Purdue University: 75 Percent Of Students And Staff Fully Vaccinated

With one week left before the start of Purdue University’s fall semester, the school reported Tuesday that roughly 75 percent of students, faculty, and staff are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Universities across the state are taking stock of their vaccination numbers before classes begin.

While some Indiana universities have mandated the vaccine, Purdue chose instead to incentivize vaccination: entering students into a tuition lottery if they provided proof of vaccination, and subjecting anyone who doesn’t submit proof to regular COVID testing.

At Purdue, 86 percent of faculty have submitted proof of full vaccination. For students living in university residences, that number is at 84 percent.

In a statement, Eric Barker, head of the Protect Purdue Health Monitoring and Surveillance team, said that the goal was to get the full campus community between 80 and 90 percent vaccinated.

What about other Indiana schools?

A spokesperson for Indiana University, which has mandated the vaccine, said some 85 percent of students, faculty, and staff are “on their way” to fully vaccinated, meaning they have received at least one dose.

As of August 6th, 90 percent of students, faculty, and staff at the University of Notre Dame had provided proof of vaccination.

Ball State University hasn’t published its vaccination data on the school’s public dashboards.  In an email to campus this week, university officials say almost 70 percent of employees report being vaccinated.  As for students, university president Geoff Mearns said in an interview Friday that 60 percent of students planning to live in residence halls are vaccinated.  For other students, the number is lower.

Gemma DiCarlo and Stephanie Wiechmann contributed to this report.