A Message to Graduate and Professional Students
February 14, 2022
We are enormously appreciative of your hard work, patience, and resilience in this challenging semester. We are especially grateful to GAPSA for its invaluable partnership – and to all of our graduate and professional students for sustaining a remarkable COVID-19 positivity rate below 2% for the past two weeks. While the overall campus positivity rates are not where we would like them to be, we are hopeful that these numbers will fall in the weeks ahead, as we continue to see COVID positivity rates decline across our region.
In the spirit of looking ahead, we are initiating a friendly competition for on-campus graduate and professional students. We have organized the twelve Schools into three groups, based on the size of the graduate and professional student population, as indicated at the bottom of this message. A School wins its group if it has the highest percentage of graduate and professional students completing the three goals below, as long as that percentage is over 90%:
- Students uploading their COVID booster shot information by February 28 (other than those with approved exemptions)
- Students uploading their flu vaccine information by February 28 (other than those with approved exemptions)
- Students completing their once-every-two-week surveillance tests by February 28
If none of the four Schools in the group reaches 90% participation, then that group has no winner. Each winning School wins a bonus for its graduate student government(s) of 25% of this academic year’s GAPSA general fee allocation, which can be used for any initiatives between now and the end of next academic year (2022-23).
We will offer an additional prize to the School, in any size category, with the largest increase in participation on these three goals, as measured between February 10, 2022 and February 28, 2022. This School will receive a $10,000 bonus for its graduate student government(s), which can be used for any initiatives between now and the end of next academic year (2022-23).
We look forward to the weeks and months ahead, and we will continue to keep you updated as events progress. Good luck on the challenge!
GROUP ONE
Perelman School of Medicine
School of Arts and Sciences
School of Engineering and Applied Science
Wharton School
GROUP TWO
Graduate School of Education
Penn Carey Law School
School of Dental Medicine
Weitzman School of Design
GROUP THREE
Annenberg School for Communication/School of Nursing
School of Social Policy and Practice
School of Veterinary Medicine
From
Beth A. Winkelstein, Interim Provost
Mamta Accapadi, Vice Provost for University Life
Benoit Dubé, Associate Provost and Chief Wellness Officer