Dear UNH Franklin Pierce Community,
The halls of our law school are a flurry of excitement as faculty and staff prepare to greet new and returning students next week for our upcoming orientation, immersion program, and beginning of classes for the fall semester. I am eager to welcome everyone back to our beautiful campus in Concord. We have missed you!
While this is a time for excitement, it is also a time to continue our strong commitment to caring for and protecting our community. With the recent surge in the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made great progress as a community in getting vaccinated against the virus—the most effective preventive measure we have—and I am so grateful for this effort. As we have seen, however, vaccination is not enough to fully prevent the spread of the virus.
As President Dean recently announced, we will be required to wear facemasks as we return to campus. COVID testing will continue, though at a reduced frequency for those who are vaccinated. We ask all those who have been vaccinated to upload your vaccination record at the confidential UNH Health & Wellness portal here—this helps us in determining risk factors at the school and is the only way to ensure your own reduced testing frequency. The site is easy to navigate and it should only take you a minute to complete.
We will continue to evaluate our approach as circumstances change, and we are committed to keeping you informed of developments. To that end, we will be continually monitoring and updating the law school’s COVID-19 website here. This website is unique to the law school and will contain information pertaining specifically to the law school. Please consider it your definitive COVID-19 source of information for the law school and Concord campus.
Additionally, we will be sending frequent communications about COVID under the banner below, the purpose of which is to keep you informed of the most recent developments related to COVID in an easy-to-identify format. When you see this banner, please know that what follows is the most recent information relating to COVID, the law school, and the Concord campus.
I understand that the need to continue these measures—of wearing facemasks and participating in testing—is not ideal. We all hoped we would be at a place where these precautions were no longer necessary. However, we recognize that we each hold a responsibility to ourselves and each other to stay safe. We are, after all, a community. The most important thing you can do to protect yourself and your colleagues is to get vaccinated.
As a united community, we continue to remain excited and optimistic about the semester to come. We look forward to our faculty and students engaging in thought-provoking discussions and enjoying a sense of togetherness that was not possible last year—a togetherness that can only be borne through overcoming challenges as a community.
Thank you for your continued support as we continue to do our part to stay safe.
With care,
Dean Megan Carpenter
P.S. Remember, if you have been vaccinated, please upload your vaccination record here today.
