Dear Ursinus Community,

Starting on Monday, September 21, Ursinus will move to new COVID-19 testing partners: the Broad Institute and CIC-Health, both affiliated with Harvard and MIT.

The Broad Institute (pronounced “Brode”) is a recognized global leader among genomics research organizations, having recently carved out a particular niche in providing COVID-19 tests to more than 100 colleges and universities. According to the Broad Institute, it is responsible for nearly 1 in every 20 tests conducted in the United States, with an average turnaround time of 24 hours. Its partner, CIC-Health, coordinates the logistics involved in quickly processing these tests. They interface directly with clients such as Ursinus and, generally speaking, manage such operational details as data management, medical oversight and compliance.

This change will have multiple benefits for the college and for our students. The institute’s test is an easy, self-administered nasal swab, very similar to the LabCorp Pixel home test that many of us have come to rely on. And like our current testing, Broad provides a PCR test with a high level of reliability. They are equally effective and will continue to give us an accurate snapshot of our campus’s health. As indicated above, the Broad Institute has committed to reserving processing time for each client, so we are assured of a quicker turnaround.

While the new test is self-administered, on-site supervision is still required to ensure the proper technique is used. The college will now oversee that supervision rather than our current on-site administrator, Impact Health. That change, coupled with the new PCR tests, will result in a significant reduction in costs for Ursinus. These additional resources will allow us to continue our rigorous weekly testing for every resident and commuter student—a critically important element of our COVID-19 monitoring strategy.

As the COVID testing landscape continues to rapidly change, we will continue to explore options that are effective, faster, easier and less expensive as we strive to keep the campus healthy. We look forward to begin our new partnership with CIC-Health and the Broad Institute, the latter of which offers a COVID-19 Diagnostic Processing Dashboard that is updated daily at https://covid19-testing.broadinstitute.org.

Thank you for your cooperation and support of one another at this time.

Sincerely,

President Blomberg