PCC Board to Vote on Vaccine Mandate for Faculty, Staff and Students

The Pasadena City College Board of Trustees on Wednesday will vote on a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would bar unvaccinated students, staff and faculty from campus starting Sept. 30.

“Students who are not fully vaccinated by Sept. 30, 2021, will be dropped from all their face-to-face classes,” according to a Fall Semester 2021 Return to Campus Agreement. 

“Faculty, who are not exempt and who choose not to be vaccinated, shall be placed on unpaid leave for the duration of the semester in which they are unvaccinated, not to exceed two semesters with board approval,” the agreement states.

Students taking classes on campus would be required to have at least one vaccination shot by Aug. 30 with verification of the second vaccination shot by Sept. 13, allowing for any medical and religious exemptions required by state and federal law.

The MOU lists the vaccinations as a “condition of employment or enrollment.”

Faculty teaching on campus who have exemptions and teach on campus or are nonvaccinated must be tested on a weekly basis. 

The board is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. Thursday. 

When contacted by Pasadena Now, PCC President Erika A. Endrijonas said she would not discuss the issue until after the board voted on Thursday.

Board of Trustees President Berlinda Brown said she would discuss the issue after the vote, so she could speak on behalf of the board.

Similar mandates have been instituted by state colleges.

PCC moved to distance learning in March 2020. 

Vaccine mandates are being enacted in an effort to fight the coronavirus, which is now in its fourth wave of serious infections. 

Currently, the Delta variant is the most dominant strain in cases in the U.S.

The Delta strain is two times as contagious as Delta prime. 

Unvaccinated people are nearly four times more likely to contract the virus than vaccinated people.

On Monday, Huntington Hospital President Lori Morgan told the Pasadena City Council that there are currently 34 patients battling the virus at the hospital, including eight in intensive care.

“We have seen quite a dramatic increase in the number of patients that have been hospitalized,” Morgan said.

The hospital was down to less than five patients in intensive care last month.

“We were down to two or three,” Morgan said. “We are nowhere close to where we were in January. We are hoping not to go back there again.”

According to Morgan, all of the COVID-19 patients at Huntington were unvaccinated or partially vaccinated.

“Delta will not be the last variant that you are going to hear about,” Morgan said.

The meeting can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/9i5aUV98uh0