Faculty & Staff: Summer 2021 Testing Requirements

*Published on June 9, 2021*

As Northeastern plans for the summer and the academic year ahead, we have an update on Northeastern’s health and safety requirements with regard to testing and vaccination reporting. 

Summer 2021 Testing Requirements

Based on the best science available,current guidance from the CDC, Northeastern’s owntesting data, and the insights of our faculty experts, Northeastern is instituting new testing requirements that will apply for the summer of 2021, beginning June 18, 2021.These requirements apply to all campuses where Northeastern requires regular COVID-19 testing.

• Fully vaccinated individuals (faculty, staff, students, contractors, visitors) are no longer required to participate in regular COVID-19 testing, and no longer need to complete the Daily Wellness Check on a daily basis.
• Fully vaccinated individuals who require a negative COVID-19 test for university travel or a business-related activity may schedule tests as needed.

• Unvaccinated individuals who regularly come to campus (one or more times per week) will be required to test every seven days and continue to complete the Daily Wellness Check.
• Symptomatic faculty and staff—both vaccinated and unvaccinated—should complete the Daily Wellness Check to report their symptoms, and get tested for COVID-19 as soon as possible. They should return to campus only after they have received a negative test result or as soon as they are cleared by a physician.
• Off-campus students who live in areas surrounding the Boston campus, and who do not visit the campus regularly, are not required to continue testing for the summer. They should set themselves to Primarily Remote in the COVID-19 Test Scheduler for the duration of the summer.

These testing requirements may be revised for the fall 2021 term. We will continue to update the community on testing requirements as we determine the protocols that best promote our campus health and safety.

 

Requirement to Report Vaccination Status

To help Northeastern plan effectively for the months ahead, we are requiring all faculty and staff to complete the Self-Report COVID-19 Vaccination Form. Completing the form will automatically adjust the testing cadence as described above for people who are marked Primarily In-Person in the COVID-19 Test Scheduler. The form has been updated to ask whether faculty, staff, and students:

• are fully vaccinated 
• have received one or more doses but are not yet fully vaccinated
• intend to be fully vaccinated by the first day of classes in the fall academic term
• do not intend to get vaccinated.  

The information faculty, staff, and students provide regarding their vaccination status or plans will be treated confidentially, will not become part of a faculty or staff personnel file, and will be reported in the aggregate (without name or identifying information) to inform Northeastern’s plans for community health and safety. The information may also be used in a limited number of ways: to automatically change the testing cadence as outlined above, and for reporting to government agencies to comply with public health requirements in certain campus locations.

We ask that faculty and staff fill out the form as soon as possible, with a deadline of June 30th to stay compliant with Northeastern health and safety requirements. Everyone will have continued access to update the form again as plans or vaccination status change. The form is accessible any time on the Northeastern Wellness ServiceNow app or at vaccine.northeastern.edu.

Thank you for your ongoing work to create a safe campus for all members of the Northeastern community.

 

Sincerely,

David Madigan

Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs