Vaccinations
Dear Rowan University,
This is a request for public records made under OPRA and the common law right of access. I am not required to fill out an official form. Please acknowledge receipt of this message.
Records requested:
1. Percentage of Rowan employees that are vaccinated.
2. Percentage of Rowan students that are vaccinated.
Please include the most up to date percentages as possible and note the date of the data when replying.
Yours faithfully,
Rowan Faculty 4 Transparency
Good afternoon,
Rowan University has received your request and respectfully ask for an additional 10 business days to review.
I will follow up with you by August 24, 2021.
Thank you,
Gina
Gina O’Neil
Office of Contracting & Procurement
Rowan University | 201 Mullica Hill Rd., Laurel Hall office #210 | Glassboro, NJ 08028-1701
T: 856-256-5172 | F: 856-256-5623 | http://rowan.edu/purchasing
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email communication may contain private, confidential, or legally privileged information intended for the sole use of the designated and/or duly authorized recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient or have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately by email and permanently delete all copies of this email including all attachments without reading them. If you are the intended recipient, secure the contents in a manner that conforms to all applicable state and/or federal requirements related to privacy and confidentiality of such information.
Good morning,
The most current vaccination numbers can be found in the attached announcement that was released last night. Thank you. If you have any further questions and/or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to me at your convenience.
Regards,
Elyse
Elyse G. Crawford, Esquire
Assistant General Counsel
Rowan University
201 Mullica Hill Road
Glassboro, NJ 08028
Office: (856)256-5113
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail communication and any attachments may contain confidential and privileged information intended for the designated recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this communication in error and that any review, disclosure, dissemination, distribution or copying of it or its contents is prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify me immediately by replying to this message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you.
Dear Crawford, Elyse G,
Your announcement only responded to ONLY one item on our request?
Do Rowan lawyers actual bother to read these requests?
The request stated:
1. Percentage of Rowan employees that are vaccinated. (NOT responded too)
2. Percentage of Rowan students that are vaccinated. (responded too)
Yours sincerely,
Rowan Faculty 4 Transparency
Rowan Faculty 4 Transparency,
We have a ten day extension to provide you the information. In an effort
to get you the information you requested as quickly as possible, I
provided a partial response. I thought this would be more helpful than
making you wait the full 10 days while we gather the information on
employees. Once information on employees is gathered, I will provide same
to you. I assumed (incorrectly) this would be evident. My apologies.
Please feel free to reach out with any further questions you may have or
issues you for which you may need clarity. I am always happy to help!
Regards,
Elyse
Elyse G. Crawford, Esquire
Assistant General Counsel
Rowan University
201 Mullica Hill Road
Glassboro, NJ 08028
Office: (856)256-5113
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail communication and any attachments may
contain confidential and privileged information intended for the
designated recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this
communication in error and that any review, disclosure, dissemination,
distribution or copying of it or its contents is prohibited. If you have
received this communication in error, please notify me immediately by
replying to this message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you.
Rowan Faculty 4 Transparency,
Please accept this email in response to your ORPA request #1.
Request:
1. Percentage of Rowan employees that are vaccinated.
Response:
1. Rowan University cannot determine the percentage of vaccinated
employees because Rowan employees are not required and/or mandated to
report their vaccination status to the University.
As always, please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions you
have moving forward. If you would be kind enough to confirm your receipt
of this response, I would appreciate it. Thank you!
Regards,
Elyse
Elyse G. Crawford, Esquire
Assistant General Counsel
Rowan University
201 Mullica Hill Road
Glassboro, NJ 08028
Office: (856)256-5113
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail communication and any attachments may
contain confidential and privileged information intended for the
designated recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this
communication in error and that any review, disclosure, dissemination,
distribution or copying of it or its contents is prohibited. If you have
received this communication in error, please notify me immediately by
replying to this message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you.
Dear Crawford, Elyse G,
Such a laughable reply.
You clearly have the data of the employees that have submitted their data. And you also have the number that have not submitted the data. Moreover, there are public documents/emails by Mrs. Drye stating the number of employees that have been vaccinated. Do we need to OPRA every single email from Mrs. Drye?
You can report the data in the exact same way you reported the student vaccination rate where you have the exact same issue (not all students submitted their paperwork).
It is really amazing that the lawyers at Rowan University will do everything possible to NOT inform the public about all data that they have during a worldwide pandemic. Shameful.
Yours sincerely,
Rowan Faculty 4 Transparency
Dear Rowan Faculty 4 Transparency,
I understand your confusion. However, you asked a specific question:
"What is the percentage of vaccinated employees?". OPRA requires Rowan by
law to answer specifically. It is impossible to tell you the percentage
(or even number) of vaccinated employees because only those employees who
have signed up for the incentive program have reported their status. Your
suggestion that Rowan is able to assess employee vaccination status in the
same way for employees as it does for students is not accurate in that it
fails to consider the difference between a group that has no mandatory
reporting requirement (employees) and a group that is required to report
their status (students). I am happy to explain this distinction further
if confusion still exists.
Further, compliance with OPRA under the law requires that I answer the
question you asked. Had I responded to a question I assumed you meant to
ask, but did not, the law would deem it unresponsive to your request.
Your below email suggests you have a different question than the one
originally submitted: "What is the number of employees who have reported
their vaccination status?". In an effort to assist you, be advised that
2246 employees have submitted their vaccination status. This information
is not responsive to your original OPRA request in that it does not allow
you to extrapolate in the way you would for students who are reporting
both vaccination and non vaccination because many Rowan employees have not
reported their status at all. For example, it would be incorrect to
extrapolate that because 100% of reporting employees are vaccinated, all
employees are vaccinated; or because a Rowan employee has not voluntarily
submitted vaccination status, she is not vaccinated.
It is unfortunate that my attempt to be responsive to your question was
interpreted as "The lawyers at Rowan University will do everything
possible to NOT inform the public about all data that they have during a
worldwide pandemic. Shameful." Moving forward, I encourage you to reach
out to discuss the specific information you seek, and I can assist you in
crafting a request that would be better tailored to such information.
Rowan's OPRA team often does this for requestors who have difficulty
articulating the information they are seeking. You can reach out via
email; or telephone without identifying yourself if you prefer to remain
anonymous, which is your right under the law.
Regards,
Elyse
Elyse G. Crawford, Esquire
Assistant General Counsel
Rowan University
201 Mullica Hill Road
Glassboro, NJ 08028
Office: (856)256-5113
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail communication and any attachments may
contain confidential and privileged information intended for the
designated recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended
recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this
communication in error and that any review, disclosure, dissemination,
distribution or copying of it or its contents is prohibited. If you have
received this communication in error, please notify me immediately by
replying to this message and deleting it from your computer. Thank you.
Dear Crawford, Elyse G,
Just more lawyer nonsense. Rowan University has publicly now released percentages or employees that have been vaccinated and has done so disaggregated by Unions. The fact that you pay games and won't release it here is just plain nonsense.
It is the lawyers that made Rowan University one of few Universities with a personal exemption to the vaccine that will cause great pain/fear to all employees and will further cause the virus to spread on campus and to the love ones of the employees. Of course the lawyers will continue to have no worries as they work in their offices or at their homes via Zoom while the campus community has to deal with the consequences of their actions. We have no idea how you sleep at night. Absolutely disgraceful that you worry more about lawsuits than the health/safety of the University.
Yours sincerely,
Rowan Faculty 4 Transparency