From: Gross, Louis J Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2021 9:34 PM To: Chancellor Donde Plowman Cc: McAlpin, Mary K ; Lyons, Beauvais ; Gross, Louis J Subject: Re: Request for a full mask mandate at UT Chancellor Plowman, This is to support the request made by my colleagues. I suspect, but have not done a formal vote, that the Faculty Senate Executive Council would support this as well. I have received requests from many faculty members regarding this. I had requested that Beauvais Lyons consider bringing this up for discussion at the Advisory Board meeting tomorrow. if Pellissippi State can mandate masks in all indoor spaces, not just classrooms, it is no doubt confusing to the general public as well as the student population as to why there is not consistency across the two closest State-supported higher education institutions in the region. Is there some constraint being applied across the UT System that is not being applied in the TBR System? It certainly seems unlikely that Pellissippi State officers have any different data sets upon which they are basing decisions than UTK has. Plus, UTK is attracting students from all across the State which has even lower average vaccination rates than in the local East Tennessee population that make up the Pellissippi population. http://www.pstcc.edu/coronavirus/ Stay well, Lou -- Louis J. Gross (he, him, his) Chancellor’s Professor and Alvin and Sally Beaman Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Mathematics Director Emeritus, National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS.org) Director, The Institute for Environmental Modeling University of Tennessee - Knoxville President, 2006-2007, 2021-2022, UTK Faculty Senate Past-President, 2003-2005, Society for Mathematical Biology http://lgross.utk.edu/