September 24, 2021

To the Dartmouth community, 

The leaves on the trees around Occom Pond and the date on the calendar continue to remind us: fall is officially here. With the term well underway, we are writing with some updates regarding Dartmouth’s COVID-19 policies.  

We continue to monitor several important metrics related to the pandemic: positivity rates on campus, positivity rates in the surrounding community, compliance with vaccination and testing policies, and isolation capacity. After discussion with student leaders, faculty, and staff, Dartmouth leadership has decided to maintain its existing COVID-19 policies around testing frequency, face coverings, and athletic facility access. For more details on each of these policies, please visit the Dartmouth Together website. 

We are pleased that positivity rates have remained low since the beginning of the term, and that we are aware of no known transmission of COVID-19 between any student and a staff or faculty member. However, given that we are still working to ensure that our students, faculty, and staff are testing at the required frequency, and we are seeing continued prevalence of COVID-19 throughout the region, we believe it is premature to relax the precautions that we currently have in place. 

Over the next week, we will be watching for consistent mask-wearing in the community, low test-positivity rates, and strong participation in required testing (you can register for a testing appointment online). Pending positive outcomes along these measures, we plan to reevaluate these policies by the end of next week. 

Face Covering Updates 

Your actions do matter. Through our collective efforts, by consistently wearing a face covering indoors, we protect the most vulnerable in our community — our friends, our faculty and staff, or their families at home who may be at a higher risk of infection or who may be ineligible to get a vaccine. As a reminder, if there are indoor spaces on campus where people are consistently congregating without face coverings, such as West Gym, we may be forced to close those spaces for about 24 hours to protect the health and safety of those who work in those areas, as well as the health of their families.

With that in mind, we are conducting airflow modeling this week on several indoor campus spaces to better understand the risks associated with gathering indoors, and we are considering opening some “mask-optional” indoor space for vaccinated individuals. Meanwhile, please do your part to keep the campus safe, and help us all maintain the in-person instruction and activities we so enjoy.

Take-Home Testing Updates

Please remember that all students, faculty, and staff who are on campus must test at least once each week. Some members of our community are required to test twice a week. We are monitoring testing and will be communicating soon about consequences for not adhering to this policy. For added convenience, Dartmouth is in the process of rolling out take-home test kits to employees and students to make frequent testing more convenient for our community. Drop-boxes are now available in many campus locations. 

Here’s what you need to know: 

1. Employees who have tested on campus from Jan. 1, 2021 to Sept. 10, 2021 have been invited to participate in take-home testing from Occupational Medicine.

2. Employees who have not been working on site should first test in person at West Gym or at Williamson and continue to test there until they are invited to participate in take-home testing. We anticipate adding new participants to take-home testing every two weeks.

3. Graduate students are already enrolled or are currently being invited to participate in the take-home testing program over the next two weeks.

4. In-season student athletes are participating in the take-home testing program.

Once we have successfully rolled out take-home testing to these groups, we will deploy take-home testing for the remainder of undergraduates. 

Tune in to next week’s Community Conversation on Wednesday, Sept. 29, at 3:30 p.m. for more updates and information about Dartmouth’s COVID-19 policies.