August 2, 2021 - Triton colleagues return to campus
Dear Colleagues,
I’ve waited with great anticipation to send this message - the message that welcomes our staff and faculty back to campus in full force. Your being here in person allows us to best engage with our students, fellow co-workers and community partners and it is essential to creating a vibrant, collaborative and student-centered campus environment of which we can all be proud.
I continue to admire the many ways our campus community stepped up throughout the pandemic to keep us focused on the task at hand: transforming lives through education, research, creative works, economic development and community engagement. Although this past year and a half met us with uncertainty and challenges, please know how proud I am that we got to this day together as a Triton community.
The start of the fall semester is always an inspiring time in our academic year. It is a time that signals both opportunity and renewal as we welcome new and returning students to our university. The fact that our return to campus aligns with the fall semester makes this time doubly exciting. I look forward to seeing our campus return to life as we work together to ensure that UMSL remains the region’s premiere public research university and we continue to be a university of opportunity for those in our own region and beyond.
While COVID-19 cases on our campus remain low, the Delta variant continues to spread quickly throughout our state and region. If you’ve not yet done so, I encourage you to become vaccinated to protect yourself as well as your family, friends and colleagues here at UMSL. As you know, last week we introduced a temporary face covering requirement on our campus to help slow the spread of the Delta variant. Like our sister campuses, we plan to review this policy on or before September 15 with the hope that we may lesson restrictions based on infection and hospitalization rates in the region. We continue to utilize public health guidance to inform our policies and I know that we will all do our part to follow our campus safety protocols to protect the health of our community while ensuring a safe start to the fall semester.
I couldn’t be prouder of the work, dedication and passion you bring to the University of Missouri–St. Louis and I see and value the many ways that together we collectively define the UMSL experience and set the tone for our future. I wish you well as we gear up for the start of classes on August 23 and welcome our Triton students back to campus.
Gratefully forward,
Kristin Sobolik
Chancellor
University of Missouri–St. Louis
