ANNA SMITH
Special to The Leader
The SUNY Fredonia campus has been abuzz with news of the COVID vaccine mandate that recently took effect on Aug. 23 for all SUNY campuses.
Under the mandate, all students currently enrolled at any SUNY school or facility are required to submit either documentation that they are fully vaccinated or an official exemption from receiving a COVID vaccine.
Exemptions are given to students who cannot be vaccinated for religious, medical, or remote reasons. Students were granted a 35 day grace period from the time the mandate went into effect on their campus. At SUNY Fredonia, students have until Monday, Sept. 27 to submit the proper documentation to the Health Center, whether that be proof of being fully vaccinated or a vaccine exemption.
As it happens, the SUNY-wide vaccine mandate does not apply to SUNY faculty members, only students. In an email addressed to members of Fredonia’s United University Professions (UUP) chapter, Cynthia Smith, the UUP Vice President for Academics, writes that while campus faculty is not required to be fully vaccinated as per New York State’s obligation to consult and/or negotiate with the workers’ union that many of Fredonia’s faculty members belong to, UUP encourages its members “to protect themselves and others by getting fully vaccinated.”
She goes on to address widespread student concern regarding the vaccination status of Fredonia employees, which was apparently “[heard] from multiple campus sources.”
Cynthia ends the message by conceding that faculty are not obligated to disclose their vaccination status to students, but encourages them to do so for the sake of quelling student concern.
Deciding to look further into the campus’ response to the mandate, I sought for answers straight from the source.
I asked both students and faculty for their personal views on the mandate, as well as how they felt it would affect the campus community going forward.
I started off by interviewing two students, both of whom were selected completely at random.
The first student I asked, who wishes to remain anonymous, holds an overall unfavorable opinion of the vaccine mandate, stating that while they “[understand] the intention behind it and [encourage] people to get vaccinated,” they think that “the choice to get vaccinated should ultimately be left up to the individual and not forced onto them by a larger institution.”
On the other hand, the second student I asked, sophomore Sydney Feinsilver, supports the mandate wholeheartedly.
“I think the mandate is reasonable,” she said, “especially if it means that more people getting vaccinated will decrease the amount of COVID cases on campus going forward and lead to an ultimately safer campus. Get the vaccine.”
I then directed my attention to the views of Fredonia faculty members.
I first posed some questions to Mark Sheehan, Assistant Professor of English, regarding his personal views on the vaccine mandate.
He backs the mandate, stating that “personal health is integrally connected to public health.”
To Sheehan, the mandate seems like “a way of asking every individual to commit to the good of the whole community, and [he] is all for asking students and others to see themselves as part of a larger whole, and to act with the greater good in mind.”
He went on to say that while he doesn’t see “masking, testing, or other precautions [being] removed as soon as students have presented their vaccine status,” he hopes the mandate will allow us “to safely continue the academic and social life of the college.”
The second faculty member I interviewed was none other than Dr. Stephen Kolison, the President of SUNY Fredonia.
In asking him what the effects of the mandate will be on the campus community going forward, Kolison discussed the ongoing threat that COVID poses to several communities across the globe.
As such, he believes the mandate “will make the campus safer, especially where student health is concerned.”
More specifically, he thinks more students getting vaccinated “will keep COVID cases down on every SUNY campus, Fredonia included.”
From these findings, it seems both students and faculty alike are at the very least in support of people receiving a COVID vaccine for the overall health and well-being of the campus community.
The dividing factor here appears to be on the very nature of the mandate itself: should all students be required to be fully vaccinated in order to stay enrolled in the SUNY system?
Some might say that this is the purpose of granting exemptions from getting vaccinated to certain individuals for religious, medical, or remote reasons.
Others might disregard the allowance for exemptions altogether and say that getting vaccinated should ultimately be the choice of the individual.
There are also those who say that all students being required to get vaccinated will ultimately be for the greater good of every campus community within the SUNY system — that it might be one step closer to things going back to how they were before COVID.
But one thing is for certain: The return to normalcy is what most everyone hopes for, regardless of where you stand.