To St. John’s University Public Safety, the Office of Residence Life, and the Division of Student Affairs

On Wednesday, September 1st, St. John’s emailed its student body with a revision to its guest policy. The correspondence stated that effective that day, only resident students would be permitted as guests in the residence halls, be it visiting rooms within their buildings or visiting and overnighting with friends at other residence halls. With this policy, not only is there no room for accomodation left for outside guests, but it also barrs commuter students from entering certain buildings on campus even if they do have a vaccination record within St. John’s Medicat servers.

As Resident Assistants, we are concerned about what this means for the future of our residence halls this school year. As resident students, we committed to getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in hopes that it would bring a sense of normalcy back to our campus, and we fear that us and our residents are being punished based on the actions of others.

For our upperclassmen residents, a majority of these people’s social groups are in living situations off-campus and not affiliated with the school, which means that it is now impossible for these students to invite their friends over if they do not feel like leaving campus immediately after they finish their in-person classes (for example, if there is inclement weather or a lack of accessible transportation options at the moment). Furthermore, for our freshmen, having visitors from back home visit and spend the night is something that is extremely useful for those who are still adjusting to a brand-new living situation, and allows for more social opportunities for the building as a whole as friends of friends have the opportunity to connect with each other. New students last year were deprived of this for good reason - as there was yet to be a solid grounds for contact tracing and preventing the spread of the virus - but now that vaccines are being mandated for so many daily tasks that were once considered “normal,” there should be no excuse. After all, what is the difference between a vaccinated St. John’s student and a vaccinated outside guest? This is especially true when taking into account the sheer amount of in-person activity that our resident student body is required to or chooses to participate in, just by nature of them being on our campus this year.

During move-in week, we noticed a number of contradictions to this policy which are important to address. We recently welcomed hundreds of families into our halls in order to move their students in without asking for proof of their vaccination status – and also witnessed a handful of these people refuse to properly wear their masks while walking in and out of our buildings. This is bound to repeat itself again as we prepare to schedule Open Houses, Family Weekend, and in-person tours of the school. We have also observed some students who had received or were looking for vaccine exemptions, and we are worried about just how many of these folks were actually exempt from being fully vaccinated against the virus. As vaccinated individuals, these scenarios are not our personal responsibility, and it shows that there is no reason why we cannot create a system for any guest at St. John’s to prove that they have taken the same precaution as ourselves and the residents that we have been tasked with caring for.

We would like to propose a system in which all vaccinated guests - from St. John’s or elsewhere - would be able to experience campus life and have safe spaces to reside for the night if they need them by showing proof of their immunization status. In looking at our Medicat portal, we have no doubt that St. John’s has the means to effectively track the medical status of its students, and an opportunity should be opened in which people can register as guests and upload the same necessary documents. There is already a system in place where overnight guests must be registered in order to stay on campus for an allotted number of days, and this system can and should be expanded so that guests in general can use it. Through this registration system, it should be possible for anyone who wishes to enter a campus building or residence hall can do so by entering their information via the UIS account of their student friend or family member. Furthermore, if commuter students have also uploaded the necessary documentation that they need for in-person classes, then it should be possible for their Storm Cards to house this information if they did want to be checked into a friend’s residence hall. It should be stressed that we are not proposing this as a means to avoid the vaccine mandates that our university has worked to rightfully put in place; our guests are our responsibility, and implementing a system by which they can prove that they have the same immunization status as our dorming students is one way to ensure that our community remains safe while also allowing us the privilege of having others come over.

Our demands deserve proper answers beyond “looking into it,” and we wish to see a solution implemented soon for the benefit of our student body and our greater community.

Sincerely,

St. John’s University’s Resident Assistants