Students and faculty received an email with a subject line that read “Recent surge in illness” on Feb. 6. For Lafayette College, such an email has become almost a staple at the start of the spring semester.
In the email, faculty were told to suspend the practice of asking for a dean’s excuse for regular absences until the end of the month, and students were told to take care of themselves and seek support from health institutions other than the Bailey Health Center if unable to get an appointment there.
According to Jodi Schluter, the director of health services, there were 112 positive cases of influenza documented in the health center since Jan. 4. However, she explained it is not just the amount of cases that warrants an email blast.
Schluter wrote that the threshold for a campus-wide email is based on several factors, such as “rapidly escalating numbers of illnesses” and cases that exceed “the daily appointment capacity” to then require greater staff support.
Aside from Schluter, the final decision to notify the community members depends on the collaborative decision-making of the Dean of Advising & Co-curricular Programs Tim Cox, Provost Laura McGrane and Vice President of Student Life Sarah Moschenross.
McGrane deferred comment to Cox. Cox and Moschenross deferred comment to Schluter.
According to the campus-wide email, Bailey’s Health Center expects the surge in illness to calm down over the next coming weeks and to resume its operations as normal.