VPSL Column | February 22, 2021

Happy Monday, Students!

I imagine many of you, like me, are glad to be back to “pre-ice storm normal,” able to return focus to your studies, your work and your social life. I want to again thank you for the patience, perspective, and community-mindedness you’ve shown all year, and especially last week. And I want to commend you for maintaining your COVID safety practices in the midst of it all.

As you know, instead of the traditional Spring Break week normally observed during Spring Semester, this year CAS students will be given two mini-breaks. The first is this week, February 25-26. (The second mini-break is March 22-23.) To keep our COVID rates low and our community safe and healthy, it is critically important that every student help maintain the campus bubble and not travel or engage in non-essential activities. Student Life professionals and student group leaders have put together programming and activities to make the most of your mini-break “staycations.” In appreciation for the great job CAS students both on and off-campus have been doing, my office will be hosting Pipp’s Food Cart on campus to kick off the mini-breaks on Thursday and Friday. Please visit at https://college.lclark.edu/student_life/engagement/mini-spring-break/

or contact the Office of Student Engagement for details for all of the great events that will be occurring during the mini-breaks.

The extreme winter weather forced us to cancel last week’s scheduled COVID testing clinic, as well as our planned effluent collection. But we’re back on track now, with both weekly COVID testing clinic and effluent testing scheduled to resume tomorrow. Until then, here is where we are:

• COVID-19 cases: So far this semester, Lewis & Clark has administered 3,115 COVID-19 tests to employees and students from all three campuses, yielding 11 positive results. There are currently no cases with campus impact.

• Effluent testing results: Effluent testing was affected by the ice storm last week. Results from samples collected late last week will be available tomorrow, and will appear on the appropriate webpage dashboard.

Stay healthy, take care of yourselves, and as always, WeB4Me@LC.

Sincerely,

Robin H. Holmes-Sullivan
Vice President of Student Life and Dean of Students