Amid Vaccine Mandate, Students Return To CSUSB Palm Desert Campus

PALM DESERT, CA — California State University San Bernadino is allowing both vaccinated and unvaccinated students to its Palm Desert campus for now but will require those without the COVID-19 jabs to be tested twice a week, a campus spokesperson said.

With just under 50 percent of the whole university’s 9,615 students declaring themselves vaccinated as of Monday, the satellite campus that reopened to in-class study for the first time since March 2020 will require the regular tests or certificates of exemption from getting a vaccine, spokesperson Mike Singer said. Students have until September 20 to show those certificates or get vaccinated to avoid the tests.

Some students are still learning remotely as well, an option at the Palm Desert campus of roughly 1,600 people, Singer said. Remote learning was also available pre-pandemic.

“Obviously, our students are aware,” he said. “Our students have been getting tons of communications about the vaccination mandates.”

The rules set by the university’s risk management office had not caused any visible disruptions to on-site classes as of Tuesday, the spokesperson said. But he said “things are still very fluid” given the sudden return after a nearly year-and-a-half break from in-person classes.

About 67 percent of the 2,509 California State University San Bernadino employees had declared themselves vaccinated as of Monday, the university website shows.

The school that's now CSUSB Palm Desert Campus opened in the 1980s after people in the Coachella Valley pooled resources to support the development of a local four-year university.

California State University announced in July for its 23 campuses statewide that faculty, staff and 486,000 students at campus facilities must be immunized against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Most campuses, the announcement said, will offer more virtual courses than before the pandemic.