February 17, 2021

Dear Trinity Staff and Faculty members,

We write to share details about the operations of the college over the coming 10 days, when Trinity will be in a COVID-19 “Campus Transition Phase.” As we shared in a steering committee communication earlier this month, the Transition Phase status is one we’ve introduced to help the college manage with greater precision the critical periods of move-in and move-out of our students.

Beginning tomorrow and continuing through Sunday, nearly 1,700 students will move into campus residence halls, and another 230 will return to off-campus housing nearby. To manage that transition and mitigate the risk of virus transmission, students were asked to quarantine at home for 10 days before traveling to campus and to obtain a prearrival COVID-19 PCR test. Once they arrive at Trinity, they’ll check in at their scheduled time at the testing center in Ferris, and then proceed to their residences to begin a transitional quarantine until in-person classes begin on March 1.

Students are receiving a communication directly from us with details about their quarantine activities. We wanted to share with you some of these details, to make clear the operational status of the college during this Campus Transition Phase. Beginning tomorrow, you will see these details listed on the COVID-19 dashboard along with a graphic denoting the Campus Transition Phase. We’ll also include this information in the Trinity Today email. If we need to adjust any of these details during the Campus Transition Phase, we will alert you via email.

From February 18 through February 28:

  • Dining is grab-and-go (pick up in Mather)
  • Student residence hall access is limited to their own residence halls; common areas are open but students must remain physically distanced from one another and wear masks at all times in common spaces
  • Campus activities and gatherings are not permitted at this time; students may exercise outdoors alone or in pairs
  • The library is open with modifications
  • Visitors are allowed in very limited circumstances and for pre-approved reasons only; Cinestudio will pause operations until March 1; Trinfo.Café is closed to the public except for operations related to the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) clinic
  • Travel from campus is limited to essential purposes and requires pre-approval

We appreciate your careful attention to these operational details, and we apologize for any inconvenience they may cause. As you likely have seen, the return of in-person learning on college campuses across the country has brought mixed results, with some campuses onboarding students with very little virus transmission and others seeing huge spikes in COVID-19 cases, some already surpassing their totals from the fall semester. Our collective efforts to carefully manage this critical 10-day period are aimed at restarting campus living and learning safely and setting the course for a successful spring semester.

Sincerely,

Joe DiChristina, Vice President for Student Success and Enrollment Management
Jason Rojas, Chief of Staff and Associate Vice President for External Relations