Bellarmine mandated all students, faculty and staff to be vaccinated by Oct. 8. One month later, the university has better results than officials expected.
According to Dr. Leslie Maxie, associate dean of students, 92% of students and 97% of faculty/staff are vaccinated for Covid-19. Maxie said Bellarmine has made great progress.
“The ultimate goal is safety for our community and us working on the common good of all…. Our vaccine mandate was truly about safety and truly about the intrinsic dignity of all people,” she said.
Because the Bellarmine community is close to being a fully vaccinated campus, students have started to ask: What about the masks?
Alice Kimble, director of Health Services, said students should not expect a change to the mask requirement by January but hopefully sometime during the spring semester. Kimble said there has not been much talk about updating Bellarmine’s mask policy.
Regardless of the updates, students have already weighed in via a non-scientific survey by Knights Media Network on Instagram about their feelings about wearing masks.
Some said they find the mask policy useless. “If we were recommended to get our vaccine why wear the mask?” said one student.
Another said: “I believe that I am protected to the best that I can be with my vaccine. I thought it was gonna be optional for vaccinated students especially uploading our cards, but that’s not the case.”
There were also students who said masks will keep others safe. “My father is immunocompromised and is still suffering from covid pneumonia symptoms with an oxygen tank,” a student said.
Another student said: “...the least we can do to help protect those who are high risk (whether vaccinated or not). Covid is still very much real, and it’s dangerous to act like it’s disappeared when it hasn’t. I’m happy the vaccinations exist, and we are able to go back to ‘normal’ life, but i think continuing to wear masks will ensure the ‘normal’ is back for good.”
Others said they are simply tired of wearing masks. One student said: “I’m fully [vaccinated] there is literally no point, and it gives me acne and I can’t breathe when I work out.” Another student expressed a desire to not wear a mask “because it be hot as hell & my glasses are always fogging up!”
Maxie said changing the mask policies means thinking about a variety of factors both on campus and off campus.
First, the university has to look at the number of Covid cases in Jefferson County. As of Nov. 7, Jefferson County is in the red zone, meaning over 1,000 new cases have been reported since the previous week.
Second, Maxie said university officials want to balance the concerns of everyone on campus. She said this may mean “piloting things,” which may start with remodeling “facility usage” like lifting the mask policy in the SurF, for example.
Maxie also said the university has a better vaccination status than many other Kentucky universities, and the numbers don’t lie. Bellarmine is right behind Centre College (about 95%) as the Kentucky university with the most fully vaccinated students.
The remaining 8% of campus that is not vaccinated is divided into two groups: “the unknown” and the exempt.
Kimble said the “unknown” are those 21 students who have not submitted proof of vaccination or filed an exemption. Not only have they not submitted any information, they have also not responded to any communication from Health Services and the dean of students.
Maxie said this comes down to an issue of noncompliance. As a result, if students still don’t respond to the emails, calls and texts, they will be fined $100 and a registration hold will be placed on their student accounts. Students simply have to contact either Health Services or the dean's office to release both the fine and the hold. Maxie said she is willing to talk to “unknown” students about any concerns they have.
Kimble said that 112 other students have filed for either a medical exemption or a religious exemption. She also said these students went through a quick exemption process if they had all their required documentation.
All the medical exemptions had to earn Kimble’s approval. She said the process was overwhelming at first for the entire Health Services team. Health Services not only had to record vaccine statuses but also administer Covid tests.
“We’re doing two full-time jobs, and it really is to keep the students safe and the faculty [safe],” she said. Kimble said that although the first semester was difficult, she thanks her team for their efforts, and she was happy that students were so responsive when it came time to submit information.
Said Maxie: “Exemptions have been going well.”
Maxie is a member of the Immunization Exemption Review Committee, which handles all religious exemptions. She said the committee is still accepting exemptions, and they have to intention of turning anyone away from applying for one.
“It was never our goal to stop a student’s educational process,” she said, “... We want to know and we want to help.”
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