New Mexico State University leadership discussed reopening efforts and COVID vaccine distribution during a town hall Tuesday. NMSU President John Floros says the institution is currently planning for a normal 2021 fall semester.
“You never know what spring is going to look like, or what summer is going to look like, but everything right now, it points towards we're going to have enough vaccines to vaccinate a large number of the population,” Floros said. “The vaccines will work. The virus will be much below levels of where we are now, if we do the right thing between now and then. And therefore, I think we do need to plan for face-to-face classes starting in August of 2021.”
In order for the number of in person classes to increase, NMSU faculty and staff will need access to the COVID vaccine. At this time, only medical personnel, those over 75 and people highly at risk for COVID complications are eligible for vaccination. Vice Chancellor and Strategic Chief Financial Officer Ruth Johnston says NMSU was initially led to believe educators would be among the first to be eligible.
“We were led to think that educators, and those people who need to be on campus, would be amongst the first in 1B to be able to be eligible,” Johnston said. “We've since learned that…there was a misunderstanding and right now, they're still doing people who are over 75, and the most severely compromised people.”
A pressing question asked during the event centered around if vaccines would be required for both staff and students in order to return to campus. Johnston emphasized there would be no mandatory enforcement, but that she hopes the vaccine is more accessible to students prior to the fall semester.
“The entire United States is taking a look at this in terms of higher education. I've been on a number of calls with other universities and at this point there's no university, that I know of, that's going to be requiring it for a couple different reasons,” Johnston said. “One is, there's a lot of studying that needs to happen about this first. Vaccines are a hot topic, not everyone believes that vaccines are the right way to go…obviously this is a legal issue. It's also an access issue and right now there's not enough vaccines to be had. Hopefully by fall, as they say, there should be.”
The New Mexico Department of Health previously announced the state plans to offer the vaccine to the general public by mid-2021. NMSU Regents Professor of Biology Kathryn Hanley offered a predicted timeline for when students can expect a level of normalcy to return.
“It's still looking like it's going to be a long time, till fall, where we're really able to maybe take off our masks, breathe free air again, get back to whatever is going to be our new normal,” Hanley said. “But I believe things are going to get better and better and better as we approach summer. Hopefully people will get acculturated to socializing outside, they can maintain those social relationships. And so, I think we're really looking at a thin crack of daylight from this pandemic, but the sun is really rising. I think we're going to be there by summer or early fall.”
NMSU President John Floros says NMSU is committed to ensuring both the mental health and academic readiness of students, offering both behavioral health and education resources.
“At least in our case, through some of the things that we have done as a university, I believe we have come very close to meeting our mission of educating our students, and really helping them achieve their academic goals,” Floros said.
