Monday, August 24, 2020
Dear Members of the Campus Community,
Welcome to the start of our 88th academic year. It is truly my pleasure to see so
many of you on campus today. As you know, I started at Wilkes during a time when the
campus remained quiet from our early departure in March. I confess that starting in
the midst of a pandemic has been an odd experience, but it is one for which I continue
to be grateful since it means working, learning and living alongside all of you. Thank
you for all the ways in which you have welcomed me and my family to our new home.
It is a privilege to warmly welcome all of you back to campus, masked and from a safe
distance.
As I mentioned during our virtual town hall meetings held earlier this month, we have
been working to launch a dashboard that will track COVID-19 on our campus. I send
this message on behalf of the following colleagues who oversee the University's response
to the pandemic: Paul S. Adams, Vice President of Student Affair and Chair of the
COVID-19 Daily Response Team; Mark Allen, Dean of Students and Co-Chair of the COVID-19
Task Force; and Justin Kraynack, Assistant Vice President of Operations & Compliance
and Co-chair of the COVID-19 Task Force.
The dashboard will serve as an informational source for our campus community and a
tool that aids in our decision making. By visiting the link below, you will see that
the dashboard tracks confirmed cases, on-campus quarantine and isolation housing,
class formats and testing.
Each day, a link to this page will be available on Today@Wilkes. In addition, you can view it anytime by visiting Wilkes COVID-19 information. It is updated at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. each day.
To date, there are two confirmed cases among our students. Both cases were confirmed
before the fall semester and move-in activities, and neither student has yet returned
to campus. They will only do so once cleared by Health and Wellness Services. It is
important to provide context around cases within our community, so please note the
bulleted narrative above the charts for important details. These will be updated as
needed.
This next week will be a bit of a learning experience for us all and we continue to
encounter changing guidelines that require our attention. Understand that we will
continue to assess, adjust or tweak our reporting as needed. Please continue to look
for updates from our COVID-19 task force and daily response team via covidupdate@wilkes.edu. We also welcome your thoughts, questions and ideas to that email address which will
be monitored by committee members.
Sincerely,
Dr. Greg Cant
President