This article was originally published at https://www.marylandmatters.org on September 10, 2021. Written by Elizabeth Shwe.
Vaccines on campus
More than 90% of students, faculty and staff at most of Maryland’s colleges have complied with COVID-19 vaccine mandates this fall semester, but the state’s historically black colleges and universities are lagging behind.
The majority of the University of Maryland System’s 12 institutions have vaccination rates of 94% to 98%, Joann Boughman, senior vice chancellor for academic and student affairs for USM, told lawmakers at a briefing on higher education Thursday afternoon.
The University of Maryland College Park has a vaccination compliance rate of 97.7%. By contrast, historically black colleges and universities within the university system — Bowie State University, Coppin State University and University of Maryland Eastern Shore — have vaccination rates between the "very high 60s" and 86%, Boughman said.
“But this isn’t unexpected for us,” Boughman said. “We know there is not only vaccine hesitancy in some of our populations and communities, but real challenges in terms of access for some people over the summer.” The three HBCUs are working hard on promoting vaccination and have on-campus vaccination clinics, she continued.
One lawmaker at Thursday’s hearing took issue with the fact that implementation was left to each campus, even though USM mandated COVID-19 vaccination across all of its institutions for the fall semester.
For instance, students at Bowie State University have until Sept. 30 to get fully vaccinated while Towson University students have to provide proof of their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by Sept. 10 and University of Maryland College Park’s deadline was Aug. 16.
Read more about the vaccine policies — and concerns from campus workers — at MarylandMatters.org.
