First Phase of Updated Face Mask Guidelines

March 3, 2022

Dear members of the SLU community,

I write today to share our general plan for modifying the University’s face mask guidelines on our St. Louis campuses. Dr. Terri Rebmann will provide more details, including answers to many questions, in a message to you this weekend.

First phase of the transition

Our first change as a community will begin Monday, March 7 .

Face masks will be required indoors in all active instructional settings (e.g., classrooms and labs while teaching and learning are taking place). Face masks must continue to be worn in all clinical/healthcare settings where patient or client encounters are likely. Face masks must also be worn on SLU shuttles and buses.

Face masks will be optional in all other indoor non-clinical/healthcare settings, including residence halls, food services, academic and administrative departments, Simon Recreation Center, and in our libraries – except when you engage with a student, staff or faculty member who is wearing their face mask. When you engage with another person who is wearing a face mask, we expect you to demonstrate cura personalis and put on your face mask, just as one would respect another’s personal or physical space. This is especially important as you enter staff or faculty offices and work spaces, and in settings where facilities, maintenance, and DPS staff are doing essential work for our campus community.

There are people in our community who remain vulnerable to severe COVID-19 infection, or who are caring for loved ones who are vulnerable or who are too young to be vaccinated. Their potential harm cannot be discounted in the rush by others to be mask free.

Continued evidence- and values-based decisions

We anticipate that we will sustain the first phase of our transition at least until March 27 , when further changes to our COVID mitigation protocols may occur.

Our determination to take a stepwise approach to removing our face mask requirement is guided by these factors:

• The University’s strategic objectives and Jesuit values;
• Consensus science;
• Recent updates to CDC guidelines and changes to local face mask mandates;
• State and local data, as well as on-campus data we have intentionally collected, including the fact that the
• COVID-19 positivity rate for students on our campus has fallen to 0.6%;
• The expectations of our University community members, conveyed by more than 7,000 survey responses from the campus community, and by members of the SLU Faculty Senate, the Staff Advisory Committee, and the Student Government Association.

These factors have guided adoption of all our COVID-prevention and mitigation practices since March 2020. They have served us extraordinarily well.

Thank you for the enormous efforts and sacrifices that have kept the SLU community safe throughout the pandemic. We have demonstrated, again and again, that we can meet challenges together and prevail to advance our mission.

Higher Purpose. Greater Good.

Fred P. Pestello, Ph.D.
President