Good afternoon Guilford faculty, staff, and students, 

I am writing today with an update regarding our mask policies on Guilford’s campus. The Health and Safety Task Force has recommended and Cabinet has approved new mask policies that will go into effect on Monday, March 21:

• Masks will be optional inside any campus building.
• Faculty, staff, and students have the right to request individuals to wear masks in spaces for which they are responsible. For example,
  • Faculty can require masks for in-person classes.
  • Faculty and staff can require masks for individuals that meet in their offices.
  • Students can require masks for individuals that enter into their residence hall rooms, etc.
  • Faculty, staff, and students should do their best to communicate clearly with individuals of the request ahead of time and have masks available should they be needed.
  • We ask the community to be respectful and honor requests for masks to be worn.
• Community members should always have a mask available if they are entering a campus building.

Also, please be aware that:

• We remain in Phase 4 of our activity matrix.
• Our approved visitor policy remains in effect.
• Quarantine and isolation policies also remain in effect. Here are handy flow charts for students and faculty/staff to track these policies. Our COVID hotline (336-316-2319) remains active.

The Health and Safety Task Force will continue to meet weekly and monitor the campus, local, state, and national COVID landscape. 

The Health and Safety Task Force and the Cabinet agreed on this change in mask policy based on several pieces of data. Our campus-wide COVID PCR testing on Monday and Tuesday has produced a tremendous result, so far. Of 449 returned tests from Monday, there were only two positive cases. As a result of our booster requirement, more than 95 percent of our faculty, staff, and students have had their initial series of vaccine shots and a booster. The testing positivity rate in Guilford County has been below 5 percent for the past few weeks. In North Carolina, there are 12 daily new COVID cases per 10,000 individuals, which is significantly lower than during the Omicron peak in mid-January. 

I appreciate our community’s participation in helping to successfully navigate these challenges. We all should be very proud of our collective efforts to keep ourselves and each other safe during this pandemic.

Sincerely,
Kyle Farmbry
President