A series of Q&A sessions, open to faculty, staff and student workers, are taking place this week, organized because of the new federal guidelines that mandate the University of Mississippi to have all of its employees vaccinated. The sessions took place on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2, and another virtual session is scheduled to take place Nov. 3.
On Nov. 2, the Q&A was led by a panel that answered a variety of questions, from what was in the vaccine to the process of applying for medical and religious exemptions. This panel included Dr. Hubert Spears from Employee Health Services, Wayne Gray from the Department of Biology, Andrea Jekobsons from Human Resources and Kimberly DeVries from the Office of Equal Opportunity.
Spears explained that potential side-effects of the COVID-19 vaccine are quite rare.
“There have been over 400 million doses of the vaccine that have been given out. And with the vaccine historically, you know the major side effects within the first six months,” Spears said. “The number of complications have been remarkably low.”
DeVries answered questions about religious and medical exemptions, the process of how applying works and whether there would be public knowledge that an employee was not vaccinated.
“The point of the submission and review process is to be individualized. And that’s true of your accommodation process,” DeVries said. “There will be no public declaration of exemption status… ERC (Equal Opportunity Regulatory Compliance) is keeping those (vaccination) records separate from employee files, separate from HR.”
DeVries hoped that this Q&A would help inform people about the exemption process and help give ERC feedback and what they could improve.
“The goal was that the Q&A would give people an opportunity to ask specific questions in a format that is somewhat less formal,” DeVries said. “And talk to people who are working in the process and give us feedback honestly, on improving the processes and questions that we can see are going to be common questions and helping us clarify expectations.”
It was not just DeVries that hoped the Q&A would be helpful.
Gray said he hoped “(participants) became a little more aware of the vaccine issues involved with safety and effectiveness and allow them to make a better decision about whether to get the vaccine or not.”
On Oct. 25 Chancellor Glen Boyce sent an email that announced that the Institutes for Higher Learning had voted to direct all universities to follow Joe Biden’s executive order. This required all employees of the university, including student employees, to be vaccinated. All employees had to be vaccinated by Dec. 8, however, an email Boyce sent out on Nov. 2 changed this date to Jan. 3.
