MUS Healthy Fall 2020 Task Force releases COVID-19 prevention guidelines

Press release

The Montana University System released a comprehensive set of guidelines Monday to support campuses as they plan for a safe return to campus life this fall.

The handbook was developed by the MUS Healthy Fall 2020 Task Force, which has worked over the past six weeks to develop the guidelines in partnership with officials from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.

The handbook is the result of extensive research as well as feedback from campus experts and a broader population of employees, students and administrators across the MUS, wrote Commissioner Clayton Christian and DPHHS Medical Officer Dr. Greg Holzman wrote in a foreward to the guidelines.

“While it is important to acknowledge that public health risk factors cannot be entirely eliminated, even in the best of times, we are confident that this handbook provides campuses with the clear planning protocols they need to safely and enthusiastically welcome students back for the kind of academic and extra-curricular experience that has distinguished our campuses for decades and — in some cases — more than a century,” Christian and Holzman wrote.

Christian established the 12-member MUS Healthy Fall 2020 Task Force April 21. The resulting handbook provides a framework for campuses to plan across a broad range of operational areas, from classroom management, to training for residence hall advisors, to quarantine and isolation protocols.

While individual campuses are well into their fall preparations, the handbook provides the system-wide framework of recommendations and protocols they need to enter the next phase of planning. MUS colleges and universities will continue developing their specific healthy fall 2020 plans in coordination with their campus communities and will share details as they become available.

A release said that “The Montana University System thanks the Task Force members, public health officials and many others who participated in the development of the MUS Healthy Fall 2020 guidelines.”

The handbook is available online at https://mus.edu/coronavirus/healthy-fall-2020-planning.html .