Returning to Work

Email sent: 8.23.20

Dear Cardinal Family,

We need your help to keep our campus safe from COVID outbreaks.

We want to thank more than 4,000 students, faculty, and staff who followed the university’s strong encouragement to get tested over the last two weeks. Due to that participation, we were able to launch a testing dashboard on the UofL COVID-19 website to share the overall testing results with our university community. That dashboard will be updated every Tuesday.

We are pivoting from at-will to mandatory testing because we need more comprehensive data to ensure we are controlling any spread on campus, allowing us to continue to offer classes as designed for the duration of fall semester. So effective Monday, Aug. 24, the university will require free COVID testing for on-campus students, faculty, and staff.

Specifically, testing is required for:

  • Faculty who have a presence on campus – even if you are teaching classes remotely, but come to campus on occasion 
  • Staff who are working on campus or those who are working remotely but still come to campus
  • Students who reside in campus housing or campus-affiliated housing or who attend in person-classes on campus

Individuals – including those who received negative tests in the past two weeks — should be tested or re-tested by Friday, Sept. 4. If you have tested positive for COVID-19, you are exempt from this requirement and should not be tested again.

Faculty, staff, and students working or taking classes entirely remotely do not need to be tested, although the university recommends you take advantage of this free service. 

UofL has extended its contract with Bluewater Testing Services to offer the testing Monday through Friday at the following sites:

  • Student Activities Center – 8 a.m. to noon, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
  • Cardinal Stadium Purple “A” lot (drive-through) – 8 a.m. to noon, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. (Closed Sept. 3 and 4)
  • Student Recreation Center – 8 a.m. to noon, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
  • Abell Administration Building – 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., noon to 4 p.m.

Although walk-ins are welcome, we encourage you to register here for testing. Please bring your UofL ID and insurance card to the testing site. If you do not have an insurance card, you may still be tested if you provide your social security number.

For additional answers about mandatory testing, read the new Testing FAQs recently added to the COVID-19 website.

Remember, there are some easy steps you can take to help protect yourself and others from  COVID. Wear Masks. Practice good hygiene. Maintain physical distancing. Avoid social gatherings of more than 10 people. 

And finally, don’t forget that you also need to use the Cardinal Self-Check every day before coming to campus.

We greatly appreciate the hard work and dedication from the members of our campus community that have allowed us to reopen offices and return to in-person instruction. We thank you in advance for responding quickly to being tested and for your demonstration of our Cardinal Principle of being a Community of Care. 

On Behalf of the Pivot to Fall Committee,

Beth A. Boehm
Executive Vice President and University Provost

Kevin Gardner
Executive Vice President for Research and Innovation

Michael Mardis
Dean of Students

Mark Watkins
Chief Operating Officer

Phillip Bressoud
Executive Director, Campus Health Services