URI faculty union reaches COVID-19 vaccination agreement

Updated at 1:58 p.m. on Sept. 2, 2021.

UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND faculty have entered into an agreement that will require all full-time faculty to get a final shot of a COVID-19 vaccine by Oct. 15. / AP FILE PHOTO/ UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MARYLAND

PROVIDENCE (AP) The faculty union at the University of Rhode Island has reached an agreement with the school requiring all full-time faculty to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

“Keeping the community safe and providing the best learning environment possible is our number one goal,” Miriam Reumann, president of the URI chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said in an email Wednesday to The Boston Globe. “This agreement will protect students, staff, and faculty thereby enhancing the teaching, research, and service that are so beneficial to the entire state of Rhode Island.”

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Classes at URI are scheduled to start next Wednesday.

Under the agreement, all faculty must receive their final dose of a vaccine by Oct. 15. Members of the bargaining unit who are licensed health care providers have to follow R.I. Department of Health rules, which are slightly different. The deadline to request a medical or religious exemption is Oct. 1.

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Unvaccinated faculty will be subjected to regular testing.

The state school is already requiring COVID-19 vaccines for students, with medical and religious exemptions offered.

URI employs 1,122 full-time faculty, according to research by Providence Business News. URI is the first state-run higher education institution in Rhode Island to announce a vaccine mandate for faculty. Five other private colleges in the Ocean State have required faculty to be vaccinated before the fall semester.

Jay Walsh, executive director of the URI American Association of University Professors, told PBN Thursday that the union was first discussing vaccination requirements for faculty in July before coming to the agreement Wednesday. He said the union, in cooperation with URI, wanted to make sure all logistics were in place so vaccinations and exemptions were properly tracked, a discussion that was the majority of the two-month negotiation.

“The concerns from the faculty is we wanted the safest working environment that we can have,” Walsh said. “But if there’s going to be a vaccine requirement, how do we know if the record-keeping is secure and the mechanisms for people reporting that they are vaccinated or exempt are secure.”

Additionally, Walsh said the Oct. 15 timeline was set so that more time was offered to faculty members who had not been fully vaccinated up to this point.

Walsh did not offer an estimate as to how many faculty members got vaccinations on their own because he said no one at URI had collected that information specific for faculty, unlike what the university does for students. But he believes an “overwhelming number” of faculty have already been vaccinated.

According to URI’s academic calendar, Oct. 15 is a week before the official first half of the fall semester. Walsh said that he is not concerned about any possible disruptions to academic offerings if faculty members fall ill before being fully vaccinated between Sept. 8 and Oct. 15. He fully expects everyone will have either a vaccination or exemption by mid-October but the department and faculty will find alternative methods if a situation arises to make sure education continues.

Walsh also said the union sent multiple emails to faculty encouraging them to get vaccinated, and even offered incentives to do so. One example, Walsh said, was faculty would be entered into a drawing to have their national and local union dues be refunded for the whole academic year if they were vaccinated by Sept. 8.

“In response to that, I received hundreds of emails from faculty indicating they were vaccinated,” Walsh said.

While he hopes everyone follows the policy to get vaccinated, Walsh said the university will have to decide what course of action to take if a faculty member doesn’t abide by the Oct. 15 vaccine and the Oct. 1 exemption deadlines.

Update: Adds paragraphs 7-15 with comment from Jay Walsh, executive director of the URI American Association of University Professors.

PBN staff writer James Bessette contributed to this report.

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