UTICA, N.Y. – Utica College is pushing the spring semester start date back one week, to give students and staff more time to be tested for COVID-19 before returning to campus.
The semester will begin on Monday, Jan. 25.
The college also decided to forego spring break this year to discourage travel on and off campus.
Students and faculty members will continue to be tested once a week in an effort to prevent an outbreak within the college community.
Provost Todd Pfannestiel says this is the plan unless the state implements any new guidelines
"We have been safer in terms of any COVID cases, than many other colleges. In fact, we remain one of only 6% of college is nationwide the test everyone, every week. We'd like to hold that as a hallmark, especially to parents, to say we're careful about this, we want to test because we don't want to be surprised about any particular cases,” said Pfannestiel.
Utica College has also been using germ-killing lights in classrooms as another safety precaution, and their efforts were mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article earlier this week.
