Dear New York Tech students and families, The health and well-being of our students, faculty, and staff continue to be New York Tech’s top priority. While recent campus surveys show that a vast majority of our community has received the COVID-19 vaccine (of those who responded, approximately 95% of faculty, 85% of staff, and 75% of students reported that they are vaccinated), we strongly encourage those who have not yet been vaccinated to do so before the fall 2021 semester. Now that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, New York Tech is requiring all faculty, staff, and students at our New York campuses to be fully vaccinated in the next 60 days. This policy aligns us with the other private and public institutions in our region. Individual exemptions due to medical or religious reasons will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Please upload proof of vaccination as soon as possible here. With the spread of the Delta variant and uptick in COVID cases, we are following the latest guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow the spread of COVID-19. As recently reimplemented, masks will be required while indoors at our New York campuses, including on the campus shuttle bus, regardless of your vaccination status, as well as recommended outdoors, where social distancing is difficult. Furthermore, we are in the process of reactivating our online COVID-19 Health Screen, which will need to be completed each time you plan to visit our New York campuses. Among the questions the Health Screen will ask is whether you are vaccinated. If you are not, it will ask whether you’ve received a negative COVID test result in the past seven days—for anyone who is not vaccinated, weekly tests showing a negative result will be required to access campus this fall. While the honor system will be used by those completing the Health Screen, Campus Security will perform spot checks on both campuses to make sure you have completed it. As new COVID-19 strains emerge around the world, it is essential that all members of the New York Tech community be vaccinated. So, once again, I urge everyone to be vaccinated as soon as possible and to get boosters as they become available to you. Vaccinations and COVID tests are available at the Academic Health Care Center (516.686.1300) on our Long Island campus. As always, our community response to COVID-19 needs to be fluid and flexible as we all work together to ensure a safe and healthy campus environment, I look forward to a successful fall semester. Sincerely, Hank Foley, Ph.D. President, New York Institute of Technology Copyright © 2021 New York Institute of Technology