From President Laura Casamento

Our Path Back to Normalcy

It’s hard to believe more than a year has passed since the COVID-19 pandemic upended our daily lives and created challenges, big and small, for every single member of the Utica College community.

This has been a truly difficult year for UC and all of the communities we call home, but with the change of seasons has come a renewed sense of optimism and growing confidence that our lives might return to normal in the not-so-distant future.

As we enjoy the spring, it is clear that we have a lot to be thankful for. We can celebrate the fact that our campus COVID-19 positivity rate has remained extremely low—well below the national average—thanks to the vigilance and perseverance of the entire campus community. This is a notable achievement, given rises in cases on other campuses during the spring semester. It is a testament to the effectiveness of our response plan and the commitment of our students, faculty, staff, and students to making it work.

There is real reason for optimism as we look ahead to the summer and beyond.

While we know this crisis is not yet behind us and significant challenges remain, the increasing availability of vaccines and effective treatment protocols offer great promise. Whereas the experience of the last year has taught us to be cautious in our expectations, there is real reason for optimism as we look ahead to the summer and beyond.

This past March, almost exactly one year since Utica College moved to entirely remote operations in March 2020, I was thrilled to announce that planning is underway for a return to full in-person academic and administrative operations in time for the Fall 2021 semester. Of course, what this will look like when August arrives depends largely on the status of the pandemic and COVID response measures on the federal, state, and local levels. That said, based on current knowledge, we are confident that a return to full on-campus operations can safely take place in August.

I have said this before, but it’s worth repeating—what we have accomplished together is nothing short of remarkable, and we should take pride in the fact that, thanks in no small measure to the work we’ve done, we have entered the home stretch of this crisis. For the first time in nearly a year, hope is on the horizon.

Sincerely,

Laura Casamento, President