describes what the fall 2021 term will look like at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and other colleges nationwide.
In the era of covid, the word conjures up images of campus life that university administrators know won’t exist again for quite some time. As much as they want to move in that direction, Van Orman said, these first steps may be halting.
“We believe that higher education generally will be able to resume a kind of normal activity in the fall of ’21, and by that I mean students in classrooms and in the residence halls, others on campus, and things generally open,” said Van Orman, USC’s chief health officer. “But it will not look like the fall of 2019, before the pandemic. That will take a while.”
On April 9, Chico State announced that it plans to hold multiple in-person commencement ceremonies for the class of 2020 and 2021.
The class of 2020 will have their ceremony on May 16, 2021 at University Stadium and ceremonies for the class of 2021 will take place May 20-23, 2021.
In the announcement, Chico State said that the in-person ceremonies will be available to graduates only and that family and friends will be able to watch via a livestream.
The schedule for the virtual ceremony and the in-person ceremony will be released on April 15.
Chico State encourages family, friends and parents to refrain from traveling to Chico for graduation.