All Syracuse University faculty, staff and students will be required to receive a COVID-19 vaccine before accessing campus beginning June 1, Chancellor Kent Syverud wrote in a letter released Thursday.

The mandate will ensure that all those accessing campus facilities for the summer months will have been vaccinated and will also apply to all those who will be returning for the fall semester. The move is similar to those recently made by other private universities in Central New York, including Cornell and Ithaca College. 

Those students with medical or religious exemptions will be accomodated, according to the chancellor. 

The chancellor urged the SU community to consider being vaccinated, if they have not been already, offering an option to pre-register for an appointment to do so as the university begins vaccinating its population at the Barnes Center on campus. 

"This is a very good day on our campus," read the chancellor's letter. "The first supply of the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine has arrived at Syracuse University. Today, hundreds of students will be vaccinated at the Barnes Center as we begin a campaign to vaccinate our students, faculty and staff. In the coming days and weeks, we expect to receive enough doses to vaccinate our university community."

For students who have already been vaccinated, they are asked to input that information with the university's Student Patient Portal. Faculty and staff will soon receive COVID-19 vaccine status questionnaires.