Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College will require all students, faculty members, and staff to be vaccinated for the upcoming 2021 fall semester. Several other Atlanta universities are requiring the same.
The Atlanta University Center Consortium (AUCC), which includes the three historically Black colleges and universities as well as Morehouse School of Medicine and the AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library, made the announcement this week that employees and students will need to be fully vaccinated. By the start of the semester, all students and staff will need two or more weeks to have passed since their completion of the full one or two dose round of the vaccination.
“As AUCC member institutions plan for summer programming and the fall semester, using the latest scientific data to implement vaccination protocols is the next step in keeping our community safe,” the leaders of the AUCC members said in a statement Monday. “Vaccination of our community members is critical to continue meeting our highest priority—maintaining the safety and wellbeing of our constituents.”
The institutions will offer vaccinations at the AUCC Student Health and Wellness Center as well as on campuses.
As the fall semester approaches, each university will share their own specific information about how to receive or provide confirmation that students and staff have received one of the vaccines.
There may be cases where students and staff members may be exempt from receiving the vaccine, but each institution may have their own policies.
The announcement has the AUCC joining a growing number of universities requiring students get the COVID-19 vaccine. Rutgers, Brown, Duke, Cornell, and Northeastern University’s recently informed students they must be vaccinated before returning to campus in the fall.
The hope is to achieve herd immunity on campus, which may allow them to loosen spacing restrictions in classrooms and dorms.