Who will be notified when a student tests positive for COVID-19?
The communication protocol for suspected or confirmed student cases of COVID-19 is as follows:
Whether the student lives on or off campus
- Contact tracers will be deployed to interview them about where they have been and with whom they have been in contact.
- Tracers will notify other individuals as appropriate, and will also notify Facilities if the student has been in common spaces on campus within seven days.
- Student Health Service will also notify Ulster County health officials of the positive diagnosis, unless the student does not reside in Ulster County or has returned home to another county. In these cases the student will be instructed to inform their County health officials.
- All of the faculty teaching courses in which the student is enrolled will be notified, whether those courses are in-person, remote or hybrid.
- The notification to faculty will not include instructions to quarantine. Faculty and classmates should not need to quarantine unless contact tracers confirm that they have been in close contact (10 minutes or more within six feet, without wearing a mask). In such cases, contact tracers will instruct faculty and classmates will be instructed to quarantine.
If the student lives on campus
- The student’s instructors and the Quarantine Coordinator for the Department of Residence Life will be notified. The Quarantine Coordinator will in turn notify Dining Services, Facilities Management, the Office of Emergency Management and the student’s home Residence Director.
- When Student Health Service clears a student to exit quarantine/isolation, they will notify the student’s in-person instructors and the Quarantine Coordinator (if the student lives on campus).
Campus-wide notifications will be sent when there is a clear danger to the campus community, such as if there were a suspected or confirmed case when a student, faculty or staff member was known to have been on campus during the potential infection period.
The College will continue sharing updates about positive cases in the Daily Digest email newsletter, only when those positive cases affect our in-person community.
