COVID-19 Update: Deadline Extended for Portal Submissions and Exemption Requests
August 3, 2021
Dear members of the SLU community,
We continue to be so grateful for those who are doing their part to stop the spread of COVID-19, including getting vaccinated and wearing a face mask.
The Delta variant is making our collective efforts to return to normalcy all the more difficult. Universal vaccination –– with a small percentage of medical and religious exemptions –– is the only path to the on-campus work, research, teaching, and learning experience that we all miss dearly.
We have heard from many members of our University Community who have been on vacation, off contract or on leave who have not yet had a chance to upload their proof of vaccination into our online portal. Of course, we will give grace and accommodate those circumstances — and others — to ensure everyone can participate.
We are extending our deadline to submit your proof of vaccination to Sunday, Aug. 8 at 11:59 p.m.
Please note that both deadlines do not apply to new hires or students who are newly admitted to SLU. Those new employees and students can always reach out to pandemic@slu.edu to discuss their options and timelines.
What you can expect between now and Aug. 9
- The regular compliance text messages and emails from pandemic@slu.edu will continue. We have seen tremendous success with this effort, dramatically increasing our overall submissions last week.
- Also starting this week, deans and vice presidents will be contacting a list of employees in their units who currently are non-compliant, so that they can remind those employees of the extended deadline.
Please email pandemic@slu.edu with any questions about submitting your vaccination proof.
Exemption Requests
Additionally, we are extending the deadline for submitting requests for medical or religious exemptions. That deadline is now 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 4.
The religious and medical exemption request teams are hard at work making sure that each person’s request is given a thorough review. Those who submitted their exemption requests earlier on in this process can expect to hear whether their request was approved or denied this week. The exemption request teams plan to send out the results of all decisions at the same time, en masse.
We remind graduate students in education, health sciences, medicine, nursing, psychology and social work who are seeking a medical or religious exemption that, if one is granted, it is not transferable to schools, or practicum and clinical sites where such real-world training is required for graduation. In fact, like SLU, many community training sites do require vaccination.
You can email vaccineexemption@slu.edu with any questions about your request for an exemption.
Yesterday, thousands of SLU employees came back to campus full time. Our Housing & Residence Life student staff also returned to ready our on-campus housing for students. In just two weeks, the bulk of our student body returns.
We have so much to look forward to this fall at SLU. Thank you for all that you are doing to make this possible.
Stay safe and be well,
Terri Rebmann, Ph.D., RN, CIC, FAPIC
Special Assistant to the President
Director, Institute for Biosecurity
Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics
College for Public Health and Social Justice