MC requiring, with exceptions, COVID-19 vaccine for campus community

April 26, 2021

Maryville College is requiring, with some exceptions, that its faculty, staff and students be vaccinated against COVID-19 before Aug. 1, 2021.

In a memo distributed to the campus community today from President Bryan F. Coker, the College’s Cabinet and COVID-19 Workgroup, administrators explained that the decision was based on the College’s desire to be fully in-person for the fall 2021 semester. While the College has been open throughout the 2020-2021 academic year and has allowed students to live on campus, many classes have been delivered online or partially online, and in-person co-curricular programming has been limited to mitigate virus transmission.

“We have previously shared the College’s intention to have a fully in-person experience this Fall, and for that to occur, a significant majority of our campus population must be vaccinated against COVID-19,” the memo read. “These vaccines, which have been deemed safe and effective by the scientific and medical communities, prevent people from becoming seriously ill from the coronavirus, and inhibit asymptomatic spread. Consequently, we are implementing this vaccine requirement, with the specified exceptions for: (1) medical reasons, (2) religious reasons, and (3) personal preference.”

Online forms have been created for students and employees to report vaccination information or an exemption.

According to the memo, incentives will be offered to new and current students who report their COVID-19 vaccination over the spring and summer. Twenty students who receive the vaccine before June 30 will be entered into a contest for one of 20 $250 vouchers to the campus bookstore.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Maryville College has followed guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Tennessee Department of Health and will continue to do so throughout the summer and fall. In today’s memo, College administrators acknowledged that masks and physical distancing may still be necessary but that guidance regarding quarantining had changed.

“ … vaccinated persons will NOT be required to quarantine during the Fall semester, unless those individuals develop COVID-19 symptoms,” the memo read.

Coker said that the decision to require the vaccine, with exceptions, was arrived at after deliberation, research and consultation with scientific and medical experts. The goal for the campus is herd immunity, he said.

“While we respect the decisions of students and families who decide not to be vaccinated at this time, it is important for the health of our campus this fall – and for our ability to return to more normal operations – that the majority of the campus population receive the COVID-19 vaccine,” the president explained.

Vaccine clinics offered

In collaboration with the Blount County Health Department, the College is hosting Pfizer vaccine clinics on April 29 and April 30, from 9 a.m. until noon. The clinic is open to the wider community, as well as the campus.

Partially vaccinated persons may get their second vaccine dose at these times, if it has been at least 21 days since their first dose of the Pfizer shot.

Maryville College is a nationally-ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges. For more than 200 years we’ve educated students to be giving citizens and gifted leaders, to study everything, so that they are prepared for anything — to address any problem, engage with any audience and launch successful careers right away. Located in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville, Maryville College offers nearly 1,200  students from around the world both the beauty of a rural setting and the advantages of an urban center, as well as more than 60 majors, seven pre-professional programs and career preparation from their first day on campus to their last. Today, our 10,000 alumni are living life strong of mind and brave of heart and are prepared, in the words of our Presbyterian founder, to “do good on the largest possible scale.”