September 18, 2020

Dear CSU students,

As we mark a milestone that many universities nationwide have not reached—four weeks of a successful in-person semester–most of you are still doing the hard work we all need to do right now: wearing face coverings, avoiding gatherings, participating in strategic testing, and staying home when you are sick.  Thank you all for being amazing!  I am so proud of you.

But some of you are not following health precautions.  Maybe you never were.  Maybe you did for the first few weeks and just got frustrated.  Maybe you are telling yourselves that taking precautions most of the time makes it okay to ignore them some of the time.

I don’t know what is motivating your decisions, and I am not writing today to judge you.  I know how tiring this all is.  I know it is also scary and isolating and feels like it’s just gone on for way too long.  All of us share those feelings.  But if you do not continue to comply with all COVID-related health precautions, we could go down the path of so many other schools, here in Colorado and across the country, and be forced to shift to entirely virtual classes and other operations.

I know you don’t want that.  I don’t want that either.  When I’ve talked to you on campus (from six feet away, behind our masks), I’ve seen your enthusiasm at being here.  You are savoring being with your friends, interacting with faculty in-person, and utilizing the resources like the library, the Rec Center, and the LSC that you can only find here.

So please, all of you: put your masks back on.  Say no to parties.  If we ask you to get tested, get tested—and wait for your results before you go back out onto campus.  We can do this, I know we can, but not if it’s just most of us doing the work most of the time.  It’s going to take all of us doing the work, all of the time.

Sincerely,

Joyce