We want to make you aware of a recent decision by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that will negatively affect the ability of many of our students to return to campus for the foreseeable future. On June 24, Governor Cuomo signed an executive order requiring individuals traveling into New York State from states with a high incidence of COVID-19 transmission to quarantine for 14 days upon their arrival in New York. This has presented a significant challenge for our Return to Campus Task Force as we have considered many different approaches to managing this mandatory quarantine. Unfortunately, the college simply does not have the resources or infrastructure to manage quarantining either on campus or off campus for the large number of students affected by this order.
As a result, we have made the difficult decision that students who have not remained in New York during the summer and whose permanent address is in a state on New York’s mandatory quarantine list will need to take their classes remotely until the state of their permanent address is removed from the New York mandatory quarantine list. No exceptions will be granted.
Students from these states will not be permitted to move into residence halls, or to engage in in-person instruction or other campus activities, regardless of whether they reside on or off campus. We know that this is greatly disappointing, and we hope that continued practicing of appropriate preventive measures will lower the spread of COVID-19 and allow these states to be removed from the list. This list of restricted states is updated regularly on the New York State website.