Sac State struggles to deny campus access to students who missed vaccination deadline
FILE PHOTO: Catherine Nigro, registered nurse for the Student Health Center, prepares for the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to be distributed to students and faculty in the Brown Bag room in the Union on Jan. 28, 2021. Sac State Vice President of Student Affairs Ed Mills said that professors have “not yet” been emailed a list of their students who missed the COVID-19 vaccine certification deadline.
September 16, 2021
As of Wednesday, 2,206 Sacramento State students have failed to meet the Sept. 13 COVID-19 vaccine certification deadline, causing them to be denied access to campus.
However, while Vice President of Student Affairs Ed Mills said in a Sac Send email Tuesday that these students have all been contacted about being denied access to campus, Mills told The State Hornet Thursday that professors have “not yet” been emailed a list of their students who were now denied access to campus.
“Doing this has turned out to be much more complicated [than] initially expected,” Mills said in an email to The State Hornet. “We are working through the issues and hope to have a solution soon.”
Since professors are not aware of who is denied campus access, Mills said he is responsible for enforcing the denial to campus for these students as “compliance with university policies is typically the responsibility of the administration.”
As of Wednesday evening, 25,636 students have certified that they are vaccinated, according to Mills, which is 81% of enrolled students and 89% of students excluding those students who have certified that they will not access campus.
1,066 students have declared a religious exemption and 205 have declared a medical exemption, according to Mills.
According to Mills, religious exemption declarations are being reviewed by the Office of Equal Opportunity and medical exemptions are being reviewed by the Student Health Center staff. Students are asked to provide documentation for both types of exemptions, and students who declare an exemption will receive “immediate information” on COVID-19 testing on campus, according to Mills, as they will be required to be tested for COVID-19 twice a week.
walter yost • Sep 16, 2021 at 10:42 pm
Thanks for this story, Camryn. As a faculty member teaching in-person this semester I’m glad to see the State Hornet is keeping close watch on this development.