Pitt will require covid-19 vaccination by Dec. 6
Nov. 1—The University of Pittsburgh will require its students, faculty and staff to be vaccinated for covid-19, effective Dec. 6.
The requirement applies to all Pitt campuses. Students, faculty and staff must be vaccinated or have received an approved vaccine exemption, university officials announced Monday.
Those who fail to comply with the requirement will face sanctions, up to being fired, university officials said. Students who do not comply will not be eligible to enroll in classes for the spring semester.
With the announcement, Pitt joins Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne and Chatham universities, three private universities that announced vaccine mandates before the fall semester.
Pitt's announcement comes as the Dec. 8 deadline looms for President Biden's executive order requiring all federal contractors to vaccinate their employees.
The order may have been a nudge for research universities that stopped short of issuing vaccine mandates this fall.
Pitt, with hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research grants that are subject to contracts with the federal government, likely would fall under that mandate. Officials at Pitt, however, said they already were considering it before Biden inked his order.
Pitt officials stressed the policy is an interim measure. A committee is working on a permanent policy.
Officials at Penn State, which also conducts millions of dollars in federal research, announced last month it was requiring all faculty and staff at University Park and eight regional campuses to be vaccinated by Dec. 8. The sprawling land grant university stopped short of requiring vaccinations for all students but continues to strongly recommend it and requires students working on federal projects to be vaccinated.
Temple University in Philadelphia, like Pitt and Penn State, is a state-related university that receives tens of millions of dollars in state subsidies as well as federal research grants. Officials there required all faculty, students and staff to be vaccinated as of Oct. 15 to comply with orders from the Philadelphia Board of Health.
According to Pitt, 93% of its students, faculty and staff already have provided proof of vaccination. Pitt officials said the new mandate will affect about 250 students, 740 faculty and 2,250 staff who have not disclosed vaccination status.
Late last summer, Pitt strongly recommended vaccination and asked members of the university community to forward proof of vaccination to the school. Those who were not vaccinated were subject to regular testing and other mitigation protocols. Pitt said the policy has worked to keep the virus at bay thus far, but that it was not considered a good long-term policy.
"The most effective, data-driven and sustainable approach to keeping our community healthy and safe is one that utilizes vaccination — or an approved exemption — as a condition of studying or working on our campuses. By enforcing this requirement now, we will be able to maintain a high immunization rate on our campuses, while continuing to support our students and research, as well as protect our workforce, with minimal disruption to our programs, activities or operations," a statement released with the new policy said.
"This policy will put the university in compliance with the executive order; however, its application is broader than that what the order requires," a university spokesman said in an email.
Deb Erdley is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Deb at 724-850-1209, derdley@triblive.com or via Twitter .
