Last Thursday, Chancellor Robert Jones announced in a Massmail the University’s spring break return guidelines for students, faculty and staff to decrease the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

Jones emphasized that all undergraduates must receive a negative on-campus test result between Thursday, March 17 and Friday, March 25.

Students will continue to have “Granted” building access status during this time. This status will switch to “Denied” if they have not received a negative on-campus test result by the end of Friday, March 25, according to Chris Harris, deputy associate chancellor for Public Affairs at the University.

However, those required to test every other day may still need to do so that week as part of the University’s targeted testing program, Harris said.

“If you were in a situation where you are required to test every other day — because of the targeted testing program or something like that — that would still be in effect,” Harris said. “But in theory … there shouldn’t be anybody under that classification at that point.”

Classes from March 21 through March 25 will remain in person and masks “will still be required in classrooms during in-person class time,” according to the Massmail.

“We recognized that everybody’s making spring break plans,” Harris said. “It just didn’t seem fair to take part of your spring break basically and make you return earlier or change your plans to make sure you’re able to test to resume classes.”

According to Harris, the University’s experience at the start of the spring semester “informed how we approached” the guidelines for returning from spring break.

“It’s very similar to what we did at the beginning of the spring semester but instead of going online,” Harris said. “That was a good experience for us to understand what that week of extended testing lets us capture and monitor.”

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