Wesley Center is deeply committed to creating opportunities to encounter community and to acting in ways consistent with the health and wellbeing of our students, staff, and community. Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, these commitments have led us to hold all of our programs online. Now, with the widespread availability of vaccines we have an opportunity to re-evaluate.
The Wesley Center Board of Directors is working to balance our core values of hospitality and community with healthy and sustainable leadership and care for our community. In this particular space and time we lament the decisions of state and university leadership that could have made this balance easier to achieve. For example, the University of Iowa could require Covid-19 vaccination for all students as it does for measles, mumps, and rubella.
In the midst of the continuing threat of Covid-19 and its variants, we have adopted the following standards and practices. This work is ongoing, and we look forward to conversations with students as we together determine ways to create and encounter community. We will particularly focus on the ways we choose to care for each other and be accountable for that care.
- Wesley Center activities. Beginning Fall semester 2021, we will return to limited in-person activities. Masks will be required and provided for all group activities.
- For indoor activities, which will begin the third week of class, all participants must be fully vaccinated and masked.
- For outdoor activities, participation is open to all students. Participants who are not fully vaccinated will be expected to maintain social distancing.
- Co-Hosting events. Wesley Center may co-host events at other locations, under the same conditions as 1) above.
- Staff participation at events. Wesley Center staff will represent Wesley Center at indoor events only if those events require vaccination and masks of all participants. Staff may represent Wesley Center at outdoor events while wearing masks and social distancing
- Activities held at Wesley Center by outside groups. All participants must be fully vaccinated and masked. Outside organizations are responsible for providing masks.
- Cancelling in-person events. In-person, indoor activities will be suspended if the 7-day total of new cases rises above 35 in Johnson County. Activities will be held either outdoors or on Zoom until case rates decline. (Data source: CDC – County View)
- Returning to in-person events. In-person, indoor activities will resume if the 7-day total of new cases remains below 35 in Johnson County for two weeks. (Data source: CDC – County View)
The Covid-19 pandemic is a constantly changing reality, especially with the emergence of variants and the development of vaccines. The Wesley Center Board of Directors will update this policy as public health needs dictate.
Adopted July 21, 2021