The University of St. Thomas will require those participating in university-sponsored travel to be vaccinated against COVID-19 beginning Monday, Aug. 2, a University Action and Response Team email said Tuesday.

This mandate will apply to all participants in St. Thomas-sponsored travel, any overnight trip or trips involving air travel and “business-related trips where work is conducted for the benefit of St. Thomas or using St. Thomas resources,” according to the email.

“This decision is aligned with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for domestic travel during COVID-19 that advise unvaccinated people to delay travel until they are fully vaccinated,” UART said.

St. Thomas has not required vaccines for all students and employees as of now.

The university is working on collecting a head count of members of campus that are and are not vaccinated against COVID-19, and it hopes to complete that count by Aug. 1, the UART email said.

“We will use this data to make informed decisions about safety measures on campus this fall,” the email said. “The higher the vaccination rate, the less restrictive the measures. Our job is to keep the university safe.”

The university plans to host on-campus vaccination clinics this fall to help accommodate the policy change, the email said.

Justin Amaker can be reached at justin.amaker@stthomas.edu.