Update on communication protocols

As we continue to adapt to new demands and challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and our community’s shift to remote teaching and learning, the Office of Communication & Marketing is adjusting our new approach to keeping students, faculty and staff informed.

New process for reporting confirmed cases of COVID-19 in our campus community

Beginning Monday, April 13, SUNY New Paltz will discontinue the daily, afternoon updates about confirmed cases of COVID-19 among students, faculty and staff, and will instead publish this information Monday – Friday in the morning, as part of the Daily Digest newsletter.

We will continue to use the NPAlert text messaging system to notify campus community members who may have been exposed on campus to individuals with confirmed or physician-diagnosed positive cases of COVID-19, and provide Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Ulster County Department of Health and Mental Health guidance on next steps regarding quarantine and self-isolation.

As a majority of students, faculty and staff have been away from campus for more than 14 days, we are already seeing a reduced need to send out such notifications for new cases, per CDC guidance about transmission and symptom onset.

Continuing the publication of the Daily Digest to reduce email volume

The Office of Communication & Marketing launched the new Daily Digest newsletter on Monday, March 30, as a tool for consolidating non-urgent campus communications into a single daily email.

The Daily Digest has been well-received by members of our campus community, and its publication will continue until further notice.

We continue to ask campus units with the ability to send messages to the all-fs and all-stu lists, to instead send non-urgent messages to the inbox at communication@newpaltz.edu for inclusion in the following day’s Digest. We make this request as part of our ongoing effort to limit volume in campus email inboxes, and assist students, faculty and staff in working efficiently from off-campus.

Units retain their ability to send messages via the all-fs and all-stu lists for urgent news, such as IT outages, power outages, cybersecurity issues and other emergency information that needs to be shared in real time. Faculty and staff also retain their ability to send to the facstaf-l list, consistent with proper usage guidelines from Information Technology Services. Please be judicious in your use of these official listservs, and contact communication@newpaltz.edu with any questions.

As we work to deliver critical information to campus community members, we recommend that all students, faculty and staff check their email settings to confirm that messages are not blocked or automatically filed to other folders that may go unread or directed to junk folders. Email continues to be the College’s official mode of communication with faculty, staff and students.

We also invite you to stay up to date by signing up for the NPAlert text notification system, if you have not done so already. Instructions can be found at https://www.newpaltz.edu/npalert/.