May 21 video from President Armacost

(transcript follows):

Hi. This is Andy Armacost, UND’s president.  Thanks for tuning in again this week.

I have three quick things to talk about. The first is what vaccinations mean to our campus, and the changes that we’ve made in terms of our mask requirements. Masks are no longer required on our campus this summer or this fall. The reason is because of vaccinations.

Let me encourage each and every one of you to vaccinate. And if you choose not to, please, I strongly encourage you to continue wearing your masks, to wash your hands frequently, and to keep your distance from others.

But again, the No. 1 way we can keep the pandemic in check and knock it out, is to get vaccinated.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is the joy that I have in our ability to now come together as a campus and to really open up widely for the fall semester.

We do our best work together. The creativity and the innovation that happens when we’re all working together is truly remarkable. It allows us to execute our educational mission that much better because together, on campus, I think we operate in a much better way.

There are times where remote work will be allowed, and supervisors have that discretion. But let me encourage everyone to really take advantage of our ability to see each other face to face, to really execute our mission in the most effective way possible.

The third area I wanted to talk about is an area of gratitude. Let me offer my thanks to Provost Debbie Storrs for her service to UND over many years, first as the dean of Arts & Sciences, then as the senior vice provost, and finally in the last year, serving as our provost.

Debbie was just selected by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro to serve as their provost. This is a tremendous opportunity for Debbie to bring her leadership, her warmth, her friendliness and her academic vision to their campus and to do great things for their students, faculty and staff.

So to Debbie, we salute you, and we thank you for all of your tremendous service here at UND.

And to all of you, thanks again for tuning in. We’ll see you in another couple weeks! Have a great day.