Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff:
With the governor’s recent decision to move the state of North Carolina to Phase 3 of reopening, Methodist University is changing its policy on indoor gatherings. This change is contingent upon everyone following our health and safety protocols and upon our continued ability to manage COVID-19 on the MU campus.
Effectively immediately, we will permit indoor gatherings as long as all of us comply with these requirements and limitations:
- At least one faculty member or one professional staff member must be present for the entire duration of the event.
- All events must comply with the COVID-19 room-capacity limit for the location of the event.
- Proper social distancing must be followed at the event.
- Everyone at the event must wear a mask that covers the nose and mouth for the entire duration of the event.
For now, this will be an experiment on our ability to reopen the campus for traditional gatherings. If we have another spike in COVID-19 cases on campus, or if people do not comply with the requirements above, we will have to go back to the no-indoor-gatherings policy.
Please remember this is all in our hands. As I said in my message on Monday, we have the ability to manage COVID-19 at MU if we all work together to follow the required safety protocols, which were created following the guidance of health care experts.
Sincerely,
Stanley T. Wearden, Ph.D.
President