U. of I. to require staff be vaccinated this fall

The University of Illinois, which is mandating staff get vaccinated, previously required students get shots before the fall semester. | AP

The requirement for staff in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield comes after the state’s flagship school mandated students get shots last month.

The University of Illinois System will require employees be vaccinated for the upcoming semester, the school announced Wednesday.

In an email sent to staff, U. of I. System President Timothy Killeen laid out the mandate for the three campuses of the university in Chicago, Urbana-Champaign and Springfield.

“As part of our ongoing commitment to the safety of our campuses and the communities around them, the University of Illinois System will require that all faculty and staff be fully vaccinated for COVID-19 by the beginning of the fall semester of 2021,” he wrote.

However, Killeen’s statement said for the workers in unions, “guidance will be implemented at the universities through the applicable collective bargaining processes.”

The requirement “is consistent with our own scientific modeling of the risks associated with the spread of the virus and its variants, as well as the Illinois Department of Public Health’s guidance and goals.”

The statement noted that some will not be able to get shots. They will have to follow exemption protocols determined by the campuses or U. of I. hospital and clinics.

“That is why it is so important that those of us who can get vaccinated do so,” he wrote.

Last month, the school said it would require all 90,000 students be vaccinated. The school became the first public university in the state to require vaccinations after a handful of private institutions did the same.

Most prominent private Chicago universities — the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Loyola, Columbia College and DePaul — have already announced their students must get shots before returning in the fall.

Overall, U. of I.’s goal of returning to pre-pandemic life is simply not attainable without inoculations, the school said.

“We look forward to your help in setting a new standard this fall, a semester in which we will restore most in-person instruction and many of the other traditional rhythms of campus life,” Killeen wrote. “This will not be possible without widespread vaccinations.”

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