SUNY New Paltz joins White House COVID-19 College Vaccine Challenge

The College has joined a national effort to encourage students, faculty and staff to help end the COVID-19 pandemic by getting vaccinated.

New Paltz is one of hundreds of colleges and universities participating in the White House’s COVID-19 College Vaccine Challenge, a new push to raise vaccination levels, particularly among younger Americans.

Joining the challenge means committing to three key actions, which have been ongoing at SUNY New Paltz and will continue through summer and into fall:

1) Engage every student, faculty and staff member: Making sure every member of the campus community knows they are eligible for a vaccine and has the resources to find one.

2) Organize the college community: Implementing a plan to get as many members of your college community vaccinated as possible.

3) Deliver vaccine access for all: Meet the community where it is by offering vaccines on-site, and taking additional steps to make sure students, staff, and faculty can access vaccination sites near them this summer.

The College has been proactive in informing members of the community about vaccine eligibility and access since they first became available in late 2020.

More recently, the Student Health Service began offering the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine to all registered students. Please call the Student Health Service at 845-257-3400 or email them at healthservice@newpaltz.edu if you’d like to make an appointment to get vaccinated on campus.

Vaccines are also widely available through state or county distribution, including at walk-in sites. Visit New York’s Am-I-Eligible vaccination app or Ulster County’s Vaccination Resource page (or your local county equivalent) for more info.

We are also encouraging students, faculty and staff to upload their vaccination status to their COVID-19 profile at my.newpaltz.edu.

Members of our community who have been vaccinated AND submitted their vaccination info will be exempt from SUNY’s mandatory weekly COVID-19 testing policy and may be excused from aspects of our contact tracing and quarantine processes, since vaccinated people do not have to quarantine after exposure.

Learn more here about the White House’s COVID-19 College Vaccine Challenge.